Most of us think of education as the great leveller; but are our education systems really doing all they can to ensure that boys and girls from all backgrounds have an equal shot at a high-quality education? As this month’s PISA in Focus reports, some countries have been more successful than others in levelling the playing field for their students.

Education is one OECD department that has embraced the information revolution.

In many OECD countries, ECEC services have increased in response to a growing demand for better learning outcomes as well as growing female labour force participation. In recent years, however, the goals of ECEC policy have become more child-centred.

How can we measure what makes a school system work? Andreas Schleicher walks us through the PISA test, a global measurement that ranks countries against one another -- then uses that same data to help schools improve. Watch to find out where your country stacks up, and learn the single factor that makes some systems outperform others.

The Secretary-General, Mr. Angel Gurría, will visit The Netherlands on 13th and 14th of March 2013, to attend the 2013 International Summit on the Teaching Profession. He will also go to The Hague and hold a bilateral meeting with Mr. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Finance Minister.

The higher the level of education, the higher the salary cost of teachers per student. In Belgium (Flemish Community), France and Spain, the difference in the annual salary cost between the primary and upper secondary levels of education exceeds USD 1 800 in 2010.

Education systems around the world are increasingly measuring the performance of teachers and schools as part of their drive to help students do better and improve results. Rising demand for higher education standards and a trend towards greater school autonomy in some countries are among the factors behind this new focus according to the OECD

In most countries and economies, students who attend schools in urban areas tend to perform at higher levels than other students. Socio-economic status explains only part of the performance difference between students who attend urban schools and other students.

Flanders builds a "triangle of quality" based on extensive autonomy for schools, supported by pedagogical advisory services and monitored by government inspectors.

In a drive to raise the quality of classroom teaching and boost student performance, Dutch education authorities are encouraging teachers to learn from each other through a process of peer review.

How do apprenticeships and other forms of workplace learning help people to make a successful transition from school to work? Global economic competition requires a labour force with a range of mid-level trade, technical and professional skills alongside the high-level skills typically associated with university education.

If there’s one lesson we’ve learned over the past few years, it’s that we cannot simply bail ourselves out of a crisis, we cannot solely stimulate ourselves out of a crisis and we cannot just print money our way out of a crisis. But we can become much better in equipping more people with better skills to collaborate, compete and connect in ways that drive our economies forward.

How do you re-build an education system destroyed by a disaster? The OECD's Andreas Schleicher describes the efforts in Japan, two years after the nuclear accident in Fukushima.

In most OECD countries, newly arrived 15-year-old immigrant students show poorer reading performance than immigrant students who arrived in their new country when they were younger than five.

The jobs gap between well-educated young people and those who left school early has continued to widen during the crisis. A good education is the best insurance against a lack of work experience, according to the latest edition of the OECD’s annual Education at a Glance.

There are few OECD countries where vocational education and training (VET) is held in such high regard or takes so many forms as in Austria. Some 60 percent of young Austrians aged between 25 and 34 have completed a VET course below tertiary level (vocational school or technical college).

David Hoey, Chief Executive Officer of WorldSkills International spoke to us of the international skills extravaganza (WorldSkills Leipzig 2013) going on now, between 2-7 July.

OECD countries must ensure mobile markets remain open and competitive in order to sustain innovation and meet rising demand for data services, according to a new OECD report.

Students who know how to summarise information tend to perform better in reading. If disadvantaged students used effective learning strategies to the same extent as students from more advantaged backgrounds do, the performance gap between the two groups would be almost 20% narrower.

Big data is the foundation on which education can reinvent its business model and build the coalition of governments, businesses, and social entrepreneurs that can bring together the evidence, innovation and resources to make lifelong learning a reality for all.

The rapidly growing demand for highly skilled workers has led to a global competition for talent. High-level skills are critical for creating new knowledge and technologies and for sparking innovation; as such, they are key to economic growth and social development.

In a global economy, the benchmark for educational success is no longer improvement by national standards alone, but the best performing school systems internationally.

This Education Indicators in Focus No. 15 sets out the changing needs of a more diverse generation of university students.

This is the fourth episode of Global Education Leaders, an initiative launched by Turkish educators. The discussion revolved around global education issues and OECD's focus on skills.

The informal meeting of OECD Education Ministers will be held in Istanbul, Turkey on 2-3 October 2013. The theme of the meeting is “Fostering Skills and Employability through Education”.

OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría today welcomed Brazil’s further engagement with the Organisation’s world-leading global education assessment programme (PISA) during a signing ceremony in Brasilia with Brazil’s Minister for Education Aloízio Mercadante.

This book provides, from an international perspective, an independent analysis of major issues facing teacher evaluation, current policy initiatives, and possible future approaches in Chile.

An OECD study published today says the United States should take concerted action to address the adult skills challenge, warning it could progressively fall behind other countries. The study argues that low-skilled populations face a bleak future, creating challenges both to equity and social cohesion.

Note summarising the performance of Belgium in PISA 2012

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a triennial international survey which aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students. To date, students representing more than 70 economies have participated in the assessment.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a triennial international survey which aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students. To date, students representing more than 70 economies have participated in the assessment.

Note summarising the performance of 15-year-old students in the United States in the PISA 2012 assessment of mathematics, reading and science

Note summarising the performance of the United Kingdom in the PISA 2012 assessment of mathematics, reading and science.

Note summarising Spain's performance in the PISA 2012 assessment of mathematics, reading and science.

Note summarising the performance of Italy in the PISA 2012 assessment of mathematics, reading and science.

Note summarising the performance of 15-year-old students in Austria in the PISA 2012 assessment of mathematics, reading and science.

Note summarising the performance of Norway in the PISA 2012 assessment of mathematics, reading and science.

Much of the media coverage around PISA focused on the strong performance of Asia’s students, leaving many to wonder why other countries failed to score as high.

Across OECD countries, 18% of students skipped classes at least once in the two weeks prior to the PISA test, and 15% of students skipped a day of school or more over the same period.

The story of Korean education over the past 50 years is one of remarkable growth and achievement. Korea is one of the top performing countries in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey and among those with the highest proportion of young people who have completed upper secondary and tertiary education.

Note summarising England's results in the PISA 2012 problem solving assessment.

Note summarising Spain's results in the PISA 2012 problem solving assessment.

Note summarising the performance of 15-year-old students in Singapore in the PISA 2012 assessment of problem solving.

Note summarising the performance of 15-year-olds in Japan in the PISA 2012 assessment of problem solving.

Note summarising the performance of German 15-year-old students in the PISA 2012 assessment of problem solving.

Students from Singapore and Korea have performed best in the first OECD PISA assessment of creative problem-solving. Students in these countries are quick learners, highly inquisitive and able to solve unstructured problems in unfamiliar contexts.

This conference on 9 April 2014 will provide an opportunity for a mutual sharing of good practice in fostering the better insertion of youth into the labour market through the development of quality apprenticeships. It would also seek to foster a greater commitment by countries to take action to introduce or strengthen apprenticeship initiatives and to take stock of the progress achieved.

Higher level vocational education and training (VET) programmes are facing rapid change and intensifying challenges. What type of training is needed to meet the needs of changing economies? How can employers and unions be engaged? The country reports in this series look at these and other questions. They form part of Skills beyond School, the OECD policy review of postsecondary vocational education and training.

The OECD and the EC are inviting individual teachers and schools to submit case studies about their strategies, practices and achievements in promoting entrepreneurship in schools and VET. Participation in the Call requires a submission of an abstract of 1-2 pages by email to Joseph.Tixier@oecd.org indicating in the subject line "Entrepreneurship360- Call for case studies". Deadline for submission is 30 April 2014.

This review report for the Netherlands provides, from an international perspective, an independent analysis of major issues facing the Dutch evaluation and assessment framework in education, current policy initiatives and possible future approaches. This series forms part of the OECD Review on Evaluation and Assessment Frameworks for Improving School Outcomes.