Succeeding with resilience – Lessons for schools

by Johanna Boersch-Supan
Director, Vodafone Germany Foundation – think tank 

Digitisation is expected to profoundly change the way we learn and work – at a faster pace than previous major drivers of transformation. Many children entering school today are likely to end up working in jobs that do not yet exist. Preparing students for these unchartered territories means that

Drawing the future: What children want to be when they grow up

by Andreas Schleicher
Director, Directorate for Education and Skills

The next generation of children will need to create jobs, not just seek jobs. They will draw on their curiosity, imagination, entrepreneurship and resilience, the joy of failing forward. Their schools will help them discover their passions and aspirations, develop their potential, and find their place in society.

But that is easier said than done, and good reading, math and science skills are just part of the answer. To develop their dreams and invest the effort it takes to realise them, children need, first of all, to be aware of the world and the opportunities it offers them.

We often take that awareness for granted, perhaps because schools tend to be designed and run by people who succeeded in them. But this report paints a different picture. Statistics showed previously that more than one in five teenagers are looking to secure the 2.4% of new and replacement jobs in the UK economy that are predicted to be found in culture, media and sports occupations. More generally, over one-third of 15-16 year-olds career interests lie in just 10 occupations. And 7 out of the ‘bottom 10’ young peoples’ occupation choices are actually well-paid jobs. The Drawing the Future survey shows that primary children’s aspiration is also concentrated around similar occupations.

It all starts early. When children between the age of 7 and 11 were asked to draw their future, the most popular job for UK children was a sportsman/woman, with 21% leading by a margin of over 10 percentage points over the next popular occupation; and the sportsman/woman was 10 times more highly rated than a nurse or health visitor (2%). Will these children invest the necessary effort to study tough subjects such as math and science when they don’t see them related to their own aspirations?

Perhaps the most worrying finding of the Drawing the Future survey is the myopic view that children from disadvantaged backgrounds have about the possibility set of their futures. Their sense of awareness remains often limited to the jobs of their parents, and that holds across all countries taking part in this study, except Uganda and Zambia, where teachers were the biggest influencers.

Giving children a better sense of the world of work is not just a matter of social justice. It is also a matter of bringing the potential of the next generation fully to bear. At a time when our economies count on everyone’s contribution, we cannot afford that disadvantaged youths rule themselves out of careers that they could successfully pursue. Having children know someone who did the job they aspire to turns out to be key, and schools can play such a powerful role in helping children meet more people from more occupations.

The drawings also show clear gender patterns. Boys have a preference for working with things, girls tend to prioritise working with people. Over 4 times the number of boys wanted to become engineers compared to girls, and nearly double the number of boys drew scientists as their future jobs compared to girls in the sample. To be fair, the UK has done a lot to level the playing field. For example, 15-year-old boys and girls in the UK achieved the same science results in the global PISA test. But also in this age group far more boys than girls said they wanted to become science and engineering professionals. So more science lessons may be missing the point. The question is rather how to make science learning more relevant to children and youths, including through broadening their views of the world by given them greater exposure to a wider range of occupations. Career counselling in secondary schooling comes far too late. It is clear from the drawings that children arrive in school with strong assumptions based on their own day to day experiences, which are shaped by ideas surrounding gender, ethnicity and social class. Those who still have doubts should watch the 2 minute Redraw the Balance film featuring 66 pictures of a firefighter, surgeon and a fighter pilot, of which 61 were drawn of men and just 5 with women.

So the future will need more primary schools with teachers who help children see their future and the value of learning beyond knowledge acquisition, who are designers of imaginative problem-based environments, who scaffold problem inquiry and nurture critical evaluation, and who bring in parents and volunteers from the world of work into instruction to show children the richness of life and work. Clearly, schools cannot do this alone, but they can play a key part, and the bottom line is that we owe all youths the education that wise parents want for their own children.

The Drawing the Future report will be formally launched at #Davos on the 25th January #WEF18

Links
Drawing the Future survey
Video: The impact of volunteers on children from disadvantaged backgrounds, interview with Andreas Schleicher, Director of OECD Directorate for Education and Skills
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
OECD Skills Beyond School

Follow the conversation on twitter: #OECDPISA  and #DrawingtheFuture

Schools at the crossroads of innovation

by Dirk Van Damme

Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education and Skills

In a not so distant past, it was seen as one of the defining features of schools that they isolated learners – and the learning process itself – from the surrounding environment. As so brilliantly described by the French philosopher Michel Foucault in his account of the modern machinery of discipline and power, schools must be secluded time/space settings, far away from the impurities of the contemporary world which would poison the minds and character of children. But also in a more enlightened and emancipatory sense, separating young learners from an often depressing environment was perceived to be the best way to guide them to higher levels of knowledge, skill and wisdom.

Schools and schooling have changed a lot in recent years, but they are still well-defined in terms of the time and space boundaries that separate them from their environment. Some modern progressive pedagogies have gradually opened up schooling by moving children out of the school and into the surrounding natural and social environments, introducing a new learning process based on realistic and relevant challenges. But in most cases, schools are still isolated spaces, defined by concrete walls and iron fences, where life is dictated by the rhythm of the school bell.

How different this mindset is from the realities of today‘s world! The separation of school time from the wider world, characterised by borderless networking and communication, may seem rather alienating to young people. Isolating schools from their environment does nothing to help the process of incremental change, nor the innovation of education and learning. No modern institution changes solely from within, but rather does so in reaction or interaction with an environment which continuously challenges its processes and outputs. In today’s world, these pressures challenges and demands towards schools seem to accumulate, be it in the form of employers asking for more relevant skills and offering workplace learning arrangements to move learners into the reality, or in the form of citizens and civil society claiming all kinds of changes in the curriculum in order to align education with what they perceive to be the common good.

These issues are further developed and expanded in a new OECD/CERI publication Schools at the crossroads of innovation in cities and regions, and will be discussed with education ministers, high-level policy makers and industry leaders in the upcoming Global Education Industry Summit, which takes place in Luxembourg on 25-26 September, hosted by the OECD, the European Commission and the Government of Luxembourg.

Too often the answer from the world of education is defensive and self-protective. It is time to radically rethink schooling in terms of openness and networking, or in other words, as nodes in wider ecosystems of innovation and learning. Schools are among the most important knowledge institutions of modern societies and they have such great potential to play a critical role in processes of knowledge production and dissemination, vital to innovation in the local and regional economy. Many accounts of innovation would agree that human capital plays a crucial role, but they tend to look first at the knowledge and skills of educated individuals, and not at the active engagement of schools as learning environments where innovation also occurs. Similarly, schools can – and should –play a very important role in building the social capital of local communities, by offering services that improve the well-being and social cohesion in local communities.

By developing an ecosystems view of schools and opening up schools to the surrounding economies and societies, many important stakeholders would feel empowered to support and contribute to them. Local employers, who already play a role in apprenticeships and workplace learning arrangements in vocational education, could easily expand their role towards other dimensions and sectors of the educational system. Opening up schools will generate a completely different governance system for education, one where vertical command-and-control steering and accountability is exchanged for more horizontal relationships and a networking system made up of various stakeholders. Such developments would strengthen the relevance of what is learnt in schools, and contribute to the social and emotional learning that is essential for fostering good citizenship and engaging human beings.

Innovative schools challenge the boundaries – in time, space, and also in curricula and learning processes – that tradition seems to impose on schools today. They often have different approaches to the learning process and especially how its pedagogical core is organised. It is true that deep learning sometimes requires concentration, silencing the noise from the surrounding environment. And a networking world can be a very noisy world. But the era when isolation and separation were necessary to define the learning environments for our children has passed. Schools are at a crossroads of innovation: they are becoming partners and actors in processes of innovation in the surrounding economy and society, and taking benefit of the world around them to innovate their own existence.

Links
Schools at the crossroads of innovation in cities and regions
3rd Global Education Industry Summit, Luxembourg, 25-26 September, 2017

Follow the conversation: #GEIS2017

Photo credit: The Global Education Industry Summit

Investigating the complexities of school funding

by Deborah Nusche
Senior Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills

Back in 2013, when we launched the OECD's first international review of school resource policies, we may not have been fully prepared for the detective-type work we were getting into. The OECD Review of School Resources covers 18 school systems and aims to shed light on a part of education policy that has been surprisingly left in the dark.

Today, we publish our first thematic report on the funding of school education. The research conducted for this study involved intensive field visits to 10 countries, which made tangible the challenges of reviewing school funding policies.

In several systems, information on the formulas used to calculate funding levels for schools was not readily available. In a range of countries, including Denmark, Iceland and Sweden, school funding policies are a local responsibility and there may be as many different funding formulas as there are local authorities.

But even in more centralised systems, authorities could rarely point us to a single document providing all elements considered in the national funding approach. Several times, we were told that only a handful of people in the system actually understood the funding scheme. Luckily, in most cases we were able to meet these rare funding master minds.

The many actors we spoke to in schools, education administrations and representative organisations also helped us understand the funding mechanisms from their perspective. In one country, we analysed a sample of letters received by schools from the ministry on their funding allocation, and deduced from these the main school funding principles.

The funding approaches we uncovered in countries as diverse as Austria, Belgium, Chile, the Czech Republic and Estonia were of greater or lesser complexity. In some systems, fragmented governance structures are reducing the clarity, co-ordination and transparency of funding flows. In others, the formulas used to calculate per-student funding are so complicated that they effectively prevent those who use them from fully understanding them. Such complexity makes policy discussions difficult, if not impossible.

Moreover, countries typically supplement the main funding streams with additional targeted funds. In Uruguay, there are over 130 different programmes targeted at improving equity in education, which involve the funding of specific groups of students or schools. The use of targeted programmes can help convey policy objectives, promote greater equity and allow better steering of the use of public resources. But a multiplication of such programmes risks generating inefficiencies, greater administrative costs and a lack of long-term sustainability for schools.

Comparing funding approaches across countries adds another layer of complexity. Definitions vary across countries, and describing complex policies in simple comparative tables may betray the logic of individual systems. In close collaboration with its Group of National Experts on School Resources, the OECD study produced a set of country profiles for the participating systems, as well as internationally comparative tables for several aspects of their funding systems. These are analysed based on findings from international research, narrative reports collected from participating countries, and the conclusions of individual country visits.

The resulting synthesis report, which was co-funded by the European Commission, is the first in a series of thematic reports on school resources, which collectively aim to help improve school resource policies across the OECD. Not surprisingly, one of the report's main recommendations is for schools and school systems to be more transparent about their funding policies and how resources are distributed. The presentation of clear criteria that can be scrutinised and negotiated can help stimulate public debate and stakeholder support of a given approach as a fair method of funding.

The report also makes a strong case for school funding policies to be connected to educational objectives. This needs to happen at all levels of a school system. Central and sub-central funding strategies need to make explicit the goals that they aim to achieve, and public reporting should present funding information alongside information on the quality and equity of a school system. At the school level, school leaders with responsibility for resources need to be prepared for strategic budgeting in a framework of learning-centred leadership. They also need support in the more technical aspects of budgeting so that they can focus on the strategic aspects of formulating their school's budget.

The report provides analysis, policy options and examples from around the world on the following aspects of school funding policy:

• Connecting funding strategies to education goals 
• Aligning roles and responsibilities in complex funding systems 
• Building capacity for strategic school funding 
• Developing a stable and publicly known system for funding allocation
• Striking a balance between regular and targeted funding 
• Using adequate indicators to target disadvantage
• Being transparent about the use of funds 
• Bringing together evaluative information on inputs, processes and outcomes 
• Paying particular attention to evaluating the equity outcomes of school funding

Links

The Funding of School Education: Connecting Resources and Learning

OECD Review of School Resources

OECD says countries should rethink school funding policies

Join our OECD Teacher Community on Edmodo

Photo credit: @shutterstock 

Going beyond education policies – how can PISA help turn policy into practice?

by Andreas Schleicher
Director, Directorate for Education and Skills

How Do We Stack Up? Using OECD'S PISA to Drive Progress in U.S. Education from EdPolicy Leaders Online.

How are policy makers in the United States using data to help districts maximise their impact? And, what tools do districts need to work together in order to build stronger communities?  The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in the United States has transferred a great deal of autonomy to states and districts. These local authorities are now responsible for transforming state and federal policies into strategies and practices that guide teaching and learning in the classroom. This allocated autonomy creates opportunities for states and districts to collaborate, but also adds an element of the unknown, since most decisions used to be taken at the federal level. Data are crucial to understanding the effect policies have on education systems at a local level. But, collecting the right kind of data can be challenging. 

The OECD’s triennial report on the state of education, the Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA), can be a good starting point. Tracking trends over time, PISA allows policy makers to link data on student learning outcomes with data on students’ backgrounds and attitudes towards learning and on key factors that shape their learning, in and outside of school. PISA examines the relationships with low performance, what makes schools successful, including autonomy and accountability, and teacher-student collaboration.

A new online course developed by EdPolicy Leaders online aims to unlock PISA to reveal what is possible in education for US policy makers and education leaders. We hope it will enable educators to leverage the experience of the world’s leading school systems to improve policies and practice.

Understanding PISA results is a first step towards defining ways in which PISA data can be used to identify strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. education system. What then follows is creative thinking about what education leaders, schools, teachers, parents and students themselves can do to support policy actions that ensure every student is equipped with the skills necessary to achieve their full potential and participate in an increasingly interconnected global economy.

There is no single combination of policies and practices that will work for everyone, everywhere. PISA’s unique contribution to the education debate is that it shows policy makers and education leaders what’s possible and shares evidence of the best policies and practices across the globe.

For the next round of PISA in 2018, the OECD will take the assessment a step further and work with member countries to build a new framework which goes beyond testing students on their cognitive abilities. PISA will also examine if schools are helping students develop trust and respect, and are preparing them to be able to collaborate with others of different cultural origins.


Links:
PISA online course: How Do We Stack Up? Using OECD'S PISA to Drive Progress in U.S. Education
PISA 2012 Key Findings
PISA 2015 Assessment and Analytical Framework
OECD proposal for a framework to assess Global Competence in PISA 2018