Why access to quality early childhood education and care is a key driver of women’s labour market participation

  by Eric Charbonnier, Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills

We are in 1961. JF Kennedy is president and has just designated Eleanor Roosevelt as
chairwoman of the new US Commission on the Status of Women: "We want to be sure that women are used as effectively as they can to provide a better life for our people, in addition to meeting their primary responsibility, which is in the home." Fifty-seven years ago, women had to make a choice between pursuing a career or having children. Back then, access to early childhood education and care (ECEC) services was reserved for the elite and was not considered a policy priority; maternity leave was rare, while paternity leave was unheard of. This may seem strange now, but just try to think of society in the 1960s. Just think how far we have come since then: In 1961, only 38 % of women were employed in the United States. In 2015, this figure was at 70%.

Don’t be fooled by the upbeat statistics though. Two generations later, inequalities still exist.  Although women are more engaged in the labour market, they are still three times more likely to be employed in part-time positions than men. They are also less likely to be employed in higher-paid occupations, and less likely to progress in their careers. However, mindsets have evolved, and combining a career and a family for women is no longer the heresy it used to be.  As a recent example, the current Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, announced some months ago both her first pregnancy and her husband’s paternity leave: "I’ll be Prime Minister AND a mum, and Clarke will be “first man of fishing” and stay- at- home dad." The news was generally well--received, a stark contrast to 1961 when low provision of early childhood services and other work-family provision would have made such a decision virtually impossible.

This month’s Education Indicators in Focus brief takes a closer look at how provision of early childhood education and care has affected the participation of women in the labour market over the years. In the last half century, women’s labour force participation has increased dramatically in most countries. The rise in ECEC provision over this period has greatly contributed to this change, particularly for mothers with a child under the age of 3. As shown in the figure above, both components are strongly associated. However, there are substantial cross-country differences. In countries where mothers’ labour market participation rates are the highest, the proportions of very young children enrolled in early childhood services are also the highest (see quadrant on the top-right). By contrast, combining childrearing and employment is most difficult in some eastern  European countries (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, the Slovak Republic), as well as in Mexico (see quadrant on the bottom-left), partly because these services are under-developed in those countries.

The availability of early childhood services plays a key role in the increased labour force participation rates among women. This in turn has public benefits in terms of higher contributions to society and to economic growth.  But having a good access to such services is not sufficient. The number of ECEC hours per week available to young children is paramount to increasing the full-time participation of mothers in the labour market. For that reason, many OECD countries have recently increased the number of free hours of ECEC entitlements, or shifted from half-day to full-day kindergartens. However, here again, wide variations among countries still exist. Countries with both high levels of participation in early childhood education and care and greater intensity of participation (in hours per week), such as Nordic countries, are in general those in which most mothers work full-time.

Women’s participation in work does not only make economic sense for a nation, but the benefits of early childhood services towards better learning for the children themselves are also now widely acknowledged. In this context, it is not surprising that ECEC has experienced a surge of policy attention in the last fifteen years. However, despite many initiatives over this period to increase access, equity and quality of these services across OECD countries, affordability remains a key challenge in most of them. It is true (and a positive step) that governments often provide various schemes to help reduce the cost of early childhood services for poorer families (including cash transfers, rebates and tax reductions), but these efforts are still insufficient. Thus, children under the age of 3 in most countries are more likely to be enrolled in ECEC if they come from relatively advantaged socio-economic backgrounds or if their mother has completed a tertiary education degree.

Society has progressed a lot in fifty-seven years. Who would have thought in 1961 that someday women would no longer have to make a choice between their career and raising a family? Stronger access and provision to early childhood education and care services has greatly contributed to more equity in the workforce, but more is needed to ensure fully equal participation of men and women, whether at work or at home. Hopefully we will not have to wait another half century to see that happen.

Links
Education Indicators in Focus No. 59 - How does access to early childhood education services affect the participation of women in the labour market?
OECD Early Childhood Education and Care
Starting Strong 2017: Key OECD Indicators on Early Childhood Education and Care

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Is physical health linked to better learning?

by Tracey Burns
Senior Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills

Mahatma Gandhi once said: "it is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold
and silver". And indeed, our physical well-being is key to how we live our lives. But while we don't always make the link between our minds and our bodies, physical health is important for learning, too. 

Children who exercise regularly, have good nutrition and sleep well are more likely to attend school, and do well at school. And the benefits are not just for children: good physical health is associated with enhanced quality of life, increased productivity in the workplace and increased participation in the community and society. 

However, children and young people across the OECD are not engaging enough in the behaviours they need to be healthy. Between 2000 to 2016, PISA data show that children and young people were less likely to reach the minimum recommended daily physical activity levels (>60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity daily). They were also less likely to get enough quality sleep, and more likely to be overweight and obese and have poor dietary habits (including increasing overconsumption of soft drinks, sweets, salty snacks and fast food). 

These trends are extremely concerning. Unhealthy lifestyle behaviours are associated with higher rates of cardiovascular diseases and type II diabetes, and while historically considered to be diseases of adulthood, these are now evident in children as young as two years old. 

Education is uniquely placed to positively influence the health of students. A newly published paper on recent trends has identified two of the most effective types of school-based interventions:

• Building a healthy school environment: this includes educational interventions, health promotion, counselling and management strategies to promote health and physical fitness. These approaches need to include the whole-school community. Interventions associated with the play environment need to evolve and develop with children and young people as they grow. Building a supportive school culture is also key to effective, sustained behaviour change. For this to work, teachers need supportive school leaders and adequate training, time and resources.

• Changing attitudes towards risky behaviour: for example, universal school-based interventions for preventing drug use. Interventions incorporate knowledge-focussed curricula (teaching the risks associated), social competence curricula and social norms, and usually a component of behavioural modelling. A systematic review of the literature showed that overall, interventions combining social competence and influence approaches had sustained positive benefits. Interventions that focused only on transmitting knowledge, on the other hand, had the effect of improving knowledge, but did not affect behaviour.

In addition to school-based interventions, supporting, encouraging, and modelling healthy lifestyle behaviours in the home environment and in the community are also crucial. In fact, even the best school-based interventions benefit from the involvement of other actors, such as health care practitioners and family and community members. 

The report highlighted that interventions that involve the community, target several behaviours, use multiple behaviour change strategies are most effective. Involving stakeholders in the design and implementation and using technology where appropriate can also help change the behaviour of children and adolescents. This is especially important for disadvantaged communities, because not only is there a greater likelihood to engage in risky lifestyle behaviours in these settings, there is also a higher probability for reduced access to services (due to high cost, location, or lack of transportation), including safe facilities for physical activity such as green spaces. 

Educators, parents and communities and policy makers all have an important role to play in supporting the physical health and well-being of children and adolescents. By working together to embed health in education, we can make a big step in supporting the wealth that is physical health and well-being of children and adolescents in OECD countries.

Links
Working paper No. 170 – Physical health and well-being in children and youth: Review of the literature
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI)

21st Century Children

Trends Shaping Education

PISA 2015 Results (Volume III) – Students Well-being

OECD Obesity Update 2017
The association of context-specific sitting time and physical activity intensity to working memory capacity and academic achievement in young adults
Universal school-based prevention for illicit drug use
Lifestyle Interventions to Reduce Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease Risk Among Children

Photo credit: @Shutterstock 

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UNIBEN POSTGRADUATE ADMISSION LIST IS OUT

To check your admission status log into o. check and admission status pay acceptance fee which is #60,000 but you will be charged #664 extra .
Proceed to do your online clearance.
To do this you will have to upload the following:guarantor's letter,acceptance letter,O'level result,statement of result,NYSC discharge certificate and birth certificate
. After this,you will be given a date to come for your physical clearance.

 Find below,the format for the guarantor's and acceptance letter

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The importance of learning from data on education, migration and displacement

by Manos Antoninis, Director, Global Education Monitoring Report
Francesca Borgonovi, Senior Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills

Migration and displacement are complex
phenomena which play an important role in – but can also pose challenges to – development. These phenomena also pose particularly important challenges for education and training systems. Firstly, they can rapidly increase the number of people that require education services, thus challenging both richer countries, which until now had been adjusting to shrinking student populations, and poorer countries, where provision is already stretched, especially in remote areas or slums where migrants and refugees often converge.

Secondly, migration and displacement make classrooms more diverse. This means that the range of strategies teachers need to deploy increases in order to cater for a student population with larger differences in background characteristics, such as the language they speak at home.

Thirdly, education is an important means through which migration and displacement can be managed since school often acts as societies’ main instrument for transmitting the social and cultural codes that forge a community spirit.

Information of good quality is crucial to develop the right policy responses, which is why the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 17.18 calls on countries to “increase significantly the availability of high-quality, timely and reliable data disaggregated by … migratory status … and other characteristics relevant in national contexts” by 2020. Yet, collecting statistics on migrants and displaced people to ensure that education and training systems have the capacity to meet their needs is complicated. Population movements take very different forms: international vs. internal; temporary vs. permanent; those moving in successive stages vs. those returning; documented vs. undocumented; voluntary vs. forced, including internally displaced and refugee populations; students vs. workers, and, in the latter case, skilled or unskilled, and so on. Migrants and displaced people themselves may be in different stages in their life cycle or may differ in their circumstances, for example adults vs. children or individuals vs. families.

To address these issues, as part of the Strength Through Diversity project, a two-day forum on data about education, migration and displacement is being held in Paris, organised by the OECD and the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report, whose next edition is focusing on migration and displacement. Such issues refer to at least two levels.

At the macro level, demographic data often do not capture the education profiles of migrants and refugees. The ideal data source, which provides information on both stocks and flows of migration by gender, age, and education, does not yet exist. These questions were addressed last month at the International Forum on Migration Statistics, which also looked at one other dimension of  the education-migration nexus: international student mobility.

At the micro level, which is the focus of this two-day event, a range of data sources are important:

• Multi-purpose household surveys that contain information on internal and, in high income countries, international migration via questions concerning the place of previous residence or duration of current residence, such as the World Bank Living Standard Measurement Survey and the European Union Survey of Income and Living Conditions. Longitudinal surveys provide further insights.
• School surveys of learning achievement which can link detailed student background to educational outcomes. For example, the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) asks questions on the student’s country of birth, age of arrival in the host country, and language spoken at home. PISA also assess aspects of student well-being, such as integration and sense of belonging in the school community.
• Surveys on values and attitudes that can relate education to perceptions of the host population concerning migrants and refugees. For example, three waves of the International Social Survey Programme, six waves of the World Values Survey and two waves of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study tackled relevant questions on this topic. These studies can assess how education systems build values, attitudes, norms and beliefs that improve interpersonal trust and increase civic engagement, which are pillars of democracy.
• Teacher surveys, such as the OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), and national surveys that ask questions on teacher preparation for diversity and attitudes towards a diverse student population.

Given the challenges of education systems, the complex forms of population movements, the differences in background characteristics of migrants and displaced people, the different outcomes of education, and the different sources of information available, there is a patchwork of issues, and this requires coordination between researchers and practitioners working in multiple different fields.

The idea of collecting data on education by migratory status that is comparable across countries may be an unattainable goal due to the extreme diversity of migrants and displaced populations. However, the need for documenting and understanding differences in participation, attainment, learning and attitudes between migrants/refugees and host populations for policy purposes remains urgent.

In this context, this two-day forum in Paris has the following aims:

• Provide an inventory of existing data sources and ones that are under development
• Showcase good practices in data and measurement that approach effectively particular aspects of the migration-education relationship and improve understanding of social phenomena
• Identify data and measurement aspects of the migration-education relationship that require urgent attention in order for social phenomena to be better understood
• Assess the merits of equity-oriented migration and education indicators, looking at both intra- and inter-generational issues
• Make recommendations on potential questionnaire items for key areas of interventions the migration-education relationship

Links

Strength through Diversity: The Integration of Immigrants and Refugees in School and Training Systems

Strength through Diversity - 3rd Policy Forum, 12-13 February 2018

International Forum on Migration Statistics

Photo credit: @Shutterstock

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What makes for a satisfied science teacher?

by Tarek Mostafa
Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills

• 

Teachers play a vital role in the lives of
their students. They impart knowledge, provide pastoral care, act as role models and, above all, create an environment that’s conducive to learning. But teaching is fraught with numerous challenges that could lead to dissatisfaction and ultimately to drop-out from the profession. Science teachers are particularly vulnerable to quitting their jobs given the opportunities that exist outside the teaching profession.

So what makes a science teacher satisfied enough that he or she would want to keep teaching, despite the challenges they might face?

Data from PISA’s 2015 teacher questionnaire provide interesting evidence.

Science teachers who reported that pursuing a career in the teaching profession was their goal after finishing secondary school are far more satisfied with their jobs and with the profession as a whole. These teachers represent about 58% of all teachers on average across all countries. The relationship between these long-held ambitions and teacher satisfaction is strong across most countries and economies, and particularly in Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Guangdong (China), Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Peru and the United Arab Emirates.

But a lack of school educational and physical resources, and behavioural problems among students in school could undermine teachers’ satisfaction. For instance, teachers who perceive that the lack of teaching staff hinders instruction tend to be less satisfied with their profession and with their current job. The difference in satisfaction between the teachers who reported that these shortfalls hinder instruction to a great extent and those who reported little or no impact are the largest in Australia, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Macao (China) and the United Arab Emirates. The findings also show that in 10 out of 18 countries and economies, teachers’ satisfaction with their current job is positively associated with the disciplinary climate in science classes, as perceived by students. The associations are particularly strong in Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Peru and the United States.

The presence of a collaborative and collegial working environment could boost teacher satisfaction. In fact, teachers who reported frequent collaboration among their colleagues tend to be more satisfied with their job and with the profession as a whole. Collaborative activities are more common in Australia, Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Guangdong (China), Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Korea, Macao (China), Peru, Portugal and the United Arab Emirates, and less common in Brazil, Chile, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy and the United States.

PISA 2015 also shows that science teachers who engaged in more than three types of professional-development activities during the preceding 12 months tend to be more satisfied with the teaching profession and with their current job. On average and across all countries, 52% of teachers undertook more than three different types of professional-development activities during the last 12 months. The proportions are particularly large in Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Guangdong China (82%), Brazil (65%), the Dominican Republic (76%), Peru (65%) and the United Arab Emirates (65%).

Last but not least, some factors usually associated with challenging learning environments, such as the presence of large proportions of immigrant students or of students who do not speak the language of the host country, are not linked to teachers’ dissatisfaction with their job or the profession. This finding is particularly interesting because it shows that teachers do not necessarily mind teaching in schools with more demanding student populations as long as the environment is conducive to learning, the school climate is positive, and adequate resources are available.

To sum up, teacher satisfaction is positively associated with factors known to improve students’ performance, such as collegial and positive school environments. In other words, teachers’ satisfaction is both an aspect and a consequence of the school environment. As such, one has to improve the learning experience for all students in order to boost teachers’ professional satisfaction.

Links 
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
PISA in Focus No. 81 - What do science teachers find most satisfying about their work?
Working Paper No. 168 - Science teachers’ satisfaction: Evidence from the PISA 2015 teacher survey

Follow the conversation on Twitter: #OECDPISA

Image source: @Shutterstock

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How primary and secondary teachers differ and why it matters

by Marie-Helene Doumet, 
Senior Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills

Learning needs vary as we evolve through life. The early years of education set the stage for children’s well-being, cognitive and social-emotional development; young children starting out in the world require stability, reassurance, and encouragement, and need a warm and caring teacher. At primary school, teachers manage the class, teach all subjects, and help children develop not only basic competencies, but also emotional and social awareness. While this setting still requires a broad knowledge of many subjects, dealing directly with students’ social and emotional development also helps teachers bond with their class, which is essential to learning at such a young age. However, as children progress to high school, learning becomes more about the subject: secondary teachers focus on one or several subjects which they teach to a number of different classes. Their performance will be more strongly evaluated by how well their students perform on these subjects, rather than on how their students develop emotionally and socially.

Other differences exist between the two levels of education. While the entire profession is generally plagued with an ageing workforce, secondary schools are particularly affected by the rising average age of teachers. On the other hand, while it is true that men have always been outnumbered by women in teaching, this trend is much more striking at primary than at secondary level. Both trends have worsened in the past ten years and do not show signs of slowing down.

In spite of these differences between teachers at different education levels, teaching policy is all too often determined by a “one size fits all” approach. This month’s Education Indicators in Focus examines exactly in which ways primary and lower secondary teachers differ across a range of system-level indicators and why it matters, not only for the quality of teaching in the classroom, but also for the attractiveness of teaching as a profession.  

Let’s first start with what it takes to become a teacher. While the type of degree needed to teach primary or lower secondary level is the same in most countries, the content of the training programme differs: primary teachers have more pedagogical and practical training than lower secondary teachers, who are considered to be more “subject matter experts”. However, secondary level has its own set of pedagogical challenges, with teachers having to deal with moody teenagers and poor behaviour. Putting teachers in the classroom without the proper pedagogical or practical knowledge is akin to getting doctors to operate without clinical practice. We would be aghast if this were to happen in hospitals, yet we seem to accept it in the classroom. 

Certification is not everything, and teaching quality stems from much more than the way teachers deliver lessons. It is also strongly affected by their working conditions. Both primary and secondary teachers work approximately the same number of statutory hours, but they allocate their time differently. The figure above shows that lower secondary teachers spend on average 10% less time teaching than their primary colleagues, though in countries such as France and Turkey, this can reach 30% less. The time actually spent teaching matters less if teachers are well trained and deliver effective classes; however, with the long hours required, at school and at home, teachers are finding less and less time to invest in their own continuous development and other activities that would benefit learning. 

Finally, the perception of a fair salary can be pivotal in attracting and retaining teachers. While primary and lower secondary teacher salaries are comparable, secondary teachers hold an edge in more than half of OECD countries. In contrast to many other professions, those with a higher degree are not necessarily paid more: teachers in Finland hold a master’s degree, but earn less in relative terms than Korean teachers with a bachelor’s degree. A fairer compensation compared to other tertiary-educated workers would help attract a more gender balanced workforce and attract new talent that would renew the profession with innovative ideas.

Policy decisions to improve the attractiveness and effectiveness of the teaching profession will always involve a trade-off between these different factors.  Although many efforts have traditionally focused on reducing the size of classes, usually a popular measure for the broad public, nothing works more to enhance the quality of learning than the teachers themselves. However, striving for higher quality is not likely to be the result of one policy change or reform, but requires an understanding of all the factors that affect the profession holistically, from teacher training to long-term support, to actual teaching conditions, including working hours and pay. Recognizing the specific working conditions of primary and secondary teachers would lead to a more targeted policy response. Teachers at each level face different challenges.  Let’s not assume they have the same solution.  

Links

Education Indicators in Focus No. 58 - How do primary and secondary teachers compare?
Education at a Glance 2017: OECD Indicators

Follow the conversation on Twitter: #OECDEAG

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Shaping, not predicting, the future of students

by Anthony Mann
Senior Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills

Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo is reputed to have once said that there’s no point making predictions because nothing is set in stone. It is hard to predict the future, but in
education policy at least it is not altogether impossible.

We know, for example, from data accumulated over many years that people who exhibited certain attributes when young are more likely (sometimes very much more likely) to do better in work as adults. They are much more likely to find work after leaving school or university and to earn more than people who are otherwise just like them.

Studies have shown, for example, that youngsters can expect to do better in work as adults if they read well at 10 or gain higher levels of qualifications.  We know as well, not least from recent OECD studies, that the children of wealthier parents routinely do better than their classmates from poorer backgrounds, even if they show the same academic promise as children.

It’s unsurprising to learn that academic ability and social background have a big influence on how well young adults can expect to do once they leave education and get into work. This is unsurprising and, for school teachers, more than a little depressing as social background is pretty much fixed, and improved academic ability is a process that is slow and always comparative. Depressing too because the predictive qualities of doing better in school are irrelevant to huge numbers of lower achievers from more modest backgrounds.

But what if there were other, more practical indicators available? Indicators that are relevant to all young people?  Indicators that could provide teaching staff with useful information about which children needed more attention to help them prepare for their transitions into work?

These are questions addressed in a recently published report, “Indicators of Successful Transitions: Teenage attitudes and experiences of the world of work”,  from the research team at the Education and Employers charity based in London. (Full disclosure: I led the team before joining the OECD). Drawing on UK longitudinal datasets and statistical analyses that allow a like-with-like comparison of teenagers moving into adulthood, the study was designed to provide teaching staff with a practical tool for assessing how well their students were being prepared for their ultimate transitions into work.

Trawling through research literature which uses UK datasets which follow thousands of young people from childhood into adulthood, like the British Cohort Survey and the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England, alongside new analysis of the same datasets, the research team found a number of significant associations between the attitudes and experiences of teenagers related to the working world – and what happened to those teenagers when they became young working adults. For example, studies link better adult outcomes to both teenage career aspirations that are more confident, realistic and ambitious, and the extent to which young people are involved in real workplaces, whether through their schools or in part-time work.  Other research highlights the ultimate value of teenagers’ social networks in helping them find employment or access information about jobs and careers.

In all, 15 such indicators were identified and grouped together into four themes within a questionnaire for young people: thinking about the future; talking about the future; experiencing the future; and thinking about school. The questionnaire was tested with careers guidance professionals in six English secondary schools with some 800 students aged 14 to 16. In this pilot, schools explored the effectiveness of the indicators as a tool for identifying students (at all levels of achievement) who require greater attention and determining the quality of activities undertaken by students.

In addition, the guidance professionals were asked for feedback on the details of the questionnaire and how the questionnaire could be most practically used in schools. They responded that they found the indicators to be effective in identifying students requiring more support. What this means in practice is that both high and low achievers can have poorly informed careers aspirations. Both groups of students might have given insufficient thought to the breadth of their career options and how their current education or training could best relate to their future selves. Practitioners with a good understanding of the needs of students reported that the questionnaire provided reliable results. The indicators were felt to work especially well for 16-year-olds who are approaching a key transition point in the English education system. Based on this feedback, the questionnaire and marking schedule were revised and confirmed.

We may not be able to tell the future with certainty, but we can draw on reliable evidence to make better judgements about the conditions under which young people can expect a brighter future.  The Education and Employers study harnesses great evidence to provide a new tool for schools determined to prepare their students well for working life.

Links
Educational Opportunity for All – Overcoming Inequality throughout the Life Course
Indicators of successful transitions: Teenage attitudes and experiences related to the world of work

OECD work on skills: www.oecd.org/skills

Photo credit: @Shutterstock

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