By Dirk Van Damme Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress division, Directorate for Education and Skills. The most recent Education Indicators in Focus presents some interesting evidence on inter-generational educational mobility, based on data from the Survey of Adult Skills, a product of the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC). On average across the 24 national or sub-national systems that participated in the survey, 39% of adults have attained a higher level of education than their parents, whereas 12% have attained a lower level. Across generations there is a slight downward trend in educational mobility: 32% of 25-34 year-old adults had a higher level of education than their parents, compared with 43% of 45-54 year-olds. Read more...
The Global Innovation Index
Bloomberg's 2015 ranking of the world's 50 most innovative countries takes a more prosaic approach to the question, focusing on six tangible activities that contribute to innovation. South Korea tops this year's overall ranking. The U.S. places sixth, and China 22nd. Morocco finishes last. You can click here to go straight to the full results, but don't do that just yet. The point of this list isn't to award bragging rights to one country over another—it's to see whether a broad formula for innovation can in fact be identified, and what companies, and governments, need to do to reproduce it. More...



