The OECD-Singapore Conference on Higher Education Futures will explore forward-looking themes in the global higher education landscape. The Conference will bring together some 500 participants from over 40 countries, representing senior government officials, higher education administrators, academics and practitioners, for an engaging exchange of ideas and best practices.

The combination of work and study has been hailed as crucial to ensure that youth develop the skills required on the labour market so that transitions from school to work are shorter and smoother. As a result, many governments encourage learning on the job, particularly when it comes as part of certified programmes such as vocational education and training pathways (VET) or apprenticeships.

The end of the mining boom has highlighted the urgent need for Chile to diversify its economy away from commodity-intensive sectors, according to a new OECD report presented by Secretary-General Angel Gurría today.

The top-performing country in the PISA assessment of digital reading was Singapore, followed by Korea, Hong Kong-China, Japan, Canada and Shanghai-China.

Every September, classrooms in the Northern hemisphere reopen to students and teachers for a new school year. What can students expect from their teachers this year? The new Teaching in Focus brief: Teaching beliefs and practice sheds light on some of the most common teaching practices and what teachers in Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) believe is the nature of teaching and learning.

Every September, classrooms in the Northern hemisphere reopen to students and teachers for a new school year.

Spain is emerging from a challenging period. The good news is that the economy has returned to moderate growth and unemployment rates are falling. Yet Spain’s progress along the path to inclusive growth may well falter if steps are not taken today to boost skills outcomes.

Parents’ level of education still greatly influences that of their children: individuals are 4.5 times more likely to attend higher education if one of their parents has a higher education degree than if both their parents have below upper secondary education.

Since the mid-1900s, the expansion of higher education systems has opened up opportunities for many students other than those from the elites. Higher education became the main route towards upward social mobility.

A sense of self-efficacy is essential if students are to fulfil their potential. Yet too many students, particularly disadvantaged students, do not have confidence in their ability to tackle mathematics tasks.

On average across OECD countries, students’ belief that they can solve mathematics problems (mathematics self-efficacy) is associated with a difference of 49 score points in mathematics – the equivalent of one year of school.

Education has become increasingly important worldwide, including politically. Probably the key driver for this is economic – the fundamental role of knowledge and skills in underpinning and maintaining prosperity.

The Korean economy has seen significant growth in the past decades. However, much of the economic growth has been supported by intensive labour resource utilisation. Korean workers work the second longest hours among OECD countries. This is not sustainable in the long-term because Korea’s working age population is projected to decline from 2017 onwards.

Only in some countries is a larger proportion of immigrant students in schools related to lower student performance – and this relationship is mostly explained by the concentration of disadvantaged students in these schools.

Governments need to tackle persistent inequalities in education and focus on improving efficiencies in their education systems in order to ensure that every child, whatever their background, can realise their full potential and benefit from a good education, according to a new OECD report.

Education systems are not static; they change. There have been some important changes at both ends of the education ladder recently: in early childhood or “pre-primary” education, at one end, and in tertiary or higher education at the other.

Since 2000, the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has been measuring the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students in over 70 countries.

Across OECD countries, 5% of students expect to work as teachers: 3% of boys and 6% of girls. The academic profile of students who expect to work as teachers varies, but in many OECD countries, students who expect to work as teachers have poorer mathematics and reading skills than other ambitious students who expect to work as professionals but not as teachers.

Archived webinar December 17 2015 - Immigrant Students at School: Easing the Journey towards Integration presented by Presented by Andreas Schleicher, Director for the Directorate of Education and Skills, OECD

In Finland, the numeracy and literacy skills of adults are among the highest in the countries measured through the OECD’s 2012 Survey of Adult Skills. The Survey assessed the skills of adults in literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments in 24 countries and sub-national regions in the first round of the Survey.

The OECD's work on Trends Shaping Education looks at major social, demographic, economic and technological trends affecting the future of education. The newest edition of the publication will be released on 18 January.

Graduation rates for bachelor’s and master’s degrees have dramatically increased over the past two decades, with 6 million bachelor’s degrees and 3 million master’s degrees awarded in OECD countries in 2013. Although women represent over half of the graduates at the bachelor’s and master’s level, they are still strikingly under-represented in the fields of sciences and engineering.

In 2012, 15-year-old students spent over two hours on line each day, on average across OECD countries. The most common online activities among 15-year-olds were browsing the Internet for fun and participating in social networks, with over 70% of students doing one of these every day or almost every day.

There are an estimated 9 million working aged adults in England (more than a quarter of adults aged 16-65) with low literacy or numeracy skills or both. This reflects England’s overall performance in the Survey of Adult Skills - around average for literacy, but well below average for numeracy relative to other OECD countries in the Survey (OECD, 2013).

Qualifications are useful because they make skills visible. It is confidently assumed that the holder of a school-leaving certificate can read and understand instructions, and make calculations, and that those with university degrees can do much more.

Archived Webinar - Friday, 12 February 2016, 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. (ET) - The Alliance for Excellent Education and the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) joined forces with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to host a joint U.S. release of the OECD’s new report Supporting Teacher Professionalism.

Archived webinar - Low-performing Students: Why they Fall Behind and How to Help them Succeed (February 10, 2016) with Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills, OECD, and Daniel Salinas, Analyst, OECD.

Most countries have made little progress helping their weakest students improve their performance in reading, mathematics and science over the past decade. This means too many young people are still leaving school without the basic skills needed in today’s society and workplace, hurting their futures and long-term economic growth, according to a new OECD report.

School leaders are calling the PISA-based Test for Schools one of the better indicators out there of how well students are prepared for 21st century learning.

A new PISA report, Low-Performing Students: Why They Fall Behind and How to Help Them Succeed, offers an in-depth analysis of low performance at school and recommends ways to tackle the problem.

No country or economy participating in PISA 2012 can claim that all of its 15-year-old students have achieved basic proficiency skills in mathematics, reading and science. Some 28% of students score below the baseline level of proficiency in at least one of those subjects, on average across OECD countries

Teacher professionalism is about a teacher’s knowledge, their autonomy and their membership of peer networks. These are the key elements that lead to more effective teaching.

The number and length of school holidays differs significantly across OECD countries, meaning the number of instructional days in primary and secondary education ranges from 162 days a year in France to more than 200 days in Israel and Japan.

The Slovak Republic has undertaken a series of reforms to improve its education system, and the country now needs to use resources more efficiently and improve equity and inclusion in schools, according to a new OECD report.

Children and young people are among the biggest losers in the European economic and debt crisis.

A generation ago, teachers could expect that what they taught would equip their students with the skills needed for the rest of their lives.

If the quality of an education system can never exceed the quality of its teachers, then countries need to do all they can to build a high-quality teaching force.

Today, around 5 million students study and do research in a country other than their own, attracted by the quality of overseas universities and willing to complement their education portfolio with international experience.

One in ten students at the master’s or equivalent level is an international student in OECD countries, rising to one in four at the doctoral level.

Students who avoid making an effort to understand mathematics concepts may succeed in some school environments; but a lack of deep, critical and creative thinking may seriously penalise these students later in life when confronted with real, complex problems.

Fewer 15-year-olds in East Asian countries reported that they use memorisation than did 15-year-olds in some of the English-speaking countries to whom they are often compared.

Equality of opportunity is a lofty ideal, but some societies get closer to achieving it than others.

The Survey of Adult Skills finds that even adults with the lowest proficiency in literacy possess some basic reading skills, although the level of these skills varies considerably across countries.

Despite the progress observed by PISA over the last decade, Latin American education systems still have a long way to go to reach world class standards. Ibero-American countries will also need to rethink their instructional system to better anticipate the knowledge and skills it will need to reignite its economy.

Over the past 15 years, Colombia’s education system has undergone an extraordinary transformation.

Colombia’s education system has made impressive progress over the past two decades, but more needs to be done now to ensure that all children have access to a quality education, according to a new OECD report.

The education sector performs well for information and communication technology (ICT) and problem-solving skills, although it still lags behind the professional, scientific and technical activities sector.

The Survey of Adult Skills finds that adults aged 55 to 65 are less proficient in literacy and numeracy than adults aged 25 to 34. But differences in skills proficiency that are related to age vary widely across countries, implying that skills policies can affect the evolution of proficiency over a lifetime.

OECD countries differ significantly in the way spending on tertiary education is shared between public and private sources of funding, and in the financial support they provide to students.

There are few issues in education that raise as much political and ideological controversy as tuition fees for higher education.