Education and skills foster health and well-being, but why is this a problem?

by Dirk Van DammeHead of the Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education and SkillsKnowing, for example, that tobacco is bad for one’s health influences smoking behaviour much less than being able to control one’s own lifestyle. Schooling, together with non-formal and informal learning experiences, has been found to foster the acquisition of skills that matter for health...

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Lessons for France from PISA 2015

by Gabriela RamosOECD Chief of Staff and Sherpa to the G20Fifteen years ago, the OECD started evaluating education systems worldwide by testing the knowledge and competences of 15-year-old students through the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Right from very first PISA exercise in 2000, we noted that although the results for France were around the OECD average, they revealed...

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Today’s the day

by Andreas SchleicherDirector, Directorate for Education and SkillsThe latest results from PISA are released today. Before you look to see how well your country performed on the triennial test of 15-year-olds students around the world, consider this: only 20 short years ago, there was no such thing as a blog. If it weren’t for science and technology, not only would you not be reading this right now, but there wouldn’t be the device on which you’re reading it – or countless other gadgets,...

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Looking forward to PISA

by Andreas SchleicherDirector, Directorate for Education and SkillsTomorrow, the OECD will publish the 2015 PISA results. The world’s premier global metric for education will tell us which countries have the best school systems, based on the performance of 15-year-olds in science, mathematics and reading over a two-hour test. PISA (the Programme for International Student Assessment) was introduced...

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Discover your talent!

by Deborah RoseveareHead of the Skills Beyond School Division, Directorate for Education and SkillsLast night I got a taxi home and as often happens, the driver and I got chatting. Then he asked me a rather strange question – “Do you like the smell in my car?” Well, I have to say the smell was a very subtle one but it led to a fascinating conversation.  With some pride, he told me that he was...

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