How to prepare students for the complexity of a global society

by Anthony Jackson, Director, Center for Global Education at Asia Society
Andreas Schleicher, Director, Directorate for Education and Skills

In all countries, rapidly changing global economic, digital, cultural, and environmental forces are shaping young people’s lives and their futures. From Boston to Bangkok to Buenos Aires, we live today in a VUCA world: volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.

The world’s growing complexity and diversity present both opportunity and challenge. On the one hand, globalization can bring important new perspectives, innovation, and improved living standards. But on the other, it can also contribute to economic inequality, social division, and conflict.

How well education systems prepare all of their students to thrive amid today’s rapidly changing world will determine the future prosperity and security of their nations – and of the world as a whole. Global competence education is what will empower students to do just that. Globally competent students can draw on and combine the disciplinary knowledge and modes of thinking acquired in schools to ask questions, analyse data and arguments, explain phenomena, and develop a position concerning a local, global or cultural issue. They can retain their cultural identity but are simultaneously aware of the cultural values and beliefs of people around them, they examine the origins and implications of others’ and their own assumptions. And they can create opportunities to take informed, reflective action and have their voices heard.

On top of the complexity of our increasingly interconnected world, and the call of employers for better intercultural skills, we’ve watched in recent years as waves of nationalism, racism, and anti-globalism have swept across countries around the world. It makes global competence education that much more critical. To put it simply, the number-one solution to combating nationalist fervor is increasing global understanding.

Both the United Nations and OECD have prioritized global citizenship and global competence education in recent years, with good reason. Globally competent individuals are aware, curious, and interested in learning about the world and how it works, beyond their immediate environment. They recognize the perspectives and worldviews of others and are able to interact and communicate with people across cultures and regions in appropriate ways. And most critically, globally competent individuals don’t just understand the world (which is no small thing in and of itself)—they are an active part of it. They can and do take action to solve problems big and small to improve our collective well-being.

At the end of the day, it is globally competent individuals who will be able to solve the world’s seemingly intractable problems. And it’s up to our world’s educators to prepare those individuals for their global futures.

Schools can make an important difference. They are the first place where children encounter the diversity of society. They can provide students with opportunities to learn about global developments that affect the world and their own lives. They can teach students to develop a fact-based and critical worldview and equip students with an appreciation of other cultures and an awareness of their own cultural identities. They can engage students in experiences that facilitate international and intercultural relations. And they can promote the value of diversity, which in turn encourages sensitivity, respect and appreciation.

But how to do that? In a new publication by the Center for Global Education at Asia Society and OECD, Teaching for global competence in a rapidly changing world, we set forward the PISA framework for global competence developed by OECD, which aligns closely with the definition developed by the Center for Global Education. Based on Asia Society’s extensive experience supporting educators in integrating global competence into their teaching, the publication also provides practical guidance and examples of how educators can embed global competence into their existing curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

As the publication demonstrates through its myriad examples, teachers from around the world have already recognized the importance of teaching for global competence. In one example from a political science teacher in India, students visited a nearby refugee camp to learn about the complexity of the global refugee crisis; in another, a social studies teacher in Mexico guided her students to make recommendations for reducing corruption that they then presented to local officials.

But it also shows that for all students to develop global competence – regardless of their wealth, ethnicity, gender, or background – we need to create access to high-quality professional learning for every teacher in the world. Teachers prepared to develop students’ global competence is a requirement for a sustainable, livable future.

Professional learning for teachers is key, and that requires leveraging digital technology to rapidly build capacity at scale. The challenge now is providing access to these types of professional development resources for all teachers, to transform their teaching methods, their classrooms, their schools – and, eventually, each and every one of their students.

Links
Teaching for global competence in a rapidly changing world
Preparing our youth for an inclusive and sustainable world - The OECD PISA global competence framework
PISA 2018 Global Competence

Photo credit: Asia Society 

Teachers for tomorrow

by Andreas Schleicher
Director, Directorate for Education and Skills

Anyone flying into Abu Dhabi or Dubai is amazed how the United Arab Emirates has been able to transform its oil and gas into shiny buildings and a bustling economy. But more recently, the country is discovering that far greater wealth than all the oil and gas together lies hidden among its people. If the country would live up to its ambition to be among the world’s 20 leading school systems, as measured by PISA, that would add over USD 5 600 billion to the economy over the lifetime of today’s primary school students, or the equivalent of 9 times the size of the UAE’s economy. That is because people with a solid foundation of knowledge, with creative, problem-solving and collaborative skills, and with character qualities such as mindfulness, curiosity, courage and resilience, make a so much greater contribution to economic and social progress.

The trouble is that the UAE has been slow to invest in the people who can dig up and develop that new wealth: highly effective and creative teachers. That might be about to change. On 7 October, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan invited over 800 teachers from around the world to the first Qudwa Global Teachers’ Forum to reimagine the profession. It was the first such event where the talk wasn’t just about teachers, but where teachers talked about how they can prepare today’s students for their future, rather than for our past. In what was dubbed the “ask’ track of the event, teachers explored the future of teaching and the design of innovative learning environments. The “advance” track featured amazing role models for tomorrow’s teachers. And in the “share” track, teachers exchanged views on innovative practices.

For a start, teachers drew up a job description for the profession far bolder than what governments typically come up with. Of course, teachers need to have a deep understanding of what they teach and whom they teach, because what teachers know and care about makes such a difference to student learning. But Qudwa also expects teachers to be passionate, compassionate and thoughtful; to encourage students’ engagement and responsibility; to respond effectively to students of different needs, backgrounds and languages; to provide continual assessments of students and meaningful feedback; to promote collaborative learning, tolerance and social cohesion; and to ensure that students feel valued and included. And it expects teachers themselves to collaborate and work in teams, and with other schools and parents, in order to advance their profession.

Most of the teachers at the Qudwa forum acknowledged there was even more involved than this. Successful people generally had a teacher who was a mentor and took a real interest in their life and aspirations, who helped them understand who they are, and revealed their passions and how to build on their strengths. These were teachers who instilled a love of learning and taught them how to build effective learning strategies, and who helped them discover where they can make a difference to social progress.

Put all of this together and it seems teachers would have every reason to ask for much better pay to meet those expectations. But I heard no one at the forum saying they need more money before they can make a start. That is quite remarkable, because that’s usually the killer argument with which we pass responsibility on to someone else. Instead, the event offered many promising answers for how teachers can meet incredible expectations.

Teachers’ commitment to helping all learners

What impressed me most was the participants’ deep commitment to equity, to do whatever it takes to leverage the talent of every learner. That came across in many ways. First, in the belief that every student can learn, and the importance of embracing diversity in learning with differentiated approaches to teaching. This means building instruction from students’ passions and capacities, helping students personalise their learning and assessments in ways that foster engagement and talents, and encouraging students to be ingenious. As Aggeliki Pappa, a teacher from Greece, put it: “We need to break down the belief that some students cannot learn or are disabled. Students are just differently abled.”

It also came through in the way in which so many of these teachers are addressing social disadvantage, even in the most difficult circumstances. Children from privileged backgrounds will always find open doors in life, but those from disadvantaged backgrounds have only one card to play, and that is to meet a teacher like those at the Qudwa forum and get a good education. If they miss that boat, often there will be no second chance for them. And how we treat the most vulnerable students reflects who we are. I remember Manil Maharjan, a teacher from Nepal, saying, “When students can see a positive future, that’s when can concentrate on their present.” Or Jacque Kahura, from Kenya, who noted: “If we understand these students and their life and their background, then we can fill the multiple roles they need.” At the global level too, the world is no longer divided between countries that are rich and well-educated and those that are poor and badly educated. Countries can choose to develop a superior education system, and if they succeed it will yield huge rewards.

Third, teachers’ commitment to equity came through in how participants at the Qudwa forum embraced learning science and pedagogical innovation. This is about how teachers and schools can better recognise that students learn differently, and give students more ownership over the time, place, path and pace of learning. As Niall McGonigle, from the UAE, put it: “No matter what you're teaching, there's always a way to involve children in the process.” Parveen Jaleel, another teacher from the UAE, added: “Just put the child in the centre and ignore everything else.”

I was also impressed by teachers’ commitment to their profession beyond the role they play in the classroom. These teachers saw themselves as learners with a growth mindset, and as contributing collaboratively to system leadership. As Richard Spencer, from the United Kingdom, noted: “Great teachers are great learners and students need to see their teachers learning.” The heart of this is working with a high degree of professional autonomy and in a collaborative culture. As Souad Belcaid, from Morrocco, noted: “Don’t be afraid of feedback”; and Eldijana Bjelcic, from the United States, added pointedly: “All feedback requires trust between provider and recipients.”

We heard how teacher development must be viewed in terms of lifelong learning, with initial teacher education conceived as providing the foundation for ongoing learning, rather than producing ready-made professionals. And teachers explained how many of them are already engaged in research as an integral part of what it means to be a professional teacher.

Responding to a rapidly changing world

The sharing session also exposed many examples of how digital technology can leverage great teaching, even if it will never replace poor teaching. What if we could get teachers around the globe working on curated crowd-sourcing of the best educational practices, making the Qudwa forum a permanent institution? Technology could create a giant open-source community of teachers and unlock the creative skills and initiative of all teachers, simply by tapping into the desire of people like you to contribute, collaborate and be recognised for it. I remember Paul Solarz saying: “I've been teaching for 19 years. I was one of the most reluctant technology users. But now my students are my partners in bringing technology into the classroom.”

But the heart of this is not technology; it is ownership. As Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah mentioned at the opening, while learning will become more digital, teaching remains a deeply human activity, based on trust and passion. As I could see at the forum, when teachers feel a sense of ownership over their classrooms, when students feel a sense of ownership over their learning, that is when productive learning takes place. So the answer is to strengthen trust, transparency, professional autonomy and the collaborative culture of the profession all at the same time.

But the most central reason why teachers’ ownership of the profession is a must-have rather than an optional extra lies in the pace of change in school systems. Even the most effective attempts to push a government-established curriculum into classroom practice will drag out over a decade, because it just takes so much time to communicate the goals and methods through the different layers of the system and to build them into traditional methods of teacher education. In this age of accelerations, such a slow process is no longer good enough and inevitably leads to a widening gap between what students need to learn and what teachers teach. When fast gets really fast, being slow to adapt makes us really slow.

The only way to shorten that pipeline is for teachers themselves to be involved in the design of curricula and the pedagogies to enact and enable 21st-century curricula. As many teachers said, subject-matter knowledge will be less and less the core and more and more the context of good teaching. Twenty-first century education is about helping children develop a reliable compass and the navigation tools to find their own way through our increasingly complex, uncertain, ambiguous and volatile world. While governments can establish directions and curriculum goals, teachers need to take charge of the instructional system.

In the past, the policy focus was on providing education; tomorrow it needs to be on outcomes, shifting from looking upwards in the bureaucracy towards looking outwards to the next teacher, the next school and the next education system. In the past, administrations emphasised school management; tomorrow the focus needs to be on instructional leadership, with leaders supporting, evaluating and developing high-quality teachers and designing innovative learning environments. As Armand Doucet, from Canada, said:  “We need administrators who are leaders and who understand that teachers need to do innovative things to get through to students.” Over dinner with a group of teachers from the Varkey Global Teacher Prize community, we talked about how assessments and accountability need to evolve, too, as school systems advance, and as rules become guidelines and good practice, and ultimately, as good practice becomes culture.

The Qudwa forum showed how effective learning environments constantly create synergies and find new ways to enhance professional, social and cultural capital with others. They do that with families and communities, with higher education, with other schools and learning environments, and with businesses. Participants heard how building trust between a teacher and parents requires regular and open communication. It also means creating places where parents, children and teachers don’t just talk but do things together. This might be something as simple as having breakfast together, which happens in Nablus, or more structured activities, like the innovative Maker Space in Bulgaria. As Anika Mir, from the UAE, put it: “Parents can be our assets and our allies as teachers”; and Stephen Ritz said: “We need to push the walls of the classroom out and bring the community in.”

I was also struck by how deeply participants engaged in imagining the role of teachers for tomorrow. The past was constructed on divisions, with teachers and content divided by subjects and students separated by expectations of their future career prospects. The Qudwa forum showed how the future needs to be integrated, with an emphasis on merging subjects and combining students. It also needs to be connected, so that learning is open to the rich resources in the community. Those participants who joined Ger Graus from Kidzania saw how we can raise and widen horizons if we can better integrate the world of schooling with real life. Also Soonufat Supramaniam, a teacher from Malaysia, showed participants how much can be achieved by inviting people from different areas and careers to come to schools and discuss their careers.

Instruction in the past was subject-based; instruction in the future needs to be more project-based. It needs to build experiences that help students think across the boundaries of subject-matter disciplines. The past was hierarchical; the future is collaborative, recognising both teachers and students as resources and co-creators. In the past, schools were technological islands, with technology often limited to supporting existing practices, and students always outpacing schools in their adoption of technology. Now schools need to harness the potential of technologies to liberate learning from past conventions and connect learners in new and powerful ways, with new sources of knowledge and with one another.

Tomorrow begins now

All that will have profound implications for the work organisations of schools. The past was about prescription; the future is about an informed profession, where professional and collaborative working norms replace the industrial work organisation, with its administrative control and accountability. Professionalism means emphasising the internal motivation of members and their ownership of professional practice. That demands public confidence in professionals and the profession, professional preparation and learning, collective ownership of professional practice, and acceptance of professional responsibility in the name of the profession. With all of that, tomorrow’s teachers will enjoy deep professional knowledge, a high degree of professional autonomy, and a collaborative culture.

The challenge is that such transformation cannot be mandated by government, which leads to surface compliance, nor can it be built solely from the ground up. Education needs to become better at identifying and championing key agents of change, and better at finding more effective approaches for scaling up and spreading innovation. That is also about finding better ways to recognise, reward and celebrate success, to do whatever is possible to make it easier for innovators to take risks and encourage the emergence of new ideas. Education needs less virtual reform and more real change.

None of this is easy; none of it will be done overnight. And the status quo will always have many protectors. But that’s no reason to give up on education as the most powerful tool for building a fairer, more humane and more inclusive world.

Knowledge and skills have become the global currency of 21st-century economies. But there is no central bank that prints this currency; we cannot inherit this currency, and we cannot produce it through speculation. We can only develop it through sustained effort and investment by people and for people. And no school system can achieve that without attracting, developing and sustaining great teaching talent.

Last but not least, everyone took the theme of the event, “teaching for tomorrow”, literally. What made this Qudwa forum special for me was that it was not about the day after tomorrow, the next year or the next life, but about what everyone can introduce into their daily work tomorrow – literally. The UAE should be credited for offering such an amazing platform to work together on this globally. As Sean Bellamy said: “If the education system is diseased, then the Qudwa has gathered the cure here under one roof.” And perhaps that outward-looking perspective will turn out to become the key differentiator for seeing progress in education. The division may be between those schools and education systems that feel threatened by alternative ways of thinking and those that are open to the world and ready to learn from the world’s best experiences.

Links
Qudwa Global Teachers’ Forum

Photo credit: Qudwa 2017

Different, not disabled: Neurodiversity in education

by Tracey Burns
Senior Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills

Feeling out of place. Too big, too short, too wise, too ignorant – these are all situations Gulliver experiences in Jonathan Swift’s classic of English literature. Gulliver’s Travels give us an idea of how important our environment is when it comes to defining ourselves. It also gives us a 19th century look into the very modern concept of diversity.

Diversity in the classroom includes differences in the way students' brains learn, or neurodiversity. Diagnoses of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) have risen dramatically in the last two decades. This is not an issue that is isolated to a few countries: ADHD diagnoses have increased dramatically in Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Similar patterns are seen in the prevalence of ASD, which occurs along a spectrum of severity and includes Asperger syndrome, a condition some have argued Swift experienced himself. Children with ASD tend to have difficulty with social interaction, dealing with change, and flexible thinking. Cognitive abilities of children with ASD can range from gifted to severely challenged. Stigmas attached to the diagnosis in some countries can result in under identification; for example, two-thirds of ASD cases identified in a Korean sample when diagnostic assessments were administered were otherwise undiagnosed and untreated.

A new Trends Shaping Education Spotlight looks at how education systems work to meet the needs of these students and ensure that all types of learners thrive at school and beyond. There is a growing trend towards all children having the right to be included in typical classrooms if the families so choose (i.e. inclusive education). Inclusive education can help neurodiverse students develop social skills that can encourage social integration and friendships with their peers. It can also help dispel myths: for example, in a survey conducted in the United States, 43% of participants believed wrongly that learning disabilities are correlated with IQ.

In order to deliver on the promise of inclusive education, teachers need support. In many countries teachers now commonly have classes with a diverse range of learning preferences and abilities, including children with different cognitive abilities, hyperactivity, and emotional difficulties. Many teachers feel inadequately prepared for this: in the last two versions of the TALIS survey, teachers consistently identified teaching students with special needs as their first need for professional development (teachers were not asked specifically about neurodiverse students). Student behaviour and classroom management were identified as their third professional need. In addition to supporting teachers, one of the other big challenges is assessing neurodiverse students. Standardised tests are not designed for neurodiverse students, and comparing scores – even with modified questions – may not be appropriate.

On the other hand, assessments reinforce the fact that: 1) academic learning is not secondary for neurodiverse students; 2) it is appropriate to have academic goals for these children, as for all children; and 3) monitoring outcomes for neurodiverse students can help keep systems accountable for achieving learning gains for all.

Small changes, for example alterations of structure and time, can help ADHD students who may find it difficult to sit for long periods. For students with ASD, nonverbal intelligence assessment could be considered, along with other adaptive measures such as taking the test in a quiet room alone.

On a system level, one important concern to take into account is the impact of a competitive test culture on identifying which students are considered neurodiverse: when stakes are high in school assessment, teachers and schools may try to intentionally leave low-performing “neurotypical” students out of the test population by classifying them as “special needs". This is the case, for example, in the United States: in states that have passed laws that tie funding to results on standardised testing, the rates of ADHD diagnosis have also been rapidly increasing. Despite the challenges, avoiding assessment is not a solution: if educational methods are to improve, there first needs to be more evaluation of programmes and evidence-informed practices to support neurodiverse students.

Being able to embrace diversity in all its forms is a key aspect of life in the 21st century. Thankfully, the voyages of Gulliver – in which the traveller who "isn't like the others" is tied up or otherwise mistreated/misunderstood – are long gone. But more can still be done to help our education systems ensure that all types of learners thrive. In order to make that happen, we need to support our teachers and learners, and take a hard look at how the system as a whole operates.

Links
Trends Shaping Education Spotlight No. 12: Neurodiversity in Education
Trends Shaping Education 2016
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) 
New Insights from TALIS 2013

Personalising Education

Join us on Edmodo

Photo credit: @Shutterstock

What today’s teachers need to know

by Andreas Schleicher
Director, Directorate for Education and Skills

I’ve often said that the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers. How, then, do teachers become really good at their jobs? One important way is by learning from one another – across classes, across schools, and yes, even across countries. That’s why the OECD is a knowledge partner of the 2017 Qudwa Global Teachers’ Forum, which is being held in Abu Dhabi on 7 and 8 October. The Forum is bringing together more than 900 teachers from 83 countries to discuss “Teaching for Tomorrow”.

The focus of the forum couldn’t be more timely. According to reports by the World Economic Forum, one-third of the skillsets required to perform today’s jobs will be entirely redundant by 2020. And experts assert that nearly two-thirds of children entering primary school today will end up working in jobs that do not yet exist. The dilemma for teachers is that the kinds of things that are easiest to teach and easiest to test, are precisely the things that are also easy to digitise, automate and outsource. If we want to educate students for their future, rather than for our past, we need to better understand the future and what it implies for teaching today.

“Qudwa” is the Arabic word for “role model”. Teachers are role models for their students, and they can also be leaders in their communities. They need to learn how best to prepare children for living and working in this new, highly digitised world so that tomorrow’s communities are cohesive and productive. We know so much more about what makes for effective teaching; and we now have the tools to amplify and share this knowledge so that we can develop a global network of change leaders.

Participants at the forum will be sharing information and exchanging their views about the most effective teaching strategies, using technology in the classroom, making schools more inclusive, and engaging with parents, among many other topics. Most of the discussions will be based on data collected by the OECD: a strong foundation on which a high-quality teaching force – and thus high-quality education systems – can be built. Like all of us, teachers need inspiration to perform at their best; I’m certain they will find lots of it in Abu Dhabi this weekend.

Links

Qudwa Global Teachers’ Forum

Read the OECD Policy Briefs

Follow the conversation on Twitter: #Qudwa2017

Photo credit: Qudwa Global Teachers’ Forum

Why teaching matters more than ever before

by Stavros Yiannouka, CEO, WISE – World Innovation Summit for Education and Andreas Schleicher, Director, Directorate for Education and Skills

Teaching and learning lie at the heart of what it means to be human. While animals teach and learn from each other through direct demonstration, observation and experience, humans are unique in their ability to convey vast quantities of information and impart skills across time and space. We are also, as far as we know, unique in our ability to engage in and convey our thinking around abstract concepts such as governance, justice and human rights.

Technology has always played an indispensable role in this process. Starting with language and then writing, humanity was able to separate the process of teaching and learning from the constraints of direct demonstration, observation, and experience. The invention of paper and ink, and then the printing press, exponentially increased the quantity of knowledge that could be captured, stored, and disseminated. In this context, modern information and communication technologies are no more than extensions of a trend that began several millennia ago.

Technology however was not solely responsible for advancing teaching and learning amongst humans: abstract thought has perhaps played the most important part through the development of concepts such as education and knowledge. Formal education may have begun as an exercise in training royal accountants and scribes but it very soon expanded to incorporate literature, if only so that those accountants and scribes could, in their writing, emulate the great authors and poets of their time.

Much has changed in how we think about and practice education. Although in theory we still expect education to serve the dual purpose of imparting useful knowledge and skills, and instilling values, in practice most modern education systems place far greater emphasis on the former over the latter. The reasons for this are manifold. In large part it has to do with the pressures placed on education to support social development and thus to demonstrate ‘a return on investment.’ But it also has to do with the rise of moral relativism in some countries, the belief that values systems are inherently subjective and therefore best left to parental and cultural upbringing.

This overtly utilitarian view of education lies at the heart of the modish idea that information and communication technologies can to a large extent replace teachers. If education is viewed solely as a process for imparting useful knowledge and skills then it is likely that technology will render traditional teaching redundant in the not too distant future. But education is always more than this, if its purpose is also to impart values, to inspire, and to socialise, it is one of the most enduring relational activities. It is no accident that high performing education systems from Finland to Singapore, all place the teacher at the heart of the enterprise. Much is expected from teachers but much is also given in the form of professional development, autonomy, and respect.

Technology alone cannot perform this role. But technology can amplify great teaching. And it can build communities of teachers to share and enrich teaching resources and practices. Imagine the power of an education system that could meaningfully share all of the expertise and experience of its educators using digital technology. What if we could get our teachers working on curated crowd-sourcing of educational practice, wouldn’t that be so much more powerful than things like performance-related pay as an approach to professional growth and development? Technology could be used to create a giant open-source community of teachers and educators outside schools and unlock the creative skills and initiative of its teachers, simply by tapping into the desire of people to contribute, collaborate and be recognised for it.

Throughout history, teaching was viewed as a noble and even spiritual calling. In the age of accelerations, it can be even more so.

Links
2017 WISE Summit: "Co-Exist, Co-Create: Learning to Live and Work Together"
For more on education and education policies around the world, visit: http://www.oecd.org/edu
PISA 2015: Compare your country

Join our OECD Teacher Community on Edmodo


Photo credit: @Shutterstock 

Education reform in Wales: A national mission

by Kirsty Williams AM
Cabinet Secretary for Education, Welsh Government

It’s an exciting time for education in Wales.

This was noted by the OECD earlier this year, when it recognised that government and sector are working closely together with a commitment to improvements that are “visible at all levels of the education system”.

This week, as Wales’s Education Secretary, I published our new action plan for the next four years. Entitled ‘Education in Wales: Our national mission’, it builds on the strong foundations already in place in our system. But we are setting the bar even higher, ambitious as we are in our expectations for our young people, for our teaching profession and for our nation.

As a relatively small country and a still-young democracy, we have too often seen these as challenges rather than opportunities. Through the OECD, we have had the opportunity to learn more about other systems and their reform journeys.

It is true that no two countries or systems are the same. However, as a bilingual system committed to both equity and excellence, we are not only learning from others, but our innovative approach is in fact attracting international attention. And Wales will remain open to ideas, visits and co-operation!

It is our approach to curriculum reform, within a reformed system, that is often of most interest. Work is well underway on this, led by a group of pioneer schools who are working in partnership with government, regional education consortia, international experts, universities, business and third sector, and right across the education profession. It is not the product of secret meetings in some Government back-office.

The OECD said in its recent review: “To support the realisation of its education objectives and ultimately its vision of the Welsh learner, Wales should continue its curriculum reform… ensuring that its reform journey is comprehensive and effective.”

Therefore, as we continue with our reforms, we will bring a renewed focus to four key ‘enabling’ objectives.

Education in Wales

Firstly, ensuring a high-quality education profession. We will support teachers in being lifelong professional learners through new standards, a national approach and reformed initial teacher education.

Secondly, identifying and inspiring leaders to raise standards. We need to address a previous lack of emphasis on leadership. Therefore we will establish a national leadership academy, reduce bureaucracy through business managers and improved communication and co-operation, and revise the qualification for school leaders.

Thirdly, ensure that our schools are inclusive, dedicated to excellence, equity and well-being. We will extend our targeted support for learners from disadvantaged backgrounds, provide dedicated support for our ‘more able’ learners, and be innovative in identifying and measuring well-being alongside attainment.

And fourthly, improved assessment, evaluation and accountability within a self-improving system. We will be consistent and clear about the things we wish to value and measure through a new annual national education report and report card, formative assessments and a new assessment & evaluation framework that focuses on improvement all levels.

The OECD report and advice was unambiguous: hold our nerve, stay the course, but do more to communicate, clarify and ensure coherence in our programme. Focus on leadership in delivering a much-needed new curriculum in a timely manner.

‘Education in Wales: Our national mission’ responds to those recommendations and sets out our collective responsibility to raise standards, reduce the attainment gap and deliver a system that is a source of genuine national pride and public confidence.

Links
Education in Wales: Our national mission
The Welsh education reform journey: A rapid policy assessment (OECD)
Curriculum for Wales blog

Follow the conversation on Twitter: #EducationMissionWales

Photo credits: Welsh Government Education

What happens with your skills when you leave school?

by Dirk Van Damme
Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education and Skills

Mean literacy and numeracy score, by age and education enrolment status
OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), 2012 or 2015

Moving from the world of school to the world of work is one of the most dramatic changes in the lives of young people. And for many youngsters this transition does not go smoothly. Spells of frictional or longer-term unemployment, job insecurity because of low-paid or temporary contracts, and the uncertainties associated with starting to live autonomously produce a challenging phase in young people’s lives. The most vulnerable people are those who fall between the two systems: the so-called NEETs (not in employment, education or training), who are no longer in school and are either unemployed or inactive. Some 6% of 15-19 year-olds in OECD countries – in other words, half of those of that age who have left school, or around 5 million young people – are NEET.

A new Education Indicators in Focus brief looks at the transition from school to work across different age groups. It reconfirms that leaving school is much less difficult if one has acquired an upper secondary qualification, which functions as a kind of security mechanism against most of the hardships associated with the transition. The share of 20-24 year-old NEETs who do not have an upper secondary qualification (36%) is double the share of employed 20-24 year-olds who have not attained that level of education (18%).

But an educational qualification is one thing; the actual skills that people have are another. The brief publishes some new and interesting findings about the skills disparities among young people in different age groups in and out of school. The chart above shows the difference in mean literacy and numeracy skills between people in and out of education in three different age groups. The differences are remarkable. Among 16-19 year-olds, the difference in skills amounts to the equivalent of around 2.5 years of schooling. But the differences among older age groups are also considerable – and they remain significant even after controlling for educational attainment.

The finding lends itself to various possible explanations and observations. The most obvious one is that the results reflect a selection effect: more-skilled young people tend to stay in school while the less-skilled leave. A skills-selection effect does not seem to be problematic among 20-24 and 25-29 year-olds, when continuing one’s education is based on educational merit. For the younger age group, however, the difference in skills signals an efficiency problem in our education systems. Less-skilled young people should leave school only after they have acquired a foundation level of skills. When dropping out of school at an early age is the result of a skills-selection mechanism, than we are not serving our most vulnerable youngsters well.

Another possible explanation looks at the skills difference from the other side of the transition: the labour market and the world of work. This hypothesis suggests that leaving school and entering the labour market is accompanied by a process of de-skilling. When skills are not used in employment, they erode. A difficult school-to-work transition can have a scarring effect that can last throughout an entire career. De-skilling can happen through unemployment, but also through employment in precarious jobs, where workers do not fully use their skills, or through employment in an ill-matched job. This hypothesis suggests that a difficult transition process can undermine what should be a social benefit: essentially, the investment in skills acquisition is wasted.

The policy consequences are clear: there are many reasons for governments to be concerned about the school-to-work transition. Dropping out of school at an early age without a proper qualification has a huge social cost. Policies to provide guidance and support to young people during that transition pay off: there is less risk that people become unemployed or fall between the cracks and become dependent on welfare systems. And such policies should encourage people to maintain their skills and give them the opportunity to improve their skills through quality work and training. The political responsibility to ensure a smooth transition is enormous, but it is also shared between the work of education and the world of work.

Links

Education Indicators in Focus No. 54 - Transition from school to work: How hard is it across different age groups? 

Education Indicators in Focus 

Education at a Glance 2016: OECD Indicators

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Chart source: OECD (2017), in Education Indicators in Focus No. 54, Figure 3. 

Improving education outcomes for Indigenous students

by Andreas Schleicher 
Director, Directorate for Education and Skills 

Indigenous peoples are the first inhabitants of their lands, but are often poorly served by the education systems in their countries. Why? Is it necessary to wait until issues such as poverty or appropriate legal recognition for Indigenous peoples are resolved? Can education systems be expected to address Indigenous students’ needs relating to language, culture and identity? Can non-Indigenous teachers be effective teachers of Indigenous students? How can Indigenous parents have confidence that their children are safe at school and receiving a high-quality education?

Indigenous students do well in some schools more than in other schools and in some education systems more than in other education systems. Pockets of excellence and promising practices rarely translate across systems or across schools within a single education system. Thus, education systems and individual schools seldom learn from each other about what it takes to improve education for Indigenous students. Learning from examples of success can enable systems and schools to do better and accelerate improvements for Indigenous students.

An OECD report, Promising Practices in Supporting Success for Indigenous Students, released on International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples (9 August 2017), highlights examples of success by Indigenous students and how these successes have been achieved. These examples can be used to help education systems improve education outcomes for Indigenous students and to quicken the pace of doing so.

OECD analysis of progress across six Canadian provinces and territories, New Zealand and Queensland, Australia shows that success for Indigenous students in education is becoming a priority. These jurisdictions have a clear will and commitment to improve, and have put in place many initiatives to address challenges and accelerate positive change. In some cases, the improvements are clearly evident; in others, the efforts are not yet at a scale to make a difference or have not been in place for a sufficient period to affect Indigenous students’ education. Achieving progress requires the deliberate decision to do so and then a concerted effort to do enough to improve each Indigenous student’s experience in education.

Providing high-quality, early childhood education and care (ECEC) for Indigenous children sets them on an early pathway towards success. High-quality ECEC is culturally responsive to the needs of Indigenous children and their families. It encourages Indigenous children to be confident and curious, and builds social, emotional and early cognitive skills. It also means working in partnership with Indigenous parents to better meet their children’s needs. Such ECEC is best provided in Indigenous communities, where these children live, and should be both accessible to and affordable for their parents.

Another ingredient of success is establishing respectful and trusting relationships with Indigenous leaders and communities, both at the system governance level and at the individual school level. Schools that build genuine partnerships with Indigenous communities achieve much more for Indigenous students than schools that do not engage with these students’ communities and homes. The benefits of such partnerships are evident in student participation and attendance rates, and in indicators of student learning and achievement.

School principals can make all the difference – or not. In schools where Indigenous students are achieving well, there is generally a highly effective and committed school principal who has done “whatever it takes” to ensure Indigenous students attend school, are engaged in learning and are positive about their futures. These schools tend to use a “whole-of-child” approach that puts children’s overall well-being as the key priority. Effective principals also set high expectations for teachers and take responsibility for monitoring Indigenous students’ academic progress, to ensure targets are being met and that any needed interventions are put in place in a timely manner.

Teachers also need support, to build their capability and confidence in establishing relationships with and teaching students from communities with which they may not be familiar. With the right support, teachers can build both their cultural competence and effective teaching strategies, such as the use of the history and geography of the school community, so that they elicit the best out of all of their students. 

Links
Promising Practices in Supporting Success for Indigenous Students
For more on education and education policies around the world, visit: http://www.oecd.org/edu

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What makes education governance and reform work beyond the drawing table?

by Florian Köster

Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills, OECD

 

Today’s education systems need to adapt practices to local diversity while ensuring common goals. Given the complexity of modern education systems, seemingly straightforward changes may result in unexpected consequences, making effective production, use and exchange of knowledge – policy-relevant know-how – across the system indispensable. Good governance requires opening up the knowledge system to a broad range of stakeholders. It needs to allow for competing know-how on all governance-levels and must create practices that manage to integrate different forms of knowledge.

Just published, Education Governance in Action: Lessons from Case Studies bridges theory and practice by connecting major themes in education governance to real-life reform efforts in various countries. The publication builds upon detailed case studies of education reform efforts in Flanders (Belgium), Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Sweden. The case studies are complemented by additional examples of efforts to restore and sustain trust in education systems. Together they provide a rich illustration of governance challenges – and successes – countries see today.

 

The volume highlights the interdependence between knowledge and governance and casts a spotlight on those processes with which governance systems struggle the most in the real-world implementation of education reforms: capacity building, accountability and strategic thinking.

In balancing local responsiveness with central goals, a dynamic and flexible knowledge system is only half of the equation. The other half pertains to governance processes. Successful governance and reform also relies on:

• aligning responsibilities to avoid frictions between stakeholders and between policies;
• implementing a constructive accountability system that guides stakeholders towards common goals while allowing responsible risk-taking in the quest to improve;
• supporting actors in adapting policy and using evidence for innovation; and
• building stable practices that enable continuous strategic thinking.

Aligning policies can increase their efficiency and effectiveness: Clear responsibilities from the beginning reduce future costs and potential side-stepping of responsibilities. If policies are aligned, stakeholders face fewer competing demands, in turn reducing confusion and improving efficiency. When communicated effectively, aligning responsibilities and policies can also send a strong positive signal of joint effort and collaboration.

A strong accountability system sets clear guidelines and expectations. However, there is a general tension that cannot be overlooked: accountability mechanisms that seek to minimise deviation and mistakes could have a negative impact on the trial and error required for innovation. In the mission to future-proof our education systems, constructive accountability mechanisms need to reconcile quality assurance across the system with the vitality needed for innovation. Actors need the trust and confidence to take the necessary leap of faith to do things differently in the search of improvement.

Supporting stakeholders in the implementation and adaptation of policies to the local situation is vital for lasting change. This includes building the capacity to gather and use evidence for local innovation as well as policy implementation. Without sustained support, incentives and guidelines, any policy risks being derailed in the day-to-day practice.

There is one last crucial element: keeping the long-term perspective in mind. Continuous strategic thinking is tough, particularly when current events overthrow priorities in the public opinion and political discussion. Nevertheless maintaining a long-term vision is a fundamental ingredient to effective governance. While the urgent undoubtedly needs to be addressed, it is essential that strategic thinking is not overshadowed by current urgencies. Here, consolidating change through efforts at multiple points and winning the support of a broad base of stakeholders is one of the most important aspects.

The search for effective and efficient education governance for today’s and tomorrow’s education systems will certainly continue in the years to come. Based on real-world examples, the volume suggests promising pathways to successfully adapt to today’s complex environment and to steer a clear course to the future of education governance.

 

Links: 
Education Governance in Action: Lessons from Case Studies
Governing Education in a Complex World
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) webpage
Find out more on Governing Complex Education Systems (GCES)
Photo credit: flat 3d isometric design of e-learning concept@Shutterstock

Governing complex education systems

by Tracey Burns
Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills, OECD
Florian Koester
Consultant, Directorate for Education and Skills, OECD

What models of governance are effective in complex education systems? How can governments set priorities and design polices that balance responsiveness to local diversity with national education goals? And how do we ensure that there is trust, co-operation and communication between the multiple levels and actors in the system?

These are tough questions. Just published, Governing Education in a Complex World brings together state of the art research and insights from country experience to identify the elements necessary for effective education governance. The book challenges our traditional concepts of education governance through work on complexity, reform and new approaches to collaboration and decision-making. In doing so it sets the agenda for thinking about creating the open, dynamic and strategic approaches necessary for governing complex systems in today’s global world.

Effectively governing education systems is not a simple task. There are no magic solutions, no one-size-fits-all recipe that can be rolled out to guarantee success. Work on complexity theory reveals that a certain level of complexity in a system – whether in an education system or a school – can lead to unpredictable reactions or unexpected consequences to even seemingly simple changes. Modern education governance must be flexible at the same time as it steers a clear course towards established goals. It must also be efficient, limited by given funds and time.

The book identifies key elements to modern education governance. First, savviness and endurance are needed to align multi-level systems and it is vital to engage with a diverse set of actors, including students and parents. In doing so, it’s important to include all stakeholders and voices – not only the ones that shout the loudest – in the governance process to strengthen participatory decision-making. And while new technologies provide the opportunity to engage a broader set of actors, they also bring new challenges: instant feedback can mean that expectations rise faster than performance, and lead to short-term solutions rather than long-term vision. This tends to result in reactive decision-making, where the urgent is prioritised over the important. Staying on track and keeping an eye on the long-term is not easy, but it is key to effective and sustainable governance.

Education systems must also be able to resolve system-wide tensions. For example, countries are under pressure to strengthen their accountability systems while at the same time they encourage innovation.  Ideally, a system would have both a strong and constructive accountability system as well as dynamic innovation processes. However, controlled accountability mechanisms generally seek to minimise risk and mistakes to improve efficiency. At the same time, trial and error are fundamental to the innovation process. Finding the right balance of these two elements (or, perhaps more accurately, the right combination of mutually reinforcing dynamics) is key and will depend on the context and history of the system as well as the ambitions and expectations for its future.

Successful governance also requires thinking about the individuals involved, their needs and their aspirations. Any time a reform is rolled out, we need to think carefully of what is needed on the human level to make it happen. Do teachers (and principals, students and parents) have the capacity to deliver on their new responsibilities? If not, is training or other support in place? This is a simple set of questions, but our work demonstrates that it is often this piece of the puzzle that gets lost in the rush to move forward with a new reform or policy. Yet without the required capacity and support, the best plan risks being derailed at the level where it counts most: the classroom.

So what are the elements of effective modern governance systems? Effective governance:

• focuses on processes, not structures;
• is flexible and can adapt to change and unexpected events;
• works through building capacity, stakeholder involvement and open dialogue;
• requires a whole system approach to align roles and balance tensions;
• harnesses evidence and research to inform policy and practice; and
• is built on trust.

The search for new modes of governance for 21st century education systems will certainly continue in the years to come. Governing Education in a Complex World sets the agenda and challenges us to develop the open, adaptable, and flexible governance systems necessary in a complex world. Just as education must move to evolve and grow with our modern world, so too must the systems that govern them.

Links:
Governing Education in a Complex World
OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI)
Find out more on Governing Complex Education Systems (GCES)
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