A picture of working students in OECD countries

By Glenda Quintini. The combination of work and study has been hailed as crucial to ensure that youth develop the skills required on the labour market so that transitions from school to work are shorter and smoother. As a result, in the current context of record high unemployment rates, many governments have set out to encourage learning on the job, particularly when it comes as part of certified programmes such as vocational education and training pathways (VET) or apprenticeships. Despite this central role in current policy thinking, comparative statistics on work and study are hard to come by and information is patchy at best when it comes to the context in which most students work – crucially, whether there is a (formal or informal) link between their schooling and their job. More...