What the D in OECD stands for

by Barbara Ischinger
Director for Education

Did you know that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development helped to lay the groundwork for the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals? Even though Development is part of our name, there are many people who don’t realise just how much of our resources are devoted to developing economies and not only to the development of the OECD’s 34 member countries.

The focus of this year’s International Economic Forum on Africa, held at the OECD’s Paris headquarters in early October, was youth employment, but this issue cannot be separated from another one just as important:  education. The African Economic Outlook 2012 notes that in Egypt, for example, about 1.5 million young people are unemployed at the same time that private-sector firms cannot fill 600 000 vacancies. And in South Africa, there are 3 million young people who are neither in education nor employed and 600 000 unemployed university graduates, yet 800 000 jobs are vacant. At the Forum itself, I heard many participants ask themselves whether they were equipping their students with the skills their economies needed.

This is exactly where the OECD’s expertise in collecting and analysing data can help. Already, many of the countries and economies that participate in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) are in the developing world; but we think all countries would benefit from even greater participation by developing countries. By participating in PISA, countries can see whether the skills they are teaching their 15-year-olds are relevant to “real life”. They can also learn from other countries’ experiences how to improve their own education systems, and can benchmark their progress over time. The assessment, itself, benefits by gaining a deeper understanding of student performance in a broader range of countries and cultural contexts.

We have completed a review of Egypt’s system of higher education and have also reviewed the education systems of South Africa, Gabon and Mauritius. These in-depth analyses – conducted in close collaboration with local actors, regional organisations and other international partners – can guide countries in reforming their education policies so that students leave school with the skills needed to participate productively in the economy. We also stand ready to work with our partners – in Africa and elsewhere – to build stronger links between labour markets and education systems. That would help to avoid the situation, seen in so many countries, where universities train students to become civil servants when what the country or region really needs are engineers and health workers – and also people with the mid-level trade, technical and professional skills that can be acquired through well-designed vocational programmes. At the moment, vocational education accounts for only 5% of training among African youth.

As the 2015 target date for achieving the Millennium Development Goals approaches, the international community has begun to consider a framework for goals beyond 2015. For the first set of goals, progress in education is measured by access; I hope that future goals will complement such measures by looking at learning outcomes. Again, this is one of the OECD’s specialties, and we’re keen to offer our work and expertise to an even larger number of countries. I thought you’d want to know.

Links:
OECD Development home page
The OECD and the Millennium Development Goals
OECD Strategy on Development
The OECD Strategy on Development: Giving fresh impetus to a core mission
2012 International Economic Forum on Africa
OECD Skills Strategy
Photo credit: Orphan students in Swaziland / Shutterstock

Better skills and better policies lead to better lives for women

by Michelle Bachelet
United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women

The global economic crisis, with high levels of unemployment, especially among youth, and rising inequality, with large wage gaps between high- and low-skilled workers, has added urgency to the need for better skills. This is especially important for women, who already face barriers to participating fully in the economy. Investing in their skills from early childhood, through compulsory education, and throughout their working life can transform women’s lives and drive economies. Equally important are better policies to promote equal rights and opportunities and women’s full participation in public life.

Investment in skills is particularly important during these tough economic times.  Skilled workers play a crucial role in generating future jobs and economic growth. Women’s entry into the labour market has been an important driver of European economic growth in the past decade. Research finds that closing the female-male employment gap would have positive economic implications for developed economies, boosting US GDP by as much as 9% and euro area GDP by as much as 13%. A 2011 report by the International Labor Organization and the Asia Development Bank revealed that a gender equality gap in employment rates for women cost Asia USD 47 billion annually – 45% of women remained outside the workplace compared to 19% of men.

It is time to remove the barriers to women’s full participation in the economy. The OECD has found that the main reason 25-39-year-old women cite for choosing to work part-time is their care responsibilities. The same reason is given when inactive women are asked why they don’t participate in the labour market at all.  Globally, women are still responsible for 60% to 80% of household chores and childcare. Worldwide, women account for 58% of unpaid work.

Although 552 million women joined the global labor force between 1980 and 2008, and research shows that reducing the gender employment gap improves economic growth, millions of women remain marginalised from the formal economy. In Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia, only about one-quarter of adult women were in the labour force in 2010, compared with 70% to 80% participation rates among adult men.

An agenda for equality is needed that includes better skills and better policies so that women can exercise their economic, social, cultural and civil rights and economies can be healthier and more inclusive. Policies are urgently needed to help women and men reconcile work and family responsibilities, through the provision of childcare and maternity and paternity leave, and flexible working hours. Tax and pension systems also need to be revisited and revised to encourage equality.

When it comes to promoting women’s economic empowerment, we are not starting from scratch. There are many important initiatives taking place in all regions, including in low- and middle-income countries, to ensure economic justice and security for women. These include flexible childcare that enables women to participate in the labour force, fair pensions to ensure that older women do not live in poverty, cash transfers to enable families to send their girls to school, and training that gives women skills in entrepreneurship and new technologies. Our challenge is to make the equality agenda universal. In 2013, UN Women will use our flagship report, Progress of the World’s Women, to present evidence on the policies that work, to enable countries to learn from one another and drive the change we want to see.

Links:
UN Women
For the OECD Skills Strategy go to: http://skills.oecd.org
See also OECD work on:

OECD Work on Gender via www.oecd.org/gender

Gender equality and women's empowerment
Early Childhood Education and Care
OECD Forum 2012
Photo credit: Girl with balloons /Shutterstock

It’s a small world indeed

by Barbara Ischinger
Director for Education

Earlier this week I attended the Transforming Education Summit  in the Emirate state of Abu Dhabi. Some 15 ministers and former ministers from all regions of the world, from countries in all stages of development found—perhaps surprisingly—a lot they could agree on when it comes to education: the importance of raising the status of the teaching profession so that qualified candidates apply, the need to strike a better gender balance among teachers at all levels of education, and the need for trust in education systems—trust between governments and teachers, and trust between parents and teachers.

What this says to me is that our expertise in education policy can and should be shared more widely; and the OECD stands ready to work with non-member countries as they seek to improve their education systems. Already, 29 of the 75 countries and economies that participated in PISA in 2009-10 were recipients of Official Development Assistance. And we see that the share of public budgets devoted to education in many ODA recipient countries is equal to or above the OECD average.

What can non-member countries gain from working with the OECD? Take participation in PISA. PISA provides internationally comparable data and benchmarks for comparing the quality of national education systems. Evaluations of education policies help non-members to better understand their PISA results, identify why their students are performing they way they are, and help these countries and economies find feasible ways of addressing shortcomings. These kinds of targeted evaluations help countries to direct money to the right places.

In addition, we can conduct peer reviews of national education policies. Since 1992, more than 70 reviews have been conducted in countries in southeast Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa region, some in collaboration with the World Bank. These reviews are jointly organised by national authorities and the OECD. Policy recommendations, which can be used for planning development aid, target all areas of education systems. They tend to stimulate broad public discussion and are used by governments and multilateral organisations as reference in shaping reforms. Perhaps most important: we talk to all stakeholders—representatives from different areas and levels of education, and unions too—at the same time.

And we learn from our experiences with non-member countries too. The OECD is proposing to introduce several new indicators to measure progress towards development. These include average teacher salary as a percentage of GDP per capita, enrolment and completion rates by education level, the school-to-work transition as measured by unemployment rates by education level, measures of equity in education achievement by gender and background characteristics, and  the extent to which highly educated students emigrate out of ODA-receiving countries, what is known as brain drain.

Throughout our 50 years of working on education policy, we’ve found that good ideas come from countries large and small. In sharing those ideas, we can create better policies for better lives all around the globe.

And speaking of our small world, if you’re interested in speaking in our small world, I recommend leafing through one of the OECD’s latest books, Languages in a Global World: Learning for Better Cultural Understanding. Did you know that the world’s seven billion people speak about 6 000 languages? That there are over 30 times as many languages as there are states? This provocative book, which sweeps from history and sociology through psychology and neuroscience, to music, philosophy and ethics, makes the case with wit and irreverence that learning languages is now more crucial than ever.

Find out more about: OECD work on education in non-member economies

Photo credit: Sphere of letters / Shutterstock

Starting Strong: The people helping to raise young children

by Kelly Makowiecki
Assistant to the Early Childhood Education and Care Project, Directorate for Education

For my generation, the concept of a stay-at-home parent seems like something of the past. And even if you want to stay home for the first few years of your child’s life, who can afford not to work these days? So what are kids up to during those precious, formative early years after their parents go back to work and before compulsory school begins around age 5 or 6? At some point, a lot of them enter into a formal education or care setting and are the responsibility of someone other than their family.

Who are the people we turn to for help in the immensely important role of raising our young children? And can we value them as much as we depend on them?

That’s difficult to judge when, for starters, the early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce consists of a wide variety of actors with an equally wide range of qualifications.  Those working as preschool/kindergarten teachers tend to have higher qualification requirements than those working in child care centres or family day care: the former usually need a university degree, while the latter sometimes only need to complete compulsory education. But in countries like Japan and Portugal, the same university-level qualification is required for both job types.

Maybe they’ve completed a 4-year teacher training programme or have a vocational degree in child care. Maybe they have prior learning or work experience that was converted into credits towards an ECEC certification, which is popular in countries like the Netherlands and New Zealand. No matter the pathway taken into the profession, professionals need to be equipped with the knowledge and skills that enable them to foster a high-quality pedagogic environment conducive to favourable cognitive and social outcomes for children.

So perhaps more important than the qualification level itself is the content of the training required to obtain the qualification. When entrusting a child with a childcare professional, we expect them to know about how children develop and learn. We want them to be trained in nurturing children’s perspectives and responding to their needs. Such skills ensure that kids are provided with the strong start they deserve.

Thanks to a growing body of research, the importance of high-quality ECEC is increasingly apparent. Academic institutions all over the world have or are developing programmes of study in this field. Governments are investing in recruiting better trained staff and undertaking campaigns to raise the profile of the profession. Employers are encouraging their staff to pursue ongoing training to fill in knowledge gaps and maintain their professional quality.

Are these endeavours cheap? No. Are they worth it? Yes. The ECEC workforce is on the front line of helping to ensure that young children develop the skills they need to be successful in compulsory school and beyond. School failure and its social costs later in life can be far more expensive.

The OECD has been reviewing ECEC for well over a decade; and it is no wonder that improving workforce qualifications, training and working conditions has emerged as a policy priority across countries. To learn more, check out Starting Strong III: A quality toolbox for early childhood education and care, a new OECD publication to be launched at a Roundtable in Oslo, Norway on 23-24 January 2012.

Links:
For more information about OECD’s work on early childhood education and care (ECEC): www.oecd.org/edu/earlychildhood
Online quality toolbox for early childhood education and care: www.oecd.org/edu/earlychildhood/toolbox
Investing in high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) (PDF 1.79 MB)
OECD-Norway High-level Roundtable: Starting Strong: Implementing Policies for High Quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)

Related blog posts:
Starting Strong: what should children learn?
Early childhood education: an international development issue

Photo credit: Microsoft

Starting Strong: what should children learn?

by Matias Egeland
Consultant, OECD Directorate for Education

In Norway, where I’m from, we believe children have the right to progress at their own speed, and enjoy a childhood of pleasure and freedom. The fundamental idea, shared by several Nordic countries, is that childhood is the time to have fun, as opposed to being in school (or anything resembling school for that matter). Admittedly, this sounds very nice, if not a bit idealistic.

While it is important for children to be just children, the early years are also especially formative and important for children to develop skills and competencies . The importance and value of good quality care and education for children is becoming increasingly clear, and have shown to impact things as diverse as creativity and life-time earnings.

As the early years represent a crucial chance to shape and impact children and their future development, the key question is which traits and abilities do we want children to acquire and harness?

The curricula that shape and guide early childhood programmes have traditionally been divided between those seen to focus on “academic” learning in specific subject areas, and those seeking a “comprehensive” approach more focused on children’s social development. The Nordic take on child care has tended towards that of the “comprehensive” approach.

The countries that tend to favour an “academic” approach usually see the child as  a young person to be formed, the child presenting an investment for society. They try to centre curricula on what is considered “useful” learning. However, what actually is “useful” for children to learn should be given some thought.

The “soft” skills favoured in a “comprehensive” approach such as self-confidence, creativity, independence and initiative are useful beyond giving children a happy childhood. Indeed, these personality traits are important for making children capable life-long learners. Initial knowledge of geography is likely not as important as confidence and willingness to learn for later academic success. For example self-control and attentional control are found to be a stronger predictor for school readiness than IQ and entry level reading or math. Moreover, these traits are proving increasingly important for later labour market success.

Soft skills that can be fostered in the early years are not just useful, they are also important from an equity perspective. They can play a key role in evening out the gap between children who are less likely to develop confidence and emotional control in their home setting. A US study showed that children from professional families experience around six positive verbal interactions (affirmations or encouragements) for each negative one (prohibitions, being told off, etc.). In contrast children in families on welfare experience two negative interactions for each positive one. Furthermore, as the Economist put it in a recent article: “the qualities that employers in the service sector want are those the middle classes acquire at home: articulacy, confidence and smartness”.

Confidence and emotional control do not develop automatically, but can be facilitated by skilled professionals by focusing on children’s perspectives and through active use of play . What goes into the curricula that guide what children learn and do in a care or education setting is of great importance. The new OECD publication “Starting Strong III: A Quality Toolbox for Early Childhood Education and Care” states clearly that curriculum matters and lessons from the Nordic, and other, countries  suggest that focusing on the “child” and effectively using  play as a learning strategy can  benefit children's development. 

Starting Strong III will be launched in Oslo on January 24th. Having invested hugely in child care, revamped their curriculum and reformed their kindergarten staff education, the Norwegian minister of Education, Kristin Halvorsen, is hosting an OECD Roundtable on Early Childhood Education and Care. Ministers, policy-makers and stakeholders from across the world are coming together to address the challenges in achieving high-quality child care and education.


Links:
For more information about OECD’s work on early childhood education and care (ECEC): www.oecd.org/edu/earlychildhood
Investing in high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) (PDF 1.79 MB)
OECD-Norway High-level Roundtable: Starting Strong: Implementing Policies for High Quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)

Photo credit: iStockphoto, Microsoft Partner