What the expansion of higher education means for graduates in the labour market

by Markus Schwabe
Statistician, Directorate for Education and Skills

A university degree has always been considered as key to a good job and higher wages. But as the share of tertiary-educated adults across OECD countries has almost doubled over the last two decades, can the labour market absorb this growing supply of skills? At first glance, the answer isn’t encouraging: the number of unemployed tertiary-educated adults has been increasing across OECD countries for many years. However, a closer look reveals that the unemployment rate for these adults is still much lower than for those without a university degree.

The latest Education Indicators in Focus policy brief analyses long-term trends in employment outcomes of adults based on their highest level of educational attainment. The figure above shows that, in all OECD countries, adults with tertiary education still enjoy higher employment rates than those without by 10 percentage points, on average, and this advantage has changed little over the past two decades.

While this might seem reassuring, in some countries the reality is more troubling. In Korea, for example, labour market demand has not kept pace with an ever-increasing supply of tertiary graduates. As a result, the employment advantage of tertiary-educated adults decreased slightly, by 0.6 point, between 1995 and 2006. In 1995, tertiary-educated adults in Korea were 13% more likely to be employed than those with an upper-secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education; today they are only 6% more likely to have a job. With 70% of young adults in Korea holding a tertiary degree, some might wonder whether tertiary expansion has reached its limit. But with populations of school-aged children shrinking across OECD countries, the worry about too many university graduates competing for too few high-skilled jobs might prove to be misplaced.

The “knowledge economy” has increased the demand for better-educated and well-skilled workers. But in many countries, even as enrolments in higher education have grown, companies still report that they cannot find workers with the skills they are looking for. While technological progress and globalisation continue to challenge education systems, automation and digitalisation will be, in the words of two Harvard economists*, an ongoing “race between education and technology”. Countries should thus worry less about the share of tertiary-educated adults in the labour force and more about the skills that education provides. Ensuring that the skills students graduate with are relevant to the labour market will go a long way towards making the expansion of higher education sustainable – and beneficial for all.

*Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz in their book The Race between Education and Technology (2008), Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Belknap.

Links

Education Indicators in Focus No. 57 - Is labour market demand keeping pace with the rising educational attainment of the population?
Education at a Glance 2017 - OECD Indicators

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Busting the myth about standardised testing

by Tarek Mostafa
Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills

Standardised testing has received a bad rap in recent years. Parents and educators argue that too much testing can make students anxious without improving their learning. In particular, standardised tests that could determine a student’s future – entry into a certain education programme or into university, for example – might trigger anxiety and, if conducted too frequently, might lead to poorer performance, absenteeism and lower self-confidence. But are standardised tests really used all that frequently? And do they exacerbate anxiety and undermine performance?

Evidence from PISA dispels these myths.

On average across OECD countries, about one in four 15-year-old students attends a school where mandatory standardised tests are never used, and three in five attend schools where these tests are used only once or twice a year. In 11 countries, including Belgium, Costa Rica, Germany, Slovenia and Spain, more than one in two students are in schools that never assess students with mandatory standardised tests. In contrast, teacher-developed tests and judgemental ratings are used considerably more frequently. On average across OECD countries, nearly one in three students sits teacher-developed tests every month, and about two in five sit these tests more than once a month. In Belgium, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain and Chinese Taipei, more than 50% of students sit teacher-developed tests more than once a month.

Moreover, contrary to commonly held beliefs, the frequency of tests, as reported by school principals, is not related to the level of test anxiety reported by students. In fact, on average across OECD countries, students who attend schools where they have to sit standardised or teacher-developed tests at least once a month reported similar levels of test anxiety as students who attend schools where assessments are conducted less frequently. One possible explanation is that test anxiety is triggered by aspects of the tests other than their frequency. For instance, the nature or difficulty of the task, the surrounding atmosphere, time constraints, characteristics of the examiner, the mode in which the test is conducted, and the physical setting of the test might influence a student’s psychological attitudes towards the test. All of these factors, in turn, interact with the student’s own ability, self-confidence, motivation, study and test-taking skills, and preparation.

The relationship between performance in science and the frequency with which schools or countries assess students is also weak. On average across OECD countries, students who are assessed with mandatory standardised tests at least once a year score slightly lower in science (by six points) than those who are assessed more frequently, while students who are assessed with teacher-developed tests at least once a month score somewhat higher (by five points) than those who are assessed less frequently. But after accounting for students’ and schools’ socio-economic profile, these associations are not significant.

The findings also show that students’ school experience have a stronger relationship with their likelihood of feeling anxious than the frequency with which they are assessed. PISA shows that students reported less anxiety when their teachers provide more support or adapt the lessons to their needs. In contrast, students reported greater anxiety when they feel that their teachers treat them unfairly, such as by grading them harder than other students, or when they have the impression that their teachers think they are less smart than they are.

In a nutshell, when it comes to standardised tests the evidence from PISA is clear: The negative influence these tests have on schoolwork-related anxiety is a myth, and the bad rap they have received in recent years is unwarranted. Standardised and teacher-developed tests play an important role in monitoring student performance and academic progress. They do not exacerbate anxiety, especially when students perceive that their teachers treat them fairly, and help them build their self-confidence.

Links
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
PISA in Focus No. 79 - Is too much testing bad for student performance and well-being?
PISA 2015 Results (Volume II) - Policies and Practices for Successful Schools
PISA 2015 Results (Volume III) - Students' Well-Being

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Image source: @Shutterstock

Citizenship and education in a digital world

by Marc Fuster
Consultant, Directorate for Education and Skills

"Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence”, George Orwell wrote in 1943. And in an era of ‘fake news’ and post-truth, it resembles our world today.

Democracies are built upon the principles of equality and the participation of citizens in public deliberation and decision making. But participation can only work if people have at least a basic understanding of the system’s norms and institutions, can form opinions of their own and respect those of others, and are willing to engage in public life one way or another. A new Trends Shaping Education Spotlight looks at how civic education can support students in developing the knowledge and skills needed to take part in the democratic process, especially in an increasingly digitalised world.

Equipping young citizens with civic and political knowledge and skills is at the centre of education’s mission, and civic education is part of the curriculum in all OECD countries. Nevertheless, data from an international assessment on civic knowledge and attitudes show that the majority of adolescent students in many countries lack a deeper understanding of how democracy works in the world they live in, even if they know basic facts about democracy. This raises questions about how teachers and schools can do better at preparing young people for the world.

Evidence suggests that civic-specific subjects and rote-learning approaches have little influence on students’ civic knowledge or on their attitudes about civic and political engagement. Instead, effective civics pedagogy depends on a classroom climate that encourages students’ participation in open discussions on political issues connected to their daily life and interests.

Participation in extracurricular activities or decision making bodies at school can also increase students’ civic skills and engagement. Furthermore, experiential pedagogical approaches, such as service learning, allow students to benefit from both the hands-on experience of serving community needs and the subsequent discussion and reflection in class. Research shows that service learning works best when projects establish a clear set of learning objectives and identify the kind of service opportunity that bests suits them.

These days, the world is also online. Technology facilitates political participation and contributes to keeping us informed -- or not. As social media develops, people increasingly rely on the online information that is shared by those they trust. But such information is not always verifiable, which can make it difficult to sort fact from fiction. This challenges our capacity to make informed decisions and undermines the quality of public deliberations.

As societies grow increasingly digitalised and become awash with ‘fake news’, citizens’ digital literacy becomes more and more important. Proficiency in digital reading is the ability to plan and execute a search, evaluate the usefulness of information, and assess the credibility of sources. However, the assessment of digital reading in PISA 2012 revealed that only about 8% of 15 years-old across OECD countries are able to navigate online information autonomously and efficiently, evaluate information from several sources and assess its credibility and usefulness. Thus, more needs to be done to develop students’ digital skills in online reading and also in producing and sharing digital content. Furthermore, raising students’ awareness on what is appropriate to share -- and how -- is essential for developing more ethical (digital) attitudes and behaviour.

So the mission of teachers and schools to provide their students with the civic and political knowledge needed for adult life needs more attention than ever. In the 21st century, this requires a focus on digital democratic citizenship and the kind of skills and attitudes that come with it. Sustaining democratic institutions and social relations over time depends on the way we support and encourage young people to become active and engaged citizens, both on and offline.

Links

Trends Shaping Education Spotlight No. 13: Citizens with a say
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI)

Students, Computers and Learning - Making the Connection

Join us on Edmodo

Image source: @Shutterstock

Educating our youth to care about each other and the world

by Andreas Schleicher
Director, Directorate for Education and Skills

In 2015, 193 countries committed to achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, a shared vision of humanity that provides the missing piece of the globalisation puzzle. The extent to which that vision becomes a reality will in no small way depend on what is happening in today’s classrooms. Indeed, it is educators who hold the key to ensuring that the SDGs become a real social contract with citizens.

Goal 4, which commits to quality education for all, is intentionally not limited to foundation knowledge and skills, such as literacy, mathematics and science, but emphasises learning to live together sustainably. This has inspired the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the global yardstick for success in education, to include global competence in its metrics for quality, equity and effectiveness in education. PISA will assess global competence for the first time ever in 2018.

PISA conceives of global competence as a multidimensional, lifelong learning goal. Globally competent individuals can examine local, global and intercultural issues, understand and appreciate different perspectives and world views, interact successfully and respectfully with others, and take responsible action toward sustainability and collective well-being.

It is worth looking at these four dimensions in some more detail.

Examine issues of local, global and cultural significance. This refers to the ability to combine knowledge about the world with critical reasoning whenever people form their own opinions about a global issue. Globally competent students can draw on and combine the disciplinary knowledge and modes of thinking acquired in school to ask questions, analyse data and arguments, explain phenomena, and develop a position regarding a local, global or cultural issue. They can also access, analyse and critically evaluate messages delivered through the media, and can create new media content.

Understand and appreciate the perspectives and world views of others. This highlights a willingness and capacity to consider global problems multiple viewpoints. As individuals acquire knowledge about other cultures’ histories, values, communication styles, beliefs and practices, they begin to recognise that their perspectives and behaviours are shaped by many influences, that they are not always fully aware of these influences, and that others have views of the world that are profoundly different from their own. Engaging with different perspectives and world views requires individuals to examine the origins and implications of others’ and their own assumptions. This, in turn, implies a respect for and interest in the people who acknowledge and appreciate the qualities that distinguish individuals from one another are less likely to tolerate acts of injustice in their daily interactions. On the other hand, people who fail to develop this competence are considerably more likely to internalise stereotypes, prejudices and false heuristics about those who are “different”.

Engage in open, appropriate and effective interactions across cultures. Globally competent people can adapt their behaviour and communication to interact with individuals from different cultures. They engage in respectful dialogue, want to understand the other, and try to include marginalised groups. This dimension emphasises individuals' capacity to bridge differences with others by communicating in ways that are open, appropriate and effective. “Open” interactions mean relationships in which all participants demonstrate sensitivity towards, curiosity about, and a willingness to engage with others and their perspectives. “Appropriate” refers to interactions that respect the cultural norms of both parties. In “effective” communication, all participants can make themselves understood and understand the other.

Take action for collective well-being and sustainable development. This dimension focuses on young people's role as active and responsible members of society, and refers to individuals’ readiness to respond to a given local, global or intercultural issue or situation. It recognises that young people can have an impact on personal and local situations, but also on digital and global issues. Competent people create opportunities to take informed, reflective action and have their voices heard. Taking action might imply standing up for a schoolmate whose human dignity is in jeopardy, initiating a global media campaign at school, or disseminating a personal opinion about the refugee crisis through social media. Globally competent people are engaged to improve living conditions in their own communities and also to build a more just, peaceful, inclusive and environmentally sustainable world.

Naturally, global competence can be developed in many contexts; but schools can play a crucial role in this regard. Schools can provide opportunities for young people to critically examine developments that are significant to both the world at large and to their own lives. They can teach students how to use digital information and social media platforms critically and responsibly. Schools can also encourage intercultural sensitivity and respect by encouraging students to engage in experiences that nurture an appreciation for diverse peoples, languages and cultures. This central role of schools makes a strong case for PISA to examine global competence.

All of this leads to the question: How does one assess global competence? In 2018, PISA will make a first start with a two-part assessment consisting of a cognitive test and a background questionnaire. The cognitive assessment elicits students’ capacities to critically examine news articles about global issues; recognise outside influences on perspectives and world views; understand how to communicate with others in intercultural contexts; and identify and compare different courses of action to address global and intercultural issues.

In the background questionnaire, students will be asked to report how familiar they are with global issues; how developed their linguistic and communication skills are; to what extent they hold certain attitudes, such as respect for people from different cultural backgrounds; and what opportunities they have at school to develop global competence. Answers to the school and teacher questionnaires will provide a comparative picture of how education systems are integrating international and intercultural perspectives throughout the curriculum and in classroom activities.

Taken together, the cognitive assessment and the background questionnaire will allow educators and policy makers to address important questions, such as:

• To what degree are students able to critically examine contemporary issues of local, global and intercultural significance?
• To what degree are students able to understand and appreciate multiple cultural perspectives (including their own) and manage differences and conflicts? 
• To what degree are students prepared to interact respectfully across cultural differences? 
• To what degree do students care about the world and take action to make a positive difference in other peoples’ lives and safeguard the environment? 
• Are there inequalities in access to education for global competence between and within countries? 
• What approaches to multicultural and intercultural education are most commonly used in school systems around the world?
• How are teachers being prepared to develop students’ global competence?

This assessment offers a tangible opportunity to provide the global community with the data it needs to build more peaceful, equitable and sustainable societies through education. It will provide a comprehensive overview of education systems’ efforts to create learning environments that encourage young people to understand one another and the world beyond their immediate environment, and to take action towards building cohesive and sustainable communities. It will help the many teachers who work every day to combat ignorance, prejudice and hatred, which are at the root of disengagement, discrimination and violence.

Some have already raised concerns about the feasibility of measuring students' readiness to engage with the world through an international test. International comparisons are never easy, and they are not perfect, particularly when it comes to measuring such complex competences. But without quality data, it will be difficult to initiate a fruitful, global dialogue about what works in education.

Links
Preparing our youth for an inclusive and sustainable world: The OECD PISA global competence framework

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

Follow the conversation: #OECDPISA and #GlobalCompetence

How can countries close the equity gap in education?

by Dirk Van Damme
Head of the Skills Beyond School Division,  Directorate for Education and Skills

Education plays a dual role when it comes to social inequality and social mobility. On the one hand, it is the main way for societies to foster equality of opportunity and support upward social mobility for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. On the other hand, the evidence is overwhelming that education often reproduces social divides in societies, through the impact that parents’ economic, social and cultural status has on children’s learning outcomes.

The social divide is already apparent very early in the life of a child, in the time their parents spend on parenting or in the number of words a toddler learns. It progresses through early childhood education and becomes most obvious in the variation in learning outcomes, based on social background, among 15-year-old students who participate in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). And when literacy and numeracy skills among adults are assessed, such as in the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), we still see the impact of socio-economic status on skills development. A new report, Educational Opportunities for All, which contributes to the OECD Inclusive Growth initiative, charts the trajectory of educational inequality over a lifetime using OECD datasets on education and learning outcomes.

Children from disadvantaged families, measured by the proxy of parents’ educational attainment, have less chance than their peers from more advantaged backgrounds to benefit from early childhood education and excellent learning opportunities at school. The later stages in a person’s educational career often reinforce the accumulated disadvantage from previous stages.

The chart above shows,for the cohort born between 1985 and 1988, that the impact of social background continues to be strong between the age of 15, when students sit the PISA reading test, and the ages of 25-28, when PIAAC conducts a similar test in literacy. In most cases, the difference in the standardised scores between children with tertiary-educated parents and those without a tertiary-educated parent increases between the two measurements. This is probably because poor literacy proficiency at school translates into different trajectories into further education, into more difficult transitions between school and work, and into work environments that offer fewer opportunities to improve literacy skills either by using those skills or through training.

Is this then a completely pessimistic story? Should we forget about the potential of education to foster a more equal and inclusive society? Not at all! The report shows that children’s educational trajectory is not set in stone. Many children seem to be able to move beyond the destiny to which their background seems to condemn them. But there are large differences among countries in the extent to which these children succeed in school. The report includes a dashboard of 11 indicators of equity in education – a clear sign that policies and practices matter. The right policies and the right kind of incentives can make a huge difference in whether a country is able to provide educational opportunities for all.

Throughout its work on learning, education and skills, the OECD has identified policies that matter with regard to equity. Those identified in this new report are not surprising: invest in accessible, high-quality early childhood education; improve learning opportunities for children at risk and target resources to those schools that need them most; focus on employability skills for adults from disadvantaged backgrounds; and provide opportunities for second-chance and lifelong education.

There is no magic formula that will work for all countries. In some countries, a lack of quality early childhood education creates huge equity issues, while in others, secondary school is the stage at which equality of educational opportunity is jeopardised. In still other countries, it is the transition to work that is the most challenging for disadvantaged young people. As shown in the chart above, Sweden, New Zealand and Norway are relatively successful in guaranteeing equitable learning outcomes in secondary school. But in contrast to the two Nordic countries, New Zealand doesn’t seem able to extend its equitable approach into skills development among young adults, probably because of segregating mechanisms in work allocation and adult learning programmes.

The Flemish Community of Belgium provides a contrasting picture: the secondary school system there shows large disparities in learning outcomes between disadvantaged and advantaged children, but the inequitable outcomes are, to some extent, compensated in early adulthood by more inclusive labour-market and social-protection systems. Countries thus need to search for the specific mix of policies that will work for them.

More equitable and inclusive education and skills policies are not only beneficial for individual people; they can have a huge impact on society. Such policies can guarantee that the routes to upward social mobility remain open to talented people, regardless of their social background. Countries will benefit socially and economically when they stop wasting the talents of those who are penalised simply because of where they came from. At a time when skills are the ticket to brighter futures, developing everyone’s skills is the best strategy towards economic prosperity and social cohesion.

Links
Educational Opportunities for All, Overcoming Inequality throughout the Life Course
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC)

OECD Inclusive Growth initiative

Join our OECD Teacher Community on Edmodo

Who really bears the cost of education?

by Marie-Hélène Doumet
Senior Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills

It can be difficult to get your head around education finance. Who actually pays for it, where does the money come from, and how is it spent are all crucial questions to ask if you want to understand how the money flows in education. In many countries, basic education is considered a right, and governments are expected to ensure universal access to it. However, educational attainment has reached unprecedented levels, and more people are participating in education than ever before, leaving governments struggling to meet the demand through public funds alone. The role of private funding has become more significant in the past decade, particularly at the pre-primary and tertiary levels of education. 

But the reality is more complex than a binary public-private model would suggest. Other financing mechanisms, involving the transfer of funds between governments, households and other private entities, are blurring the lines of what is commonly understood as public or private.

Take government-subsidised loans to students. A loan, by definition, needs to be repaid, and so is commonly considered as a private cost to households.  But before that, loans actually come out of the public purse, and so are actually a public cost to governments at the time the loan is issued. The cost, however, shifts to individuals once they enter the labour market and start earning enough to make repayments.  

The latest Education in Focus brief  tries to answer the question “Who really bears the cost of education?” by looking at these transfers as two sides of the same coin.  Separating out transfers from the traditional public-private split of costs also provides more granularity on the sourcing of private expenditure, differentiating what comes in the form of government support from what is truly out-of-pocket costs. 

Consider, for example, two countries well known for their reliance on private expenditure to fund tertiary education: the United Kingdom and Japan. In 2014, both countries relied on private funding to provide around 70% of the cost of tertiary education (when considering the final allocation of funds after transfers). However, two-thirds of that private funding in the United Kingdom comes from government transfers to private non-educational entities, mostly in the form of loans, with advantageous repayment schedules and conditions, to students. This means that while the private sector is ultimately responsible for this expenditure, it is the public sector that bears a significant share of the initial cost, not only of the value of the loan, but also the risk of future default on payments. By contrast, in Japan, only 20% of final private expenditure originated from government transfers, leaving the private sector, a large share of which are households, to fund the rest from their own pockets.  

The chart above shows the extent to which countries balance out public and private funding in tertiary education, and how they compensate for private funding through government transfers to households, students and other non-educational private entities. Interestingly, some countries with the largest share of private funding in education provide the least financial support as a share of total private expenditure. This is the case in Chile, Japan, Korea and the United States. By contrast, countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands and Slovenia cover a large share of private expenditure through public-to-private transfers, and households bear much less of a financial burden. In between the two models, countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom rely on public funds to unlock private ones.  A strong financial support system, mostly structured on publicly subsidised loans, lightens the initial high cost of education for individuals, but allows graduates to repay the loans when they are most able to do so.    

Central to the idea of who should bear the cost of education is the philosophy behind who actually benefits the most from it: the public or the individual. Primary and secondary education are generally considered as a fundamental human right to basic skills that should mostly be provided by governments, which, indeed, is often the case. However, the earnings premium provided to higher education opens the debate as to who benefits the most from higher education and therefore, who should be paying for it. But thinking mainly in terms of public or private spending misses an essential element: what happens behind the scenes in the form of public-to-private transfers. Understanding these financial transfers provides insights as to how the cost of education shifts between the public and private sectors over time, and sheds some light on a sometimes overlooked measure of education finance.  

Links

Education Indicators in Focus No. 56 - Who really bears the cost of education? How the burden of education expenditure shifts from the public to the private sector

Education at a Glance 2017 - OECD Indicators

Join our OECD Teacher Community on Edmodo

Are school systems ready to develop students’ social skills?

by Andreas Schleicher
Director, Directorate for Education and Skills

Successes and failures in the classroom will increasingly shape the fortunes of countries.  And yet, more of the same education will only produce more of the same strengths and weaknesses. Today’s students are growing up into a world hyperconnected by digitalisation; tomorrow, they’ll be working in a labour market that is already being hollowed-out by automation. For those with the right knowledge and skills, these changes are liberating and exciting. But for those who are insufficiently prepared, they can mean a future of vulnerable and insecure work, and a life lived on the margins.

In today’s schools, students typically learn individually, and at the end of the school year, we certify their individual achievements. But the more interdependent the world becomes, the more it needs great collaborators and orchestrators. Innovation is now rarely the product of individuals working in isolation; instead, it is an outcome of how we mobilise, share and integrate knowledge. These days, schools also need to become better at preparing students to live and work in a world in which most people will need to collaborate with people from different cultures, and appreciate a range of ideas and perspectives; a world in which people need to trust and collaborate with others despite those differences, often bridging space and time through technology; and a world in which individual lives will be affected by issues that transcend national boundaries.

PISA has a long history of assessing students’ problem-solving skills. A first assessment of cross-curricular problem-solving skills was undertaken in 2003; in 2012, PISA assessed creative problem-solving skills. The evolution of digital assessment technologies has now allowed PISA to carry out the world’s first international assessment of collaborative problem-solving skills, defined as the capacity of students to solve problems by pooling their knowledge, skills and efforts with others.

As one would expect, students who have stronger science, reading or mathematics skills also tend to be better at collaborative problem solving, because managing and interpreting information and complex reasoning are always required to solve problems. The same holds across countries: top-performing countries in PISA, like Japan, Korea and Singapore in Asia, Estonia and Finland in Europe, and Canada in North America, also come out on top in the PISA assessment of collaborative problem solving.

But individual cognitive skills explain less than two-thirds of the variation in student performance on the PISA collaborative problem-solving scale, and a roughly similar share of the performance differences among countries on this measure is explained by the relative standing of countries on the 2012 PISA assessment of individual, creative problem-solving skills. There are countries where students do much better in collaborative problem solving than what one would predict from their performance in the PISA science, reading and mathematics assessments. For example, Japanese students do very well in those subjects, but they do even better in collaborative problem solving. By contrast, students in the four Chinese provinces that took part in PISA did well in mathematics and science, but came out just average in collaborative problem solving. In a nutshell, while the absence of science, mathematics and reading skills does not imply the presence of social and emotional skills, social skills are not an automatic by-product of the development of academic skills either.

All countries need to make headway in reducing gender disparities. When PISA assessed individual problem-solving skills in 2012, boys scored higher in most countries. By contrast, in the 2015 assessment of collaborative problem solving, girls outperformed boys in every country, both before and after considering their performance in science, reading and mathematics. The relative size of the gender gap in collaborative problem-solving performance is even larger than it is in reading.

These results are mirrored in students’ attitudes towards collaboration. Girls reported more positive attitudes towards relationships, meaning that they tend to be more interested in others’ opinions and want others to succeed. Boys, on the other hand, are more likely to see the instrumental benefits of teamwork and how collaboration can help them work more effectively and efficiently. As positive attitudes towards collaboration are linked with the collaboration-related component of performance in the PISA assessment, this opens up an avenue for intervention for schools.

There also seem to be factors in the classroom environment that relate to those attitudes. PISA asked students how often they engage in communication-intensive activities, such as explaining their ideas in science class; spending time in the laboratory doing practical experiments; arguing about science questions; and taking part in class debates about investigations. The results show a clear relationship between these activities and positive attitudes towards collaboration. On average, the valuing of relationships and teamwork is more prevalent among students who reported that they participate in these activities more often. For example, even after considering gender, and students’ and schools’ socio-economic profile, in 46 of the 56 education systems that participated in the assessment, students who reported that they explain their ideas in most or all science lessons were more likely to agree that they are “a good listener”; and in 37 of these 56 systems these students also agreed that they “enjoy considering different perspectives”. So there is much that teachers can do to facilitate a climate that is conducive to collaboration.

Many schools can also do better in fostering a learning climate where students develop a sense of belonging, and where they are free of fear. Students who reported more positive student-student interactions score higher in collaborative problem solving, even after considering the socio-economic profile of students and schools. Students who don’t feel threatened by other students also score higher in collaborative problem solving. In contrast, students who reported that their teachers say something insulting to them in front of others at least a few times per year score 23 points lower in collaborative problem solving than students who reported that this didn’t happen to them during the previous year.

It is interesting that disadvantaged students see the value of teamwork often more clearly than their advantaged peers. They tend to report more often that teamwork improves their own efficiency, that they prefer working as part of a team to working alone, and that they think teams make better decisions than individuals. Schools that succeed in building on those attitudes by designing collaborative learning environments might be able to engage disadvantaged students in new ways.

The inter-relationships between social background, attitudes towards collaboration and performance in collaborative problem solving are even more interesting. The data show that exposure to diversity in the classroom tends to be associated with better collaboration skills.

Finally, education does not end at the school gate when it comes to helping students develop their social skills. It is striking that only a quarter of the performance variation in collaborative problem-solving skills lies between schools, much less than is the case in the academic disciplines. For a start, parents need to play their part. For example, students score much higher in the collaborative problem-solving assessment when they reported that they had talked to their parents outside of school on the day prior to the PISA test, and also when their parents agreed that they are interested in their child’s school activities or encourage them to be confident.

PISA also asked students what kinds of activities they pursue both before and after school. Some of these activities – using the Internet/chat/social networks; playing video games; meeting friends or talking to friends on the phone; and working in the household or taking care of family members – might have a social, or perhaps antisocial, component to them. The results show that students who play video games score much lower, on average, than students who do not play video games, and that gap remains significant even after considering social and economic factors as well as performance in science, reading and mathematics. At the same time, accessing the Internet, chatting or social networking tends to be associated with better collaborative problem-solving performance, on average across OECD countries, all other things being equal.

In sum, in a world that places a growing premium on social skills, a lot more needs to be done to foster those skills far more systematically across the school curriculum. Strong academic skills will not automatically also lead to strong social skills. Part of the answer might lie in giving students more ownership over the time, place, path, pace and interactions of their learning. Another part of the answer can lie in fostering more positive relationships at school and designing learning environments that benefit students’ collaborative problem-solving skills and their attitudes towards collaboration. Schools can identify those students who are socially isolated, organise social activities to foster constructive relationships and school attachment, provide teacher training on classroom management, and adopt a whole-of-school approach to prevent and address bullying. But part of the answer lies with parents and society at large. It takes collaboration across a community to develop better skills for better lives.

Links
PISA 2015 Results (Volume V), Collaborative Problem Solving
PISA in Focus No. 77: How does PISA measure students’ ability to collaborate?
PISA in Focus No. 78: Collaborative problem solving 
Programme for International Student Assessment's (PISA)

Register for a public webinar on Tuesday, 21 November, 4:00 pm (Paris time) with Andreas Schleicher, Director of the OECD Education and Skills Directorate, and Jeffrey Mo, an analyst in the PISA programme.

Follow the conversation on twitter: #OECDPISA

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How much will the literacy level of working-age people change from now to 2022?

by François Keslair
Statistician, Directorate for Education and Skills 

Taken as a whole, the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) present a mixed picture for Korea and Singapore. As their economies have grown, these two countries’ education systems have seen fast and impressive improvements; both now rank among PISA’s top performers. However, neither Korea nor Singapore do so well in PIAAC. PIAAC measures the skills of adults aged between 16 and 65, i.e. a large majority of the population, not just the 15-year-olds pupils measured by PISA. And while the skills of younger Koreans and Singaporeans are just as impressive in PIAAC as in PISA, the same cannot be said of their elders, who did not enjoy the advantages of their current successful education systems. The skills of the older population covered by PIAAC simply cannot keep pace with such change.

But why exactly can we draw this conclusion? In other words, why do the drivers of change in the skills of the population examined by PIAAC necessarily work so slowly? And since we are looking into it, why not take the opportunity to try our hand at predicting the future of adult skills, taking literacy as an example? We are all familiar with the strong link between skills and productivity, so predicting the skills of the working-age population could help to identify, for example, trends in some economic fundamentals. This exercise – prospective and necessarily provisional – is covered in the latest issue of Adult Skills in Focus (ASIF), “How might literacy evolve among working-age adults by 2022?”

The first driver of change is population renewal. Without wanting to state the obvious, people aged between 16 and 65 in 2012 will be aged between 26 and 75 in 2022 (unless, unfortunately, they have died). So the population of 16-65 year-olds in 2012 and 2022 will largely overlap, except that 2022’s 16-24 year-olds, who were previously too young, will have joined the population, while 2012’s 56-65 year-olds, now too old (as well as any 16-65 year-olds who passed away between 2012 and 2022) will have left it. This means that only about one-fifth of the 16-65 age group is renewed every ten years.

During that ten-year gap, the remaining population, i.e. four-fifths of 2012’s 16-65 year-olds, will get that much older. People’s skills vary over time. Skills can naturally be learned, but they can also be lost, most often because they are not practised. The second driver of change, then, is the impact of ageing on skills. This subject was covered in another issue of ASIF, “What does age have to do with skills proficiency?”, which identified two trends: first, a marked improvement in the skills of 16-35 year-olds, corresponding to the age of higher education, followed by a slow decline; and second, a distinct improvement for a minority of the population and a small deterioration for the majority, the combined effect of which will not be particularly significant.

In ten years, neither population renewal nor the impact of ageing on skills will be able to significantly affect the skills of all those aged between 16 and 65. But the projections we can make by modelling both drivers reveal a not-insignificant increase, as demonstrated in the graph above.

The improvement in literacy skills ought to be generally observable across all nations surveyed. Some countries may stagnate, such as England and Northern Ireland (UK), and Italy; but the good news is that none should see a decline. On the contrary, some countries should see a considerable improvement. And those countries which are expected to see the greatest progress include – surprise! – Singapore and Korea, although both of them will nevertheless continue to lag behind their neighbour Japan; but in Japan’s case, modernisation had already begun in the Meiji era at the end of the 19th century, which included the modernisation of the education system. The fruits of the efforts invested in education are harvested little by little, over a period of many years, meaning that the future beyond 2022 may well see yet more improvement. But we have to lay the foundations now.

Links
Adult Skills in Focus No. 7: How much will the literacy level of the working-age population change from now to 2022?

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC)

Is the growth of international student mobility coming to a halt?

by Dirk Van Damme
Head of the Skills Beyond School Division,  Directorate for Education and Skills

Higher education is one of the most globally integrated systems of the modern world. There still are important barriers to the international recognition of degrees or the transfer of credits, but some of the basic features of higher education enjoy global convergence and collaboration. This is most visible in the research area, where advanced research is now carried out in international networks. But also in the field of teaching and learning, the international dimension has become very important. The so-called European Higher Education Area stands out as an area where degree structures, credit transfer arrangements and quality assurance frameworks have been aligned in order to adjust qualifications with the needs of an integrated labour market.

Yet, higher education is also one of the most unequal and hierarchical systems of the modern world; globalisation has not yet made the world of higher education a ‘flat’ one. There are huge imbalances between the quantitative supply and demand of education. And the imbalance in quality is even more striking: using an imperfect measure of quality such as the one provided by the global university rankings, one can immediately see that the perceived quality and reputation of academic institutions is concentrated in just a few countries, while the demand is exploding in other parts of the world. The academic top league (say, the top 50 institutions in any of the global rankings) is particularly concentrated, and because of the metrics used to determine quality it is very difficult for institutions in other parts of the world to enter that club.

To some extent international student mobility can be seen as a consequence of global academic inequality. Students are moving to other parts of the globe in order to find the best possible education their money can buy. International student mobility is one of the ways through which the geographical gap between supply and demand is being overcome. Investing resources in one’s son or daughter in order to secure them a high-quality credential has become a preferred strategy of affluent middle class families in emerging countries, especially after their purchasing power started to increase. The chart above shows that for many years the total number of international students remained rather stable around 1 million, but that from the 1990s onwards the numbers started to grow significantly. Some countries were quick to tap into this opportunity and developed strategies to market their higher education offer. From 0.8 million in 1975, the number rose to 4.2 million thirty-five years later.

Many people expected the growth to continue and even to accelerate. But that is not what happened, as is also clear from the chart. From 2012 onwards the growth really stopped. Between 2012 and 2015 a mere 100 thousand students were added to the 4.5 million. The recent figures, published in the OECD’s latest Education at a Glance, suggest that it is not just a temporary setback, but a more structural phenomenon.

What could be the reasons for this change? We probably need to look at developments both on the demand and the supply side. Regarding the former, the obvious explanation is the improvement of domestic education in the most important countries of origin. China, and to a lesser extent India, have invested huge resources in developing their higher education system, including a select number of universities that are predestined to achieve world-class status in the next few years. Chinese universities are now aggressively entering the global rankings and continue to improve their ranks every single year. Changing prospects at home have an impact on the investments strategies of affluent middle-class families in these nations.

Still, changes on the demand side alone cannot explain the lack of growth. Indeed, the potential reservoir of interested students in these countries remains immense. We also have to look at the supply side, to developments in the main countries of destination. It is evident that in the main countries active in the field of exporting education services, things have fundamentally changed as well. From a very hospitable and welcoming approach to international students, popular and political attitudes have reversed things into a much more hostile stance. This has happened in the main destination countries such as Australia, the UK and the US, but also in upcoming players such as Switzerland, Sweden or the Netherlands. The general backlash against migration, aggravated by the refugee crisis and the flows of asylum seekers, has also turned the climate for foreign students upside down. Populist and often false accusations that foreign students are only interested in permanent migration, and that they take the future jobs of domestic students, are now in the media every day.

The recent 2017 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange data, published by the Institute of International Education (IIE), points to a decrease of 7% in the numbers of new international students enrolling in US higher education institutions. The majority of surveyed institutions (52%) in the IIE survey expressed concern that the country’s social and political climate could deter prospective international students. In the UK, a political decision is being discussed of removing international students from the government’s target of reducing net immigration. Still, Brexit and a general hostile climate against migration in the UK is probably also becoming a deterrent for international students. Similar developments can be seen in other countries of destination.

What is happening at both the demand and supply side of international higher education is fundamentally reshaping the size and direction of international student mobility flows. In a strange way, they are reshaping the global academic inequalities. At the same time they are also redefining where and how the future professionals and leaders of the 21st century world will be educated. Just as much as academic education was an important instrument in shaping the post-WWII global order, the current changes in international education will have a profound impact on the 21st century world.

Links 
Education at a Glance 2017: OECD Indicators
Open Doors 2017

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Is free higher education fair?

by Andreas Schleicher 

Director, Directorate for Education and Skills 

Skills have become the currency of 21st century economies and, despite the significant increase the UK has seen in university graduation over the last decade, the earnings of workers with a Master’s degree remain over 80% higher than those of workers with just five good GCSEs or an equivalent vocational qualification. Sure, not every university graduate will end up with a great salary, but the claim that for many studying does not pay is a myth: just one in 10 university graduates earn less than half the median salary, a figure which is double for adults with only five good GCSEs, and another 22% of graduates earn between half the median and the median salary. Conversely, 21% earn more than twice the median, three times more than those with five good GCESs. Beyond the monetary benefits, higher education brings important social benefits for individuals and nations, ranging from better health through to greater social participation, and up to more trust in people and institutions.

Some say these trends are all futures of the past, and that the job prospects of future graduates may look much worse, particularly if bringing in more and more people eventually means including less qualified applicants. But people have been saying these things ever since I began tracking those numbers over a decade ago, and the bottom line is that, so far, the rise in knowledge workers has generally not led to a decline in their pay, as we have seen for people at the lower end of the skills spectrum.

That brings up the question of who should pay for this, because there simply is no free university education.

The Nordic countries in Europe pay for universities through the public purse and some even generously subsidise the living costs of university students. It makes sense for them because participation is almost universal and they have a steeply progressive tax system so that they can recuperate the funds from graduates who typically end up as the better earners.

European countries like France or Germany, too, say higher education is important, but their governments are neither willing to put in the required funds nor allowing most of their universities to charge tuition. They end up compromising quality and limiting provision, with the effect that all workers end up paying for the university education of the rich parents’ children. That is, because wherever access is limited, it tends to be the wealthiest and not the smartest students who get the best places, whatever the source of funds.

The third alternative is to allow universities to charge tuition, and interestingly, OECD data show absolutely no cross-country relationship between the level of tuition fees countries charge and the participation of disadvantaged youth in tertiary education. In fact, social mobility is worse in Germany, which pays for all almost university education through the public purse, than it is in the UK. That is because to mobilise those public funds for higher education, Germany ends up charging tuition for children in kindergarten, which leads to a much less level playing field from the start.

But getting tuition right is not simple either. If countries put the burden for tuition entirely on the shoulders of families, they risk not attracting the brightest but instead the wealthiest children to attend, which means not making the most out of the country’s talent.

If countries rely mainly on commercial loans which students have to repay once they finish their studies, they still leave students and families with the risk, because the promise of greater lifetime earnings of graduates is a statistical one, and there is actually very wide dispersion in earnings. The UK, and some other countries too, have tried to square that circle with a combination of income-contingent loans and means-tested grants. That basically means risk-free access to financing for prospective students with governments leveraging, but not paying, for the costs.

The loans reduce the liquidity constraints faced by individuals at the time of study, while the income-contingent nature of the loans system addresses the risk and uncertainty faced by individuals (insurance against inability to repay) and improves the progressiveness of the overall system (lower public subsidy for graduates with higher private returns). In the UK, the repayments of graduates correspond to a proportion of their earnings and low earners make low or no repayments, and graduates with low lifetime earnings end up not repaying their loans in full.

But even the best loan system is often not sufficient. There is ample evidence that young people from low income families or from families with poorly educated parents (but also youth who just don't have good information on the benefits of tertiary education) underestimate the net benefits of tertiary education. That’s why it has paid off for the UK to complement the loan scheme with means-tested grants or tuition waivers for vulnerable groups. It will be worth it to continue to do so, simply because people with better education will pay much more in taxes than what their education costs.

Sure, those loan and grant systems cost money, and have shifted risks to government which will end up paying for any bad debt. Indeed, it is very likely that repayment rates will end up a lot lower compared to what the Government anticipated in 2012. But these costs are just a tiny fraction of the added fiscal income due to better educated individuals paying higher taxes, let alone the social benefits. Keep in mind that the added tax income of those graduates who end up in employment, on average over £80 000 in the UK, is many times larger than any conceivable bad debt. And where students don’t pay their loans back, tuition will still have had important effects in terms of having students choose their studies carefully and complete them on time, something where the UK does so much better than most other European countries.

Every year I am reading media stories that the financial burden on students, perceived or real, is choking off entry into higher education. But every year our statistics show a rise in entry to higher education. It’s also noteworthy that the UK ranks second after New Zealand when it comes to the share of international students, which is another indicator of the attractiveness of UK higher education.

Still, there is a lot the UK can do to further improve its approach to financing universities. For a start, it can do better with aligning course offerings with societal demand. That may also mean thinking more carefully about fee structures, ensuring that these better reflect the cost of provision and the value to students. Indeed, it is crucial to ensure that fees reflect the educational value of the programmes for students, rather than the amounts that universities can extract from students simply because graduates can expect higher lifetime earnings that also reflect their prior attainment.

Consider that England currently has an above-average share of low-skilled 20-34 year-old graduates, but an above-average share of tertiary graduates. Any increases in tuition fees must therefore demonstrably go into better teaching and learning. The Framework of Excellence makes a start to address this, but it does not yet adequately capture the most important element in this regard: the value that universities add to student learning outcomes.

I also worry that the loan repayment parameters mean that many middle income workers – such as teachers, health professionals, public sector workers – will end up paying more for their education than better earners such as lawyers and bankers. Not least, it needs to be kept in mind that many UK students are likely to have some level of debt for up to 30 years and some research on the broader implications of student debt would be important. Contrast this with Australian students who pay off the loan for their undergraduate degree within nine years of graduation.

That being said, among all available approaches, a system of income-contingent loans and means-tested grants is still the most scalable and sustainable approach to university finance. From a public policy point of view, governments should invest public resources in education over the lifetime of a young person in those stages where its impact is greatest, both in terms of efficiency and equity. Higher education is not high on that list.

Links 
Education at a Glance 2017: How much do tertiary students pay and what public support do they receive?
Enhancing higher education system performance: Benchmarking higher education system performance

Follow the conversation on Twitter: #OECDEAG

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What matters for managing classrooms?

by Francesca Gottschalk
Consultant, Directorate for Education and Skills 

Teaching is a demanding profession. Teachers are responsible for developing the skills and knowledge of their students, helping them overcome social and emotional hurdles and maintaining equitable, cohesive and productive classroom environments. On top of their teaching responsibilities, they are also expected to engage in continued professional development activities throughout their careers. The demands of the job are many and varied, and teachers tend to report some of the highest levels of workplace stress of any profession. This contributes to the loss of many talented and motivated individuals from the teaching workforce.

Teachers, especially the least experienced, tend to report that student disengagement and misbehaviour is one of the biggest stressors. In fact, terms like “reality shock” or “shattered dreams” are sometimes used to describe what happens when teachers are first put in front of a classroom.

So, what can be done? There are a number of ways to soften the sometimes harsh contrast between their expectations and what really goes on in the classroom. Specialised training and practicum during teacher education programmes can help prepare new teachers for the realities of teaching, while protective factors, such as teacher self-efficacy or confidence in their skills, can also make a big difference. When teachers are capable and confident in classroom management, ensuring that lessons are run smoothly in an organised classroom environment, student learning and positive social and emotional outcomes can be enhanced.

How can we establish if teachers have this “protective factor” and are confident in their abilities? The Innovative Teaching for Effective Learning Teacher Knowledge Survey offers a unique opportunity to better understand teachers’ professional competence and how this is developed. The pilot study assessed teachers’ pedagogical knowledge (or, in simple terms, what teachers know about teaching and learning), their opportunities to learn, and other professional competences, such as self-efficacy. Teachers’ knowledge of classroom management is part of their “toolkit” of instructional processes, which also encompasses elements like teaching methods and lesson planning.

The pilot results suggested that in-service and pre-service teachers have a relatively strong knowledge of classroom management, especially in comparison to other areas of pedagogical knowledge. Teachers who reported being confident in their classroom management skills also reported being provided with lots of opportunities to learn how to manage classrooms and tended to be more experienced teachers. As there is a link between teacher confidence and retention, the relationship uncovered between learning opportunities and self-efficacy in this pilot study is quite promising!

Furthermore, since experienced teachers tended to show higher self-efficacy than their pre-service counterparts, it could be helpful to build more field experience into teacher education. Many countries across the OECD, such as Estonia, Hungary and Israel, are already doing this. Similarly, longer induction sessions before entering the teaching workforce could also help bridge the gap between expectations and reality – this approach will be important to explore further, especially as teachers find classroom disturbances to be one of the most stress-inducing parts of their jobs. If left unchecked, it can eventually lead to burnout.

The pilot project was an initial exploration of teacher knowledge and competence that has laid the groundwork for future work on a larger scale. Its purpose was to provide evidence that can help shape policies to improve teacher preparation and education, but it can also help to attract (and retain) high-quality individuals to the profession.

Strong education systems depend on having an effective teaching workforce. It is therefore essential to equip them with the knowledge and skills for them to be effective and confident in the classroom. In order to keep them there, countries need to focus on piecing together the “shattered dreams” of teachers, and supporting them as much as possible along the way.

Links
Teaching in Focus No. 19 - How do teachers become knowledgeable and confident in classroom management? Insights from a pilot study
Innovative Teaching for Effective Learning Teacher Knowledge Survey
Understanding teachers' pedagogical knowledge: Report on an international pilot study

Photo credit: @Shutterstock 

How PISA measures students’ ability to collaborate

by Andreas Schleicher

Director, Directorate for Education and Skills

PISA 2015 Results (Volume V) Collaborative Problem Solving – Sample Question from EduSkills OECD

Late next month (21 November, to be exact) we’ll be releasing the results PISA’s first-ever assessment of students’ ability to solve problems collaboratively. Why has PISA focused on this particular set of skills? Because in today’s increasingly interconnected world, people are often required to collaborate in order to achieve their objectives, both in the workplace and in their personal lives. Working with others is not as easy as it sounds. One person might end up reproducing another’s work; poor communication and personal tensions between people might prevent a team from reaching its goal. So it’s worth finding out whether students today know what it takes to work (and play) well with others.

This month’s PISA in Focus describes what it means, according to PISA, to be competent in collaborative problem solving. Along with the skills needed to solve problems individually, a good team member also has to develop and maintain a shared understanding of the problem with his or her teammates, take the actions needed to solve the problem, and establish and maintain team organisation. These skills can help determine how students learn, teachers teach and how we judge the performance of schools.

PISA in Focus also explains how PISA is able to measure students’ collaboration skills – not, as you might expect, by observing students as they work with other students, but by following their interactions with team members who are actually computer simulations of humans (known as computer agents). Today’s technology allows us to assess students’ 21st century skills. Not only can the behaviour of these computer agents be controlled, but they can also be programmed so that some are more co-operative than others, and some may be more focused on solving the problem than others. Sound familiar? Yes: they’re programmed to be just like you and me.

Several “screen shots” from a part of the assessment that was released to the public are also presented so you can get a better idea of the kinds of tasks PISA students were asked to perform, and how the students’ responses express the skills they need to collaborate with others. In short, this month’s PISA in Focus gives you both a behind-the-scenes look at the thinking that went into the design of the assessment, and a front-row seat for when the results of the assessment are released next month.

Links 

PISA in Focus No. 77: How does PISA measure students’ ability to collaborate?

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

The fork in the road towards gender equality

by Simon Normandeau
Statistician, Directorate for Education and Skills

Gender biases can be persistent. Too persistent. A simple exercise to illustrate the point: Picture a doctor or a professor. You will most likely think of a man. Now think of nurses and teachers and you are likely to imagine a woman. This unconscious gender bias is rooted in years of associating male and female attributes to specific roles in society. Inevitably, it also influences students’ career choices.

Gender differences in career aspirations are set early on. Children tend to mimic the social environment in which they grew up: boys are more drawn towards male-dominated fields while girls aspire to careers held by inspirational role models of their own gender. By the age of 15, boys and girls have already been regularly exposed to one of the most strongly gender-biased professions: teaching. On average across OECD countries, 83% of primary teachers are women; and this proportion shows no sign of shrinking anytime soon. 

Careers in science show the opposite trend. Data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) show that even if boys and girls have similar scores in science, girls are less likely than boys to envision themselves in a science-related career when they are 30. This demonstrates that aspirations to pursue a career in science are not necessarily determined by students’ aptitude in these fields.

Data on fields of study released in Education at a Glance 2017 and analysed in a new Education Indicators in Focus confirm that the gender disparities observed in career aspirations in the PISA study are alive and well in tertiary education too. Three out of four students entering the field of education are women; but only one out of four entering the field of engineering, manufacturing and construction is female. Moreover, the share of women entering a programme in engineering, manufacturing and construction is even smaller than the share of 15-year-old girls who aspire to work in science and engineering, showing the effect of social norms over just a few years, and their impact on all-important career decisions. 

From school to university, gender disparities then spill over into the labour market. The figure above shows that the field of study a young woman selects has consequences for her employment after graduation. Women who graduated from health and welfare and education programmes are more likely to be employed than women who graduated from male-dominated programmes, such as engineering, manufacture and construction. But the figure also shows that no matter which field of study they choose, women are always less likely than men to be employed – and the widest gender gaps are found among graduates from science-related fields.

Gender disparities accumulate throughout life. Thus, ensuring equal opportunities to girls and boys to pursue the field of study of their choice, regardless of stereotypes and societal gender imbalances, is a critical step towards more equity in the labour market. Gender diversity in professions also creates value by encouraging a variety of thought and opinion in the workplace. Studies have shown that gender diversity in companies brings higher financial returns, a better reputation and improved internal communication. 

Gender diversity is at the heart of Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals, which aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by 2030. While some progress has already been made, gender equality is still a target to be reached, and gender bias, whether conscious or unconscious, still a barrier to be dismantled. Education systems have a role to play in promoting and valuing the success of girls in different career paths, to encourage them to pursue their studies in fields that are increasingly valued in the labour market – and currently dominated by men. 

Links 

Education Indicators in Focus No. 55: What are the gender differences and the labour market outcomes across the different fields of study?

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

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How can we tell if artificial intelligence threatens work?

by Stuart W. Elliott
U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine

New technologies tend to shift jobs and skills. New technologies bring new products, which shift jobs across occupations: with the arrival of cars, the economy needed more assembly line workers and fewer blacksmiths. New technologies also bring new work processes, which shift skills in jobs: with the arrival of copiers, office workers needed to replace ink cartridges but not use carbon paper. Economic history is full of examples of new technologies causing such shifts.

Workers often worry that new technologies will destroy old jobs without creating new ones. However, economic history suggests that job destruction and creation have always gone together, with a shift in jobs and skills that leaves most people still employed.

Will artificial intelligence (AI) differ from past technologies in the way it shifts jobs and skills? To answer that question, we need to know which skills will be supplied by AI and which will be left for people. If workers have the skills AI lacks, they will be able to find new jobs if AI automates their old jobs. In that case, AI will shift jobs and skills just like previous technologies. However, if workers do not have the skills AI lacks, these shifts will break down and the institution of work itself will be threatened.

As an example, consider literacy and numeracy. These skills are widely used in many jobs—so widely used that countries invest many years of formal education to help everyone develop them. The OECD assesses these skills in its Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) because they are so important for work and education.

A new OECD study uses PIAAC to assess whether AI can perform these skills as well. The study is only exploratory, but its results are sobering. Current AI techniques are close to allowing computers to perform at Level 3 on the 5-level scale in literacy and numeracy—at or above the proficiency of 89% of adults in OECD countries. Only 11% of adults are above the level that AI is close to reproducing.

If literacy and numeracy were the only work skills, this new study would suggest that AI is not like other technologies. As current AI techniques are applied, many workers with moderate proficiency in literacy and numeracy would be displaced and would not have the higher-level skills for the jobs that remain. The usual shift of workers between jobs and skills would break down.

Of course, if this happened, we would need to improve education. The results of the Survey of Adult Skills show what might be possible. For adults with tertiary education, 21% are above the computer level in literacy and 23% are above the computer level in numeracy. And in the highest performing countries, these percentages for adults with tertiary education reach 37% in literacy and 36% in numeracy, for Japan and Sweden, respectively. These results are much better than the current OECD average of 11%.

With high-quality tertiary education, many more adults could develop literacy and numeracy skills above the current computer level. However, there would still be a serious problem if literacy and numeracy were the only work skills even with high-quality tertiary education for everyone. We do not have examples of education policies at scale that bring 80% or even 50% of adults above the current computer level.

Fortunately, literacy and numeracy are not the only work skills. There are many more skills that are important for work than the ones measured by PIAAC. Many jobs involve tasks using expert knowledge like scientific reasoning. Many jobs involve physical tasks like cooking. Many jobs involve social tasks like conversation.

PIAAC does not measure the other skills needed for such tasks and cannot tell us how AI might perform on them. However, computer scientists are developing AI to reproduce these other skills as well. Do AI’s capabilities in these other skills look as proficient as their capabilities in literacy and numeracy? We do not know.

The new study using PIAAC to assess AI in literacy and numeracy is only a first step. The OECD is working with the U.S. National Academies to develop a new programme to assess AI capabilities across all work skills. In the years ahead, policymakers will need this information to know whether AI will shift jobs and skills just like other technologies have done in the past—or whether this time is different.

Links
Computers and the Future of Skill Demand
Skills Matter: Further Results from the Survey of Adult Skills
Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC)

Follow the conversation on Twitter: #AI and #GoingDigital

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