The OECD Skills Strategy

Ministerial Meeting 2012: Investing in people - The OECD Skills Strategy. 23-24 May 2012, OECD Conference Centre, Paris, France.
Skills have become the global currency of 21st century economies. At a time when growing economic and social inequalities are a major challenge, effective skills policies must be part of any response to address it.
The OECD is preparing a Skills Strategy with the aim of fostering a cross-government, peer-learning approach towards improving the supply of, anticipating the demand for, and optimising the use of skills in the workforce to promote economic growth and social inclusion.
The OECD Skills Strategy.
Knowledge and skills are infinite – oil is not
Blog by Andreas Schleicher, Deputy Director and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the OECD's Secretary-General, 9 March 2012
Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education.
Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators.
Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC).
Leveraging training: skills development in SMEs.

Taking stock of skills, 2011, OECD Observer

Towards and OECD Skills Strategy, Meeting of the OECD Council at Ministerial Level, Paris, 25-26 May 2011
OECD work in education.
The OECD Skills Strategy
Skills: the global currency of the 21st century
Skills have become the global currency of 21st century economies. Without sufficient investment in skills, people languish on the margins of society, technological progress does not translate into productivity growth, and countries can no longer compete in an increasingly knowledge-based global economy. And, at a time when growing economic and social inequalities are a major challenge, effective skills policies must be part of any response to address this challenge. But this ‘currency’ depreciates as skill requirements of labour markets evolve and individuals lose the skills they do not use. For skills to retain their value, they must be continuously maintained and upgraded throughout life so that people can collaborate, compete and connect in ways that drive economies forward.
Challenges for skills policies are manifold
Many countries have developed strategies to improve the skills level of their citizens, but their success in implementing them varies widely. And many continue to struggle with low levels of adult basic skills, problems of skills mismatch, skills shortages and unemployment.
How can the OECD Skills Strategy help?
The OECD is preparing a Skills Strategy with the aim of fostering a cross-government, peer-learning approach towards improving the supply of, anticipating the demand for, and optimising the use of skills in the workforce to promote economic growth and social inclusion.
The OECD Skills Strategy action plan
Gathering and analysing data
We are currently integrating the information on skills from several work areas of the OECD, including education, labour, local economic development, tax, research and innovation. We are using this information to produce the OECD Skills Strategy.
Developing good-practice guidelines
The OECD, in co-operation with member and partner countries and the social partners, will also identify and develop a set of good practices for financing skills-development programmes and formulating sound, inclusive and effective skills policies. All of this will feed into a comprehensive Skills Strategy to guide countries in developing better skills policies for better lives.
Towards an OECD Skills Strategy and beyond
The OECD Skills Strategy will figure on the agenda of OECD Week 2012 and be launched in May 2012, along with an online skills portal that will feature compelling skills data, country-specific information and policy pointers for developing, supplying and using our global talent pools. In 2013, we will release the OECD Skills Outlook, which will feature new data from the Adult Skills Survey (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies [PIAAC]). The OECD Skills Outlook will be published on a regular basis with updated data and analysis.
Leveraging training: skills development in SMEs.
This project seeks to identify ways to overcome the barriers to workforce development in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The pool of SME workers requiring further education and training is significant. However, SMEs often find it difficult to support formal learning activities due to their low critical mass.
Small enterprises are more inclined to participate in knowledge intensive activities as a way of learning new operational techniques and procedures that will help them to be more innovative and creative.
These competence building activities are largely performed in-house, are interactive and can involve external resources from other companies or organisations.