Most teachers enjoy their job, despite feeling unsupported and unrecognised in schools and undervalued by society at large, according to a new OECD survey.

This publication offers insights and advice to teachers and school leaders on how they can improve teaching and learning in their schools. It is both a guide through TALIS and a handbook for building excellence into teaching.

PISA 2012 financial literacy results focusing on the performance of Australia amongst 17 other countries and economies who participated in the assessment: Belgium (Flemish Community), Shanghai-China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Israel, Italy, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain and the United States.

PISA 2012 financial literacy results focusing on the performance of Australia amongst 17 other countries and economies who participated in the assessment: Australia, Belgium (Flemish Community), Shanghai-China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Israel, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain and the United States

PISA 2012 financial literacy results focusing on the performance of Italy amongst 17 other countries and economies who participated in the assessment: Australia, Belgium (Flemish Community), Shanghai-China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Israel, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain and the United States

PISA 2012 financial literacy results focusing on the performance of Spain amongst 17 other countries and economies who participated in the assessment: Australia, Belgium (Flemish Community), Shanghai-China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Israel, Italy, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and the United States

Résultats pour la France de PISA 2012 sur la culture financière en comparaison avec 17 autres pays et économies qui ont participé à l'évaluation: l'Australie, la Belgique (Communauté flamande), Shanghai-Chine, Colombie, Croatie, République tchèque, Estonie, Israël, Italie, Lettonie, nouvelle-Zélande, Pologne, Russie, République slovaque, la Slovénie, l'Espagne et les États-Unis

PISA 2012 financial literacy results focusing on the performance of France amongst 17 other countries and economies who participated in the assessment: Australia, Belgium (Flemish Community), Shanghai-China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Israel, Italy, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain and the United States

PISA 2012 financial literacy results focusing on the performance of the United States among 17 other countries and economies who participated in the assessment: Australia, Belgium (Flemish Community), Shanghai-China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Israel, Italy, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Spain

PISA 2012 financial literacy results focusing on the performance of Spain amongst 17 other countries and economies who participated in the assessment: Australia, Belgium (Flemish Community), Shanghai-China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Israel, Italy, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and the United States

PISA 2012 financial literacy results focusing on the performance of Spain amongst 17 other countries and economies who participated in the assessment: Australia, Belgium (Flemish Community), Shanghai-China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Israel, Italy, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and the United States

Through the Tohoku School Project, the students have developed their capacities for innovation, leadership, and co-operation. They learned how to get the information they need when there isn’t a readymade answer in their textbook or a teacher to guide them. In other words, they learned how to learn – perhaps the most valuable lesson of all! said OECD Secretary-General.

ICT has influenced almost all aspects of our lives and has changed the way we communicate, work and socialize. Education plays a key role in ensuring that everyone can reap the benefits of our technology-rich world, as well as help mitigate some of the risks.

Quick: Who has more up-to-date textbooks: students in wealthier schools or students in poorer schools? Actually, it depends where you live. As this month’s PISA in Focus explains, not only are some countries better than others in allocating their educational resources more equitably across schools, but students in these countries generally perform better in mathematics.

How educational resources are allocated is just as important as the amount of resources available.

Korea has made significant progress towards decentralising the management of employment and training programmes, but can still do more to create stronger links with employers at the local level, according to a new OECD report.

Many countries have implemented reforms to develop and support doctoral studies and postdoctoral research, stressing the crucial role of doctorate students and degree holders in terms of economic growth, innovation and scientific research.

OECD Education Today - Addressing inequities in the Slovak Republic through evaluation and assessment

How big should schools be? Is bigger better? Or do all the best things come in small packages? For education systems, the question of how school size influences quality and efficiency has long been an important issue.

Countries should step up their efforts to improve the quality of post-secondary vocational training in order to meet the changing needs of today’s job market, according to a new OECD report.

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 should the programmes be funded? How should they be linked to academic and university programmes?

The PISA 2012 Technical Report describes the methodology underlying the PISA 2012 survey, which tested 15-year-olds’ competencies in mathematics, reading and science and, in some countries, problem solving and financial literacy.

Reducing income inequality would boost economic growth, according to new OECD analysis. This work finds that countries with lower income inequality grow faster than those with higher inequality.

Latin America’s GDP growth rate has slowed down in 2014, dropping below 1.5%. This is the first time in a decade that the region grows less than the OECD average, according to the OECD Development Centre, the Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean and the development bank for Latin America. Given the projections in the past weeks, any recovery in 2015 is likely to be challenging.

The report New insights from TALIS 2013: Teaching and Learning in Primary and Upper Secondary Education presents an overview of teachers and teaching in primary and upper secondary education for a sample of countries that participated in the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) in 2013.

The quality of an education system today shapes the economic and social prosperity of the country tomorrow. Chile has embarked on wide-ranging reform to improve the quality and equity of its education system on several fronts, including early childhood education and care (ECEC), school funding, student selection, school governance, teacher career pathways, vocational education and training (VET) and tertiary education.

The OECD Directorate for Education and Skills helps individuals and nations to identify and develop the knowledge and skills that drive better jobs and better lives, generate prosperity and promote social inclusion. We encourage countries to compare their experiences and learn from each other, and we accompany them in the difficult process of policy implementation.

If there’s one word that encapsulates the desires and aspirations of education stakeholders around the world, it is improvement.

The conference will be interactive and results-oriented. The format will be designed to foster opportunities for meaningful discussion and dialogue among participants, national representatives, international organisation representatives and experts. We will ask most participants to take an active role in the conference

Between 2000 and 2012, the proportion of young adults (25-34 year-olds) with a tertiary qualification has grown by more than 3% per year on average in OECD countries. On average across 24 national and sub-national entities participating in the OECD Survey of Adult Skills, 39% of adults have achieved a higher level of education than their parents.

Over the past decades, education systems have expanded enormously. They provide opportunities for many more students than before to access and succeed in secondary and tertiary education.

Education systems have made major strides to close gender gaps in student performance but girls and boys remain deeply divided in career choices, which are being made much earlier than commonly thought, according to a new OECD report.

Gender differences still exist in certain fields, with more men studying science, computing and engineering, and with women dominating education and health and welfare.

Last Saturday, 14 April, Equal Pay Day reminded the world again of the large gap between men’s and women’s wages. Eradicating unjustifiable gender inequalities in earnings seems to be very hard to accomplish.

La calidad del sistema educacional de hoy es la base para la prosperidad económica y social del país de mañana.

The Indonesian economy has enjoyed strong and stable growth over the past decade and a half, leading to impressive reductions in poverty and major improvements in living standards. But challenges remain to continue to converge towards higher-income countries, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of Indonesia.

The Indonesian education system is immense and diverse. It reflects aspects of its past, with a diverse ethnic and religious heritage, and a struggle for national identity.

This report was prepared by the Educational Policy Institute, Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, as an input to the OECD Review of Policies to Improve the Effectiveness of Resource Use in Schools (School Resources Review).

Structural reforms and income distribution

Children spend about a third of their waking hours in school during most weeks in the year. Thus, schools have a significant impact on children’s quality of life – including their relationships with peers and adults, and their dispositions towards learning and life more generally.

The world is living through one of its most extraordinary revolutions, with game-changing implications, many of them still unknown.

When choosing a school for their child, parents in all participating countries value academic achievement highly; but they are often even more concerned about the safety and environment of the school and the school’s reputation.

Analysing the efficiency of education systems and organisations is at the forefront of today’s policy and academic debate.

More than 35 million 16-29 year-olds across OECD countries are neither employed nor in education or training (NEET) – and around half of all NEETs are out of school and not looking for work. These young people are likely to have dropped off the radar of their country’s education, social and labour market systems.

When it comes to technology, education seems stuck in the age of chalkboards. But at an international conference on technology in education, held in Qingdao, China, last week, I got the feeling that educators and education ministers might finally be ready to join the technological revolution.

The OECD’s Annual Meeting at Ministerial Level reinforced member governments’ support across a broad range of key OECD work.

Educational opportunities have a very important impact on a person’s life. Employment, earnings, well-being, health and trust are all strongly related to education and skills. A lack of high-quality educational opportunities is the most important way in which poverty, social inequality and exclusion are transmitted from one generation to another.

Countries and economies participating in PISA have invested substantial resources and used a wide variety of strategies during the past ten years to improve the quality of their schools. Have these efforts paid off?

Norway’s early childhood education and care (ECEC) system has experienced a strong expansion over the last decade. More children than ever are enrolled in its kindergartens.

One of the most dramatic consequences of the economic crisis has been the soaring levels of youth unemployment in several OECD countries; and the hesitant recovery of the past years was insufficient to improve the job prospects of young people.