By Tracey Burns and Florian Koester. What models of governance are effective in complex education systems? How can governments set priorities and design polices that balance responsiveness to local diversity with national education goals? And how do we ensure that there is trust, co-operation and communication between the multiple levels and actors in the system. More...
By Antonio Villar. Equality of opportunity is a lofty ideal, but some societies get closer to achieving it than others. Regarding compulsory education, results from PISA show that socio-economically disadvantaged students in the OECD have much higher chances of being low performers than their socio-economically advantaged peers. And also, that they have much lower chances of being high performers. More...
By Alfonso Echazarra. Some of the greatest geniuses had remarkable memories. Mozart, according to legend, sat and listened to Allegri’s “Miserere”, then transcribed the piece of music, entirely from memory, later in the day. Kim Peek, the savant who was the inspiration for the blockbuster film, Rain Man, memorised as many as 12 000 books. But unlike Mozart, who composed more than 600 works during his brief life, Peek was unable to distinguish between the relevant and the irrelevant, or discover hidden meanings and metaphors in the texts he had committed to memory. More...
Posted . Adapting vocational education to the needs of a market economy has been a challenge in Poland as in other transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Average educational attainment and literacy rates were relatively high and vocational education was strong in Poland, when the economic transformation set in. Yet, competencies taught in vocational schools were often specific to enterprises to which they were attached, many of which disappeared. More...
Posted . Passing through Dublin airport’s sparkling, spacious Terminal 2, sprinkled with bi-lingual English, Irish signs is a fine experience – it’s a modern, global emporium but with a very Irish flavour as anyone partial to a Guinness in departures can attest to. More...
Posted . As asset prices have risen in recent years, so have concerns that monetary policy, and quantitative easing in particular, has increased inequality. Concern has moved from being the preserve of central bankers and the pages of the financial media to entering popular discourse with calls for “People’s QE” in the United Kingdom. More...
Posted . The Great recession has revived interest in the links between housing markets, household finance and the wider economy. The meltdown of the US subprime mortgage market was at the epicentre of the global financial crisis, which triggered the recession. More...
Posted . Numerous international agreements and free trade areas have reduced trade and foreign investment restrictions dramatically. This is one factor that has boosted international trade, which has risen about one and a half times faster than GDP since the Second World War. Globalisation has made it possible to reap economies of scale and has given access to cheaper goods. More...
Posted . Brazil has a large and diversified industrial sector, but while parts of it are thriving, others are facing hard times, in part because they are weakly integrated into the world economy. The automotive and the aircraft sectors are two opposite examples of Brazilian industries – one inward-focused and one fully integrated into global trade. More...
Posted . Despite progress in a number of areas, gender equality remains elusive in many OECD countries. Uneven distributions of outcomes and opportunities spread across the entire life cycle of women and men and culminate in sizeable gender pay gaps. Achieving gender equality would not only serve justice and equity but would also improve well-being in areas such as work-life balances, health, education and job satisfaction. Furthermore, it would make economic growth and social institutions stronger and more sustainable. More...
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