Smart policies matter in education

By Dirk Van Damme, Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress division, Directorate for Education and Skills. Education policies are meant for the future, they target society-wide outcomes in the next generation. But constructing these policies demands foresight and planning, while simultaneously dealing with difficult trade-offs in the present. Take Korea, a remarkable success story of fast increasing educational attainment which made the country one of the highest educated nations in the world: 64% of its 25-34 year-old population has a tertiary qualification. And the PISA and Survey of Adult Skills data show that this incredible educational revolution did not cause any decline in the quality of learning. Clearly, Korea is successful in preparing its young workforce for a highly-skilled technological economy. How did they do that? A new issue of Education Indicators in Focus sheds some light on the policy trade-offs that countries face when they want to raise the tertiary attainment rate in the young generation. More...