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Knowledge and Skills for Life assesses how far students near the end of compulsory education (15-year-olds) have acquired some of the knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in society.  It presents evidence on student performance in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy, reveals factors that influence the development of these skills at home and at school, and examines what the implications are for policy development.

The report shows considerable variation in levels of knowledge and skills between students, schools and countries. The extent to which the socio-economic background of students and schools affects student performance varies.  Some countries have managed to mitigate the influence of social background and some have done that while achieving a high overall mean performance.

A Winner of the 2001 Awards for Notable Government Documents conferred by the American Library Association/Library Journal

As an input to Korea's efforts to revise the country's development strategy, the OECD and the World Bank have prepared a joint review of the challenges confronting Korea in its transition to a knowledge-based economy. The report proposes a four-pronged framework which will empower Korea to effectively tap into technology advances and the growing stock of knowledge: 1.  An economic and institutional regime that provides incentives for the efficient use of existing knowledge, for the creation of new knowledge, for the dismantling of obsolete activities and for the start-up of more efficient new ones. 2. An educated and entrepreneurial population that can both create and use new knowledge. 3. A dynamic information infrastructure that can facilitate effective communication, dissemination and processing of information. 4. An efficient innovation system comprising firms, science and research centers, universities, think tanks, consultants and other organizations that can interact and tap into the growing stock of global knowledge; assimilate and adapt it to local needs; and use it to create new knowledge and technology.

The report addresses additional challenges with respect to the development of knowledge-based activities, and of setting up an overall framework for the design and implementation of more consistent policies conducive to the knowledge-based economy.

To function and prosper in the learning society, the management of knowledge is becoming a new and crucial challenge for both private companies and public organisations. It is increasingly important for companies and organisations to produce, share and use knowledge on a national and global scale. However, there is an urgent need for analysis of the knowledge economy both at the micro- and macro economic level in order to understand its characteristics and dynamics, and to identify the most appropriate routes for policy development. Little is known on how sectors and organisations could use knowledge more efficiently and how to benchmark organisations as learning organisations. This book is an ambitious attempt to address these issues through a better understanding of knowledge and learning processes at a sectorial level. It analyses and compares concretely the processes of knowledge production, dissemination and use in the engineering, the information and communication technology, the health and the education sectors.

Governments urgently need better knowledge bases for determining educational policy and practice in an increasingly interconnected world. The rate, quality and success in knowledge creation, mediation and application are relatively low in the education sector compared with other sectors. Unlike sectors such as medicine and engineering, education has not yet seen continuous and clear improvements due to technical and organisational advances. The book makes a strong plea for strengthening the knowledge management at every level of the education system.