Are countries ready to invest in early childhood education?

by Dirk Van DammeHead of the Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education and Skills There is now a widespread consensus that high-quality early childhood education is critically important for children. Research continues to find that early childhood education can compensate for a lack of learning opportunities at home, and can help children begin to develop the...

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Investigating the complexities of school funding

by Deborah NuscheSenior Analyst, Directorate for Education and SkillsBack in 2013, when we launched the OECD's first international review of school resource policies, we may not have been fully prepared for the detective-type work we were getting into. The OECD Review of School Resources covers 18 school systems and aims to shed light on a part of education policy that has been surprisingly left in...

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Realising Slovenia’s bold vision for skills

by Andreas Schleicher Director, Directorate for Education and SkillsSmall in size but not in its ambitions, Slovenia has a bold vision for a society in which people learn for and through life, are innovative, trust one another, enjoy a high quality of life and embrace their unique identity and culture. So how does a country of 2 million people, with an export-oriented economy still recovering...

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Rethinking the learning environment

by Rose BologniniCommunications and Publications Co-ordinator, Directorate for Education and SkillsWhat do innovative learning environments around the world look like? How might they be led and evaluated? What policy strategies stimulate and support them? For the past decade the OECD’s Centre for Education Research and Innovation (CERI) has addressed these and similar questions in an international...

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Priming up for primary school

by Andreas SchleicherDirector, OECD Directorate for Education and SkillsWhy do children in their last year of pre-primary education spend so much time playing and the year after sitting in large classes listening to their teacher? Why do we pay the teachers of our youngest children so much less than we pay the teachers of our oldest children? Why do first-year primary teachers know so little about...

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Studying more may not make you a top-performer

by Hélène GuillouConsultant, OECD Directorate for Education and SkillsIt’s 3pm in Finland. A bell rings, marking the end of classes in a middle school and time for students to go home. In a different part of the world, at the exact same time, other students are also just finishing  up classes. Except for these students, it’s not the middle of the afternoon, but night time, and they have...

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Who makes it into PISA?

by Nicholas SpaullFormer Thomas J. Alexander Fellow, OECDUnlike earlier PISA reports, the 2015 PISA report (Volume I  and Volume II) highlights differences in sample coverage – how many students were eligible to participate in PISA – between countries. Why is this important? Because you can’t really appreciate the magnitude of improvement in a country’s performance in PISA unless you also...

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Risky business

by Tracey BurnsProject Leader and Senior Analyst, OECD Directorate for Education and SkillsAs our world becomes increasingly interconnected, so do the risks we face. A disease breaking out in a village in Africa, a bank crashing on Wall Street or a protest in a distant country can all potentially “snowball” and influence the world financial, health or security order.While very different topics, environmental...

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