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skills.oecd - building the right skills and turning them into better jobs and better lives
How can countries, companies and individuals tackle skills challenges and develop, supply and best use their talent pools?
Download Policy Map on Skills. Watch the video on the OECD_IdeaFactory on skills.
How does a country maximise its (use of) skills?
A COUNTRY CAN DEVELOP THE RELEVANT SKILLS
By encouraging and enabling people to learn throughout life
- Gather and use evidence about the changing skills demand to guide skills development.
- Engage social partners in designing and delivering education and training programmes.
- Ensure that education and training programmes are of high quality.
- Promote equity by ensuring access to, and success in, quality education for all.
- Ensure that costs are shared and that tax systems do not discourage investments in learning.
- Maintain a long-term perspective on skills development, even during economic crises.
By fostering international mobility of skilled people to fill skills gaps
- Facilitate entry for skilled migrants and support their integration.
- Design policies that encourage international students to remain after their studies.
- Make it easier for skilled migrants to return to their country of origin.
By promoting cross-border skills policies
Invest in skills abroad and encourage cross-border higher education.
A COUNTRY CAN ACTIVATE THE SUPPLY OF SKILLS
By encouraging people to offer their skills to the labour market
- Identify inactive individuals and the reasons for their inactivity.
- Create financial incentives that make work pay.
- Dismantle non-financial barriers to participation in the labour force.
By retaining skilled people in the labour market
- Discourage early retirement.
- Staunch brain drain.
A COUNTRY CAN PUT SKILLS TO EFFECTIVE USE
By creating a better match between people’s skills and the requirements of their job
- Help employers to make better use of their employees’ skills.
- Tackle unemployment and help young people to gain a foothold in the labour market.
- Provide better information about the skills needed and available.
- Facilitate internal mobility among local labour markets.
By increasing the demand for high-level skills
- Help economies to move up the value-added chain.
- Stimulate the creation of more high-skilled and high value-added jobs.
- Foster entrepreneurship.

Please consult the following index if you are unable to find a particular area of work undertaken by the OECD  Directorate for Education. The information is cross-referenced where possible so as to make it easier to locate. If you cannot find what you are looking for, please send a message to edu.contact@oecd.org. A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z.
A

• Adult Learning
• Adult Literacy
• Formative Assessment for Adults
• Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO)   
• Attracting, Developing and Retaining Effective Teachers

B

• Learning Sciences and Brain Research
• Blog: Educationtoday
• Brochure: OECD work on Education

C

• Calidad Educativa (Quality of Education in Mexico)
• Career Guidance Policy Review
• Centre for Effective Learning Environments(CELE)
• Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI)
• Country Reviews on Educational Research and Development

D 

• Digital learning resources as systemic innovation
• Disabled students (Pathways for disabled students to tertiary education and employment
• Education and Diversity

E  

• Early Childhood Education and Care 
• Education at a Glance
• Education in Non-member Economies
• Education Indicators in Focus
• educationtoday - OECD’s education lighthouse for the way out of the crisis
• educationtoday blog
• Education Today: The OECD Perspective
• E-learning in Post-Secondary Education and Training
• Innovative Learning Environments
• Equity and Quality in Education
• Evaluation and Assessment Frameworks for Improving School Outcomes
• Evidence-based Policy Research in Education

F

• Financial Monitoring and Effective Institutional Management
• Financing Lifelong Learning
• Formative Assessment for Adults
• Forward Thinking

G 

• German Speaking Seminars
• Globalisation and Linguistic competencies

H 

• Higher Education Institutions and Regions
• Higher Education (Programme on Institutional Management in Higher Education - IMHE)
• Higher Education (Supporting Quality Teaching in Higher Education)
• Higher Education (The Impact of Rankings on Higher Education)
• Higher Education ('What Works' in Higher Education Management)

I 

• (IMHE) Programme on Institutional Management in Higher Education
• Improving Schools
• Improving School Leadership
• Indigenous Education
• Innovation Strategy for Education and Training
• Innovative Learning Environments
• International Network Combating School Bullying and Violence 
• Managing Internationalisation of Higher Education
• Internationalisation of Tertiary Education

L    

• Learning for Jobs – OECD Policy Review of Vocational Education and Training (VET)
• Learning Sciences and Brain Research  
• Lifelong Learning (The Role of National Qualifications Systems in Promoting)
• Adult Literacy

M  

• Management in Higher Education
• Markets in Education (Centre for Educational Research and Innovation - CERI)
• Migrant Education

N  

• New Millennium Learners
• OECD Education Newsletter
• Education in Non-member Economies

O  

• Open Educational Resources - Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI)

P  

• PISA in Focus - monthly policy-oriented notes
• Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC)
• Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) (also available in French, German and Spanish)
• Education and Training Policy Pointers for Policy Development
• Promoting Partnerships for Inclusion

Q  

• The Role of National Qualifications Systems in Promoting Lifelong Learning

R  

• Recognition of Non-formal and Informal Learning
• Higher Education Institutions and Regions
• Evidence-based Policy Research in Education
• Learning Sciences and Brain Research
• Trends in Research Management and Support
• Reviews of National Policies for Education
• Reviews of Research and Development

S 

• School Failure (Overcoming School Failure)
• Improving School Leadership
• International Network Combating School Bullying and Violence
• Skills Strategy
• Skills.oecd (interactive portal on skills)
• Skills beyond School
• Social Outcomes of Learning project
• Spanish Speaking Seminars
• Special Education Needs
• Special Education Needs in Southeast Europe
• Statistics - Education at a Glance
• Statistics - Online Education Database
• Systemic Innovation in Education

 T  

• Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 
• Teaching in Focus
• Teachers 2012 International Summit on the Teaching Profession
• Attracting, Developing and Retaining Effective Teachers
• Teacher Education for Diversity
• Supporting Quality Teaching in Higher Education
• Thematic Review of Tertiary Education
• Thematic Review of the First Years of Tertiary Education
• Thematic Review on Adult Learning
• Transition from Initial Education to Working Life
• Trends in Research Management and Support

U

• UNESCO/OECD guidelines on "Quality provision in cross-border higher education"
• Universities Institutional Management
• University Futures
• OECD Survey of Upper Secondary Schools

V

• Vocational Education and Training 
• Systemic Innovation in Vocational Education and Training

W

• "What Works"
• 'What Works' in Higher Education Management.

Board Governance of Public University Systems: Stresses and Needs by C. Judson King. CSHE 16.12.
Abstract: Modes of board-level governance for public universities and especially public university systems should be re-examined in view of growing major forces that create both challenges and opportunities that are enormous for public higher education. To sustain the public mission and rise to the challenges and opportunities, there is a growing need to enhance funding from a variety of different sources, many of them private, and to map them onto new initiatives, partnerships, and directions of change. Boards of public universities need to develop new dimensions, including several of the characteristics of private-university boards that have been honed over many years. Promising alternatives to consider, alone or in combination, are public boards with mixed public-private membership, delegation of some responsibilities of university-system boards to subsidiary boards for individual campuses, more serious consideration of outsourcing components of public higher education to private universities, and possibly in some cases even conversion of public universities or components of them to private status. Several of the important considerations associated with the establishment of individual campus boards under a main system board are explored in more depth.
A TIME OF CHANGE
As the Morrill Act of 1862 has reached its sesquicentennial year, public universities in the United States are in a time of intense financial stress, large opportunities relating primarily to advances in technology, and consequently difficult but necessary change. The most visible and immediate of these changes comes from diminishing support from state governments, which in the United States are the bodies to which the public universities belong. But there are other major forces as well. Patterns of immigration, historical disadvantage, and diversification create needs to do a still better job of providing higher education to all peoples, so as to provide a vital route for upward mobility and to enable the best and the brightest from all areas of society to accomplish what they are inherently capable of doing. That has been the primary mission of the public university systems. High-speed and broadband communications provide ease of collaboration and partnership across borders and in real time. Because of broadband communication and for other reasons, there has been an immense movement toward in what is loosely called globalization, which has been most notable in the world of business. The forces of globalization have also struck universities and will do so all the more as time goes on. There is also a large potential for internet-based instruction, which is a complex arena that is being explored by nearly all universities and many persons within them in a wide variety of ways. Donwload Board Governance of Public University Systems.

An issue under debate worldwide and at IIEP
Tertiary education for economic growth and competitiveness is increasingly recognized as of critical importance – not only for middle- and high-income countries, but also for low-income countries. Research universities are emerging as the central institutions of the 21st century knowledge economies, but there is also growing competition for human talent across higher education systems.
In recent years, the proliferation of international university league tables – extending the tradition of national rankings in the United States – has generated increased focus on world-class universities (WCU) which seems to offer a more systematic way of identifying and classifying the top universities globally. International rankings have, however, their own biases since they focus very largely on measurable research performance and favour the Anglo-Saxon world.
The ways to settle World-Class Universities
“World-class universities are institutions with a concentration of human talent, a strong international dimension and abundant resources”, stated Jamil Salmi, in introducing the topic at the seminar held at IIEP on 5 November 2012. Former coordinator for tertiary education at the World Bank, and former member of the IIEP Governing Board, the author of The Challenge of Establishing World-Class Universities pleaded for the creation of brand-new WCUs instead of merging or upgrading existing ones. “There is an inherent danger when governments and universities concentrate too much on establishing world-class universities”, he added. Indeed, there are about 17,000 universities worldwide, and only some 100 can be generally considered as belonging to the select club. Under what conditions then should higher education policy focus at all on the objective of establishing WCUs?
Following Salmi’s presentation, Nilinthone Sacklokham – Officer at the Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education and Sports in Vientiane, Lao PDR, and current trainee in the IIEP Advanced Training Programme – presented the characteristics and challenges of higher education in her country, where higher education has the main function of providing human resources and applied knowledge for national development. While there is a policy of creating centres of excellence within existing universities, there is currently no attempt to establish WCUs.
The presentations were followed by a debate with the audience that focused on contextual factors such as conflict and corruption, which are major obstacles to the establishment of a WCU. The question was also posed whether international agencies should not concentrate their work on helping universities to construct their own particular pathway to development rather than trying to become WCUs.
LINKS:

• Download Jamil Salmi’s presentation
• Download Nilinthone Sacklokham’s presentation
• Download the book The Challenge of Establishing World-Class Universities (published by the World Bank)
• Learn more about IIEP activities on Higher Education

Widening Participation Professional Practice and Identities. Wednesday, 14 November 2012. Access & Widening Participation Network Event
Little attention has been paid to the production of new professional identities and practices in higher education as part of the widening participation (WP) policy agenda. Jones and Thomas argue that WP practitioners tend to work on the periphery of universities, in separate centres and outside of academic faculties and departments (Jones and Thomas 2005). Burke (2012) argues that questions of identity matter in terms of power relations within institutions and the constructions of (lack of) authority that might facilitate or impede processes of change and transformation. This seminar draws on research to explore the spaces in which those with specific responsibility for WP work, and the implications of the roles, practices and identities of WP professionals for WP in higher education.
Working in a Third Space - Dr Celia Whitchurch, Senior Lecturer, Institute of Education, University of London
Widening participation professionals find themselves working in spaces that involve partnership with multiple stakeholders including, for instance, students, parents, schools, tertiary providers, employers, and regional and national agencies. Their roles can encompass broadly based projects such as student life, community partnership and institutional research. They therefore develop an appreciation of wide-ranging agendas relating to patterns of recruitment, learning support, outreach, welfare and employability.  In this sense they can be seen as working in what Whitchurch has termed a Third Space between academic and professional spheres of activity  (Whitchurch 2008, 2012). This has implications for understandings of, for instance, organisational relationships, sources of legitimacy, and career development. The session will draw on two studies funded by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education to consider the challenges that arise for both individuals and institutions from these extended roles and identities, and ways in which such challenges might be addressed.
Stratification, marketisation and social inequalities: Institutional approaches to widening participation in higher education - Pauline Whelan (Centre for Social and Educational Research across the Life Course, Leeds Metropolitan University)
In this talk, I contextualise institutional approaches to widening participation within an increasingly stratified and marketised English higher education system.  I present a series of visualisations of widening participation ‘performance’ data from all higher education institutions in England for the period 2002-2010, focusing on how institutional widening participation ‘performances’ have varied across mission groups and by institutional type.  While quantitative differences in institutional widening participation ‘performances’tell revealing stories about institutional diversity, they also illuminate the problems of existing datasets and modes of accountability. Turning from critical statistics to critical discourse analysis, I present an analysis of official widening participation documentation from 18 universities in England and discuss how institutions have variously adopted and rejected elements of national widening participation discourses, policies and philosophies.  Insights from the quantitative and qualitative analyses are used to conceptualise the variation in institutional approaches to widening participation and to consider the implications for social inequalities in higher education.

Languages and Entrepreneurship
    Date: 21 Nov 2012
    Start Time: 06:00 pm
    Location/venue: 10-11 Carlton House Terrace London , SW1Y 5AH
The event will launch a HEA report that presents case studies from former students of a wide range of disciplines who used their experience abroad or built on their intercultural skills to identify business opportunities and launch an enterprise of their own.
6-8pm, followed by a networking reception.
The event will explore how student international mobility and language learning can give rise to entrepreneurship and commercial success. The event will begin by launching a report by the HEA that presents case studies from former students of a wide range of disciplines who used their experience abroad or built on their intercultural skills to identify business opportunities and launch an enterprise of their own. The panel will be composed of entrepreneurs, including founder of Applingua Ltd, Robert Lo Bue.
Attendance is free, but registration is required. To register, please visit: http://www.eventbrite.com/.

Skills for a Greener Economy
Date: 27 Nov 2012. Start Time: 09:30 am. Location/venue: Homerton College, Hills Road, Cambridge, England, CB2 8PH
The transition to a greener economy requires a workforce with the right knowledge and skills and as we progress down the path of a ‘knowledge’ economy many of these skills will be required at Levels 4 and above. Universities therefore have a key role to play, not only in preparing their students to participate in and drive this transition but also in influencing its direction of travel and ensuring it is truly compatible with the goal of sustainability.
This event aims to;
(i) Help crystallise the characteristics (e.g. knowledge, skills understanding,attitudes, values) of a graduate required to contribute to and influence the transition to a greener economy. Specifically what they need to know, what they need to be able to do and how they need to behave.
(ii) Discuss how HEIs can develop these characteristics through an open and transparent education.
The outcomes from the day will also directly address the goal of the New Anglia Green Economy Pathfinder to create and retain a workforce which can deliver innovative, entrepreneurial and radical solutions to the business challenges and opportunities we face.
Due to a system upgrade our online booking system is currently down. To book onto this event please complete the booking form and return it to externalevents@heacademy.ac.uk.

Quality assurance agencies in higher education exist for many purposes. One area of their responsibility is checking that institutions or programs meet certain criteria, requirements or standards, or achieve certain levels of performance. This task is commonly called accreditation, but other terms exist, such as assessment, licensure, recognition, authorisation, etc. Accreditation checks can be mandated by government or required by other organisations, and can be for the purpose, inter alia, of

• triggering funding of an institution or program or
• enabling students to receive grants and loans
• recognising degrees and diplomas by the government
• authorising employment of graduates or
• preventing or closing an institution                             

The accreditation process is intended to prevent the creation or continuation of poor quality programs or institutions, and hence it is a consumer protection mechanism. Some institutions are genuine but of poor quality, and some institutions (often called degree mills or diploma mills) purport to provide qualifications, at a price, but the qualification is worthless because the ‘institution’ requires insufficient – perhaps no – work to achieve it.
The accreditation process is intended to weed out these inadequate institutions. Therefore, in a country where such gatekeeping, policing or quality control exists, potential students or would-be employers of graduates are advised to check that an institution is in good standing with the relevant accreditor.
To assist the consumer of higher education, UNESCO has developed a Portal that provides reference to accredited institutions in many countries.
Unfortunately, some unscrupulous operators have recognised that the basic consumer check is to ask whether an institution is accredited, and so there has been an emergence of bogus or spurious accrediting bodies, often, by analogy, called ‘accreditation mills’. These enable an institution to claim to be accredited, hence circumventing the consumer’s first line of defence. The existence of accreditation mills therefore means that a consumer (student, employer, etc.) must go one step further and investigate whether the claimed accreditation is itself valid and meaningful.
The US Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) has suggested the following tests that can be applied to a purported accrediting body. If the answers to many of the following questions are ‘yes’, the accrediting organization under consideration may be bogus:

• Does the operation allow accredited status to be purchased?
• Does the operation publish lists of institutions or programs they claim to have accredited without those institutions and programs knowing that they are listed or have been accredited?
• Does the operation claim that it is recognized (by some other body) when it is not?
• Are few if any standards for quality published by the operation?
• Is a very short period of time required to achieve accredited status?
• Are accreditation reviews routinely confined to submitting documents and do not include site visits or interviews of key personnel by the accrediting organization?
• Is ‘permanent’ accreditation granted without any requirement for subsequent periodic review, either by an external body or by the organization itself?
• Does the operation use organizational names similar to recognized accrediting organizations?
• Does the operation make claims in its publications for which there is no evidence?
• Does the operation claim that its accreditations would have international status?
• Does the operation claim recognition by international bodies or associations that in themselves are not in to the field of accreditation? (Examples would include UNESCO, NAFSA, AACRAO, EAIE.)

To further assist in the identification of valid agencies and, by contrast, detect whether an agency might be bogus, INQAAHE offers the following pointers to some lists of recognised and valid accrediting/quality assurance/recognition bodies. INQAAHE members are invited to suggest other lists of bona fide quality agencies. Accredibase provides a related service for a fee.

• INQAAHE’s full members
• The Council for HE Accreditation (CHEA) 
• The European QA Register (EQAR) 
• ENQA full members
• APQN full and associate members
• Dutch Diploma Mill website.

(Almaty, 25 October 2012) Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, a leading higher education institution organized, under auspices of the Ministry of Education and Science and in collaboration with IREG Observatory the Regional Forum on Development of Higher Education in Central Asia: The Role of Quality Assurance, Relevant Information and Rankings. Several international experts on academic rankings and quality assurance in higher education met at the Forum with rectors and officers of universities in Kazakhstan and other universities in Central Asia. With the region’s growing economic strength, universities there show ambition to improve their position locally and internationally. More...
Resolution of the Regional Forum Development of Higher Education in Central Asia: The Role of Quality Assurance, Relevant Information and Rankings. Al-Farabi KazNU, 25 October 2012, Almaty
Al-Farabi Kazakh National University in collaboration with IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence held the Regional Forum Development of Higher Education in Central Asia: The Role of Quality Assurance, Relevant Information and Rankings on 25th Octobers, 2012.
During the Forum the participants had a great opportunity to share the presentations of keynote speakers, the leading foreign experts and scholars engaged in university rankings and accreditation such as Jan Sadlak, President of IREG International Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence (France), Gero Federkeil, Vice-President of IREG Observatory, the Director of the Centre for Higher Education CHE (Germany), Zoya Zaitseva, the Regional Director of Central Europe & Central Asia QS (UK), Waldemar Siwinski, the Vice-President of IREG-Observatory, President of Perspektywy Education Foundation (Poland), Angela Yung-Chi Hou, the Director of Center for Faculty Development & Instructional Resources, Fu Jen Catholic University (Taiwan), and Maxim Khomyakov, the Vice-Rector for International Policy of Ural Federal University (Russian Federation). In addition, presentation was made by Ashraf Darwish, Cultural and Educational Attaché, Embassy of Egypt in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The Forum was attended by the rectors and other academic leaders, researchers and students of Kazakhstan and Central Asian universities.
The Forum served as the platform for the heads of Kazakhstan and other universities of Central Asia region for the constructive exchange of views and relevant information on involvement of institutions of higher education in university rankings process and provided the opportunity for building partnerships between the Central Asian universities and ranking agencies. The participants of the Forum have agreed on the need for further enhancement and intensification of multilateral partnerships in quality assurance.
After considering the results of the Forum the participants have come up with the following recommendations:
- The need for the development of quality assurance in higher education with special attention to university rankings as information and transparency tools.
- The need for the promotion of Kazakhstan and Central Asian universities in the system of the world university rankings.
- The importance of national rankings as an integral part of the world university rankings.
The Resolution has been approved by the participants of the Forum held on 25 October, 2012.

Work and Careers Survey - University job security not what it used to be
University corridors are no longer a traditional haven of job security, however a gender divide continues to infiltrate the university workplace, extensive new research has confirmed.
The Work and Careers in Australian Universities Survey also shows that heavy workloads are a concern for academic staff.  Over half the sessional teaching staff would like a continuing academic job, but believe they have little chance of getting this.
“The data gathered in this study will help to inform and shape the future of the Australian university sector as it engages with a new wave of change, triggered partly by electronic advancements and emerging opportunities in online education,” Professor Glenda Strachan from Griffith Business School said.
Almost 22,000 members of staff at 19 Australian universities were surveyed, making it the most comprehensive and revealing survey of its kind to date. Three key groups were surveyed from August to December 2011: Academic staff, Professional and General staff, and Sessional Teaching staff.
“The work positions of almost half of those surveyed can be described as insecure, with fixed-term contracts starting to take over from continuing positions,” Professor Strachan said. “Traditionally, universities have been regarded as places of job security and that seems to be changing.”
Professor Strachan teamed up with fellow Griffith researchers, Professor David Peetz, Associate Professor Janis Bailey and Dr Kaye Broadbent, and with Professor Gillian Whitehouse from the University of Queensland as chief investigators on the ARC Linkage Grant project.
“An ongoing pattern of gender segregation was observed for all university workers and across disciplines. We found women are less likely than men to reach senior and management positions,” Professor Strachan, deputy head of Griffith’s Department for Employment Relations and Human Resources said.
“We can say that professional and general staff in university are highly credentialed. The majority want to remain employed in the university sector and progress in the university sector, but many don’t think they are likely to get to a position they believe they are qualified to hold.”
Professor Strachan described the survey as “important and timely” and highlighted its extensive reach. “Whereas previous surveys focused solely on academic staff, this study also takes into account the views of the general and professional staff that make up such a significant proportion of the workforce.”
See key findings here: Work and Careers Survey Executive Summary 2012.
The full report can be downloaded from here: Work and Careers Report on Employee Survey 2012.