by David Istance Senior Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills Education has become increasingly important worldwide, including politically. Probably the key driver for this is economic – the fundamental role of knowledge and skills in underpinning and maintaining prosperity. No argument has more political purchase today regarding education’s value than that it enhances competitiveness. These developments create an appetite for reform and innovation, often manifest as favouring “learning” over “education”, and a readiness to disrupt accepted institutional arrangements as too slow to change, too inward-looking, and too detached from the economic shifts taking place globally and locally. This represents a very different starting point for innovation compared with the longstanding educational ambition to realise more holistic opportunities and promote individual development. From this perspective, the problem is not that the institutions of education are too detached from the econo...
by Andreas Schleicher Director, Directorate for Education and Skills More than 35 million 16-29 year-olds across OECD countries are neither employed nor in education or training (NEET) – and around half of all NEETs are out of school and not looking for work. These young people are likely to have dropped off the radar of their country’s education, social and labour market systems. The OECD Skills Outlook 2015: Youth, Skills and Employability , launched today, asserts that this unacceptable waste of human potential stems partly from the fact that too many young people leave education without having acquired the right skills (according to the 2013 Survey of Adult Skills , 10% of new graduates have poor literacy skills and 14% have poor numeracy skills); and that not enough young people have experience in the world of work (less than 50% of students in vocational education and training programmes, and less than 40% of students in academic programmes in the 22 OECD countries and regions co...
by Andreas Schleicher Director, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills Productivity gains of better matching the skills acquired in education with those required on the job are potentially large for Korea, 2012 The Korean economy has seen significant growth in the past decades. However, much of the economic growth has been supported by intensive labour resource utilisation. Korean workers work the second longest hours among OECD countries. This is not sustainable in the long-term because Korea’s working age population is projected to decline from 2017 onwards. The growth rate of GDP per capita is on a downward trend. Ensuring that Korea’s economy continues on the path to growth will mean raising employment levels and increasing the labour productivity of its workforce. Skills are central to both higher employment levels and productivity growth. Better skills, effective labour market policies and stronger incentives to work and hire can raise employment levels. And im...
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