The OECD’s Directorate for Education helps member and non-member economies to foster human and social capital skills and leverage education and training systems to shape dynamic and sustainable futures. This means preparing learners for more rapid change than ever before. Key questions concern how skills can be matched to new needs, how to foster innovation, how to equip teachers for the 21st century, and how to reinforce the positive social impacts of education. We encourage countries to compare their performance and experience, and to learn from each other.

This summary report is based on results from OECD work produced since 2002 when the Directorate for Education was created, and especially in the past three to four years. The background to its preparation is explained in the Foreword by Director Barbara Ischinger. The approach chosen focuses on results and policy orientations which are published and hence in the public domain. Only generalised findings about developments, policy or practice relevant across most OECD countries have been included. So, not covered are: studies or reviews of single countries; publications which provide exchange of information on promising practice without broader analytical conclusions; work plans and programme intentions; and clarifying statements of problems, challenges or issues.

Participation in education by three- and four-year-olds tends now to be high, though coverage is a third or less of the age group in several OECD countries. Early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been a growing priority in OECD countries, and the subject of past and ongoing OECD analysis. A major OECD review was published in 2006 – Starting Strong II: Early Childhood Education and Care, from which many of these conclusions are drawn – which has been followed up with an ongoing international network. There are wide differences between systems, including between those which have a strong “preparation for school” approach and those implementing a broader social pedagogy, between those with mainly public provision and those relying strongly on private household resources, as well as in the relative emphasis on education and childcare. Improving the quality of ECEC is a universal issue, as is enhancing the contribution of ECEC to equity.

There have been major investments in schooling across OECD countries, including in teacher salaries. Shared patterns exist alongside notable differences such as in teacher beliefs (as charted with the Teaching and Learning International Survey [TALIS]) and in school time use. Since the 2005 study, Teachers Matter, much OECD work has analysed the characteristics of learners and learning, teachers, and how to improve school leadership. Data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have permitted specific analyses of aspects of schooling, such as student attitudes towards and knowledge of the environment. Work on the educational role of technology has shown how important is home use for educational outcomes. Policy orientations on schooling have stressed the need to professionalise and innovate, calling for reforms directed at effective learning to be placed at the core of schooling, rather than changing only structures and administrative systems. The OECD continues to analyse and stress the value of good school design and safe buildings.

The OECD has examined arrangements and policies surrounding the transitions beyond compulsory schooling. Extended education to at least completion of the upper secondary cycle is increasingly the norm right now across the OECD countries. Alongside shared patterns are marked differences on such matters as the relative proportions who engage in general or vocational study, as well as the possibilities to combine education with employment. Vocational education and training – which have tended to be neglected in countries compared with general school and university programmes, and which often do not well meet labour market needs – have been the focus for recent OECD review, with a new publication, Learning for Jobs. OECD policy orientations have stressed the need to improve the existence, diversity, relevance and transparency of different pathways, and the need to integrate them into a lifelong learning perspective, while protecting those left most vulnerable as others advance to further education and employment.

Countries have shared the very rapid expansion of higher or tertiary education, which means that instead of this being an experience enjoyed by a privileged minority, it has now become even the majority experience of each new cohort. There are broad trends visible across the OECD – for instance, the growing international tertiary education market and the greater formalisation of quality assurance. Despite rising costs for the individual, tertiary education remains a primarily public enterprise in most countries. There has been prominent OECD work on higher education, including on internationalisation, a major review of tertiary education, the regional role of higher education institutions (HEIs), the future of higher education, and feasibility work on the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO). Policy orientations include the need to develop and work towards strategic visions, to ensure that quality assurance serves both improvement and accountability purposes, and to use costsharing between the state and students as the principle to shape the sector’s funding.

This chapter draws on various sources to examine evidence and recommendations regarding adult education and training, and lifelong learning more widely. It brings together survey information on individuals in the adult population, education system information, enterprise data, and research findings on the ageing process. Wide differences exist between countries in which organised learning is a common adult activity and where it remains much less common. The majority of the learning undertaken relates to non-formal job-related training, and in the formal education sector there are countries where very few older adults are found. Studies of ageing show the clear benefits of continued learning. Findings and conclusions from OECD studies on key areas such as financing (especially co-financing), guidance, the recognition of non-formal learning, and qualifications systems are presented, some of these from the mid-2000s.

Very rich information on educational outcomes has been generated through OECD work, especially with the triennial Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which surveys the achievements of 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics, science and related aspects of competence, together with a range of associated background information. Education is also closely related to employment outcomes and earnings, with key OECD findings reported in this chapter. Additionally there is an expanding analysis of returns to education within the OECD, with findings confirming the positive returns to higher levels of educational attainment on a variety of measures, certainly for the individual, but also for the economy at large. There are also positive returns to early childhood education and care, and to vocational education. Work on the social outcomes of education examines how education influences health, civic participation and social engagement, as well as the economic outcomes.

Analyses of developments and policies that influence equity have been an underlying priority in much of the OECD educational work. The persistent patterns of inequality have been highlighted, with the increasing quality of international data permitting analyses relating to many pertinent groups of learners and their educational experiences. The dimensions and groups include gender, age, migrant status, special needs and social background, and cover adult formal and non-formal learning, as well as schooling, vocational education and higher education. Recent OECD analysis has also charted the nature of the “digital divide”. Findings and recommendations from a major international review of equity in education published in 2007 – No More Failures – are presented. The chapter reports promising policy directions from studies published since then, including those on immigrants’ education, cultural diversity and teacher education, and on adults in foundation programmes for numeracy and literacy.

Recognition of the key role of research and knowledge management in educational practice and policy making is in general recent. The volume of relevant educational research and development (R&D) tends to be low, despite education being so explicitly about knowledge, and there has been only weak capacity to develop and exploit the knowledge base on which to build improved practice and effective policies. A great deal of educational change is still shaped by short-term considerations despite education’s fundamental long-term mission and nature. Improving the knowledge base and fostering innovation have been the aims of policy in a number of countries. Within the OECD, analyses of educational R&D systems, knowledge management, innovative practice and systemic innovation, futures thinking, and evidence-informed policy and practice, have all been prominent, some of it carried out in contribution to the OECD’s horizontal Innovation Strategy. Analysis has also focused around the so-called 21st century skills, seen as fundamental to innovative and creative societies.