By Marilyn Achiron. For those parents who have the opportunity to do so, choosing a school for their child is one of the most important decisions they will make as parents – a decision that could have a lasting impact on their child’s life. What do parents look for when choosing a school for their child. Read more...
By Tommaso Agasisti. Analysing the efficiency of education systems and organisations is at the forefront of today’s policy and academic debate. Various factors make efficiency more important than ever: declining public budgets, rising competition across public services for limited public expenditures, increasing demand for transparency in information about the costs and results of schools’ activities. From this perspective, fiscal consolidation in many countries depends on the ability of governments to proactively use information concerning the efficiency of public spending. When focussing on education, providing clear quantitative information about the efficiency of educational institutions has become more important than ever. Read more...
By Andreas Schleicher. Next week, UNESCO will convene the world’s educational leaders in Incheon to set the agenda for educational development over the next 15 years. Those who think that’s mainly an agenda for the developing world should read our new report Universal basic skills - what countries stand to gain. The report shows the scale of the effort that is ahead even for many of the wealthiest nations to develop the essential skills that can transform lives, generate prosperity and promote social inclusion. And with a new global metric of the quality of learning outcomes, the report demonstrates that the world is no longer divided between rich and well-educated countries and poor and badly educated ones. Read more...
By Andreas Schleicher, Director, Directorate for Education and Skills. During my days as a university student, I used to look to Sweden as the gold standard for education. A country which was providing high quality and innovative education to children across social ranks, and close to making lifelong learning a reality for all. My professor and mentor, Torsten Husén, was the architect of empirical educational science. Read more...
The first Wikiprogress online consultation on Youth Well-being has gained a lot of momentum with over 400 comments to date, and we have decided to extend the deadline for commenting an extra few days to the 15th May. As we’re nearing the end of our consultation, we’re keen to hear what you think our key policy recommendations should be to tangibly improve well-being for youth. Sign up and contribute your opinion here: http://bit.ly/1OwPqdd. The post below by Laura Gillies of Bluenove, one of the moderators of the discussion highlights some of the key points in the discussion so far. We look forward to hearing from you! More...
By Emanuele Schibotto. Asia’s development has been so successful that it has been labelled a “miracle.” However, if this is true for economic growth, the picture looks far less impressive if you look at other dimensions of economic development. That is why a return of leadership is needed. More...
By Sharon Masterson. In 2011, TIME Magazine named collaborative consumption (or the sharing economy as it is often called) as one of the top 10 ideas that will change the world. More...
By Stephen Thomsen. Of all the acronyms in existence, “PFI” has to be one of the most popular. For many people, it is the Private Finance Initiative but that is only one of at least 40 meanings of the PFI, including institutes devoted to everything from pet foods to pellet fuels. For us at the OECD and for the many emerging economies we have been working with, the PFI stands for the Policy Framework for Investment. Our PFI means exactly what it says: it is a policy framework to stimulate investment and to enhance the impact from that investment. More...
By Pablo Antolín-Nicolás. Pension systems of all types are facing crucial and far-reaching challenges because of demographic trends, the continuing impacts of the economic crisis, and the environment of low growth, low returns and low yields. As a result, meeting pension commitments and having adequate pensions could become quite a challenge. The OECD Pensions Outlook 2014 discusses ways in which countries are addressing all these challenges, including the demographic challenge. More...
By Bill Below. The city’s median income is $41,385, but as always the devil is in the details. To find the real picture of inequality you have to de-aggregate. The median income for whites in Baltimore is $60,550, but drops precipitously to $33,610 for blacks. Unemployment for young white men in Baltimore is 10%, but for young black males it jumps to 37%. As a point of reference, the unemployment rate at the worst point of the Great Depression was 25%. More...
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