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How inequalities in acquiring skills evolve

by Francesca Borgonovi Senior Analyst, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills

Since 2000, the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has been a key source of information on how well societies and education systems have equipped 15-year-old students with the knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern societies. However important this information is, most 15-year-old students can expect to stay in education or training for at least another three to four years after they are eligible to sit the PISA test; those who go on to complete higher degrees are looking at around another ten years of study. The tendency to devote more and more years to the development of skills through formal schooling, further education and training implies that the effectiveness of education and training systems should not be judged solely on how well 15-year-old students have mastered certain skills. PISA data reveal large disparities in achievement not only across countries, but also within countries across different subgroups of students. In particular, compared to other students, students from socio-economically disadvantaged households score lower in the three core subjects considered in PISA: reading, mathematics and science. However, PISA by itself cannot identify how disparities in achievement evolve between the teenage years and young adulthood. A new OECD working paper released today combines data from PISA and the Survey of Adult Skills to identify how socio-economic disparities in achievement evolve as students make the transition from compulsory schooling into further education, training or the labour market. In most countries, the socio-economic disparities in literacy and numeracy observed among 15-year-old students not only persist in young adulthood, but tend to widen. Further education and participation in the labour market are crucial for acquiring skills after compulsory schooling. But socio-economically disadvantaged young people are considerably less likely than their more advantaged peers to attend post-secondary education and training, and are more likely to drop out of education without a secondary level qualification. They are also more likely to be unemployed or out of the labour force and to work in jobs that require little advanced, on-the-job training or practice of higher-order thinking skills. Although it is not possible to establish causality, the data suggest that, once compulsory schooling is over, the opportunities available to young people to develop their skills diverge – in ways that are largely related to socio-economic status. Links Adult Skills in Focus No. 5: Do socio-economic disparities in skills grow between the teenage years and young adulthood? OECD Working Paper No. 155: Youth in Transition: How does the Cohort Participating in PISA Fare in PIAAC PISA 2015 Results Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) Chart Source: OECD Survey of Adult Skills (2012, 2015), www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/publicdataandanalysis ; OECD PISA (2000, 2003), www.oecd.org/pisa/data/database-pisa2000.htm ; www.oecd.org/pisa/data/database-pisa2003.htm

#Survey of Adult Skills #PISA #PIAAC #adult skills

Building strong partnerships to tackle Mexico’s skills challenges

by Gabriela Ramos Chief of Staff, OECD

Skills are central to the future prosperity and well-being of Mexico’s people Skills are the foundation upon which Mexico must build future growth and prosperity. Mexico, being one of the youngest populations among OECD countries, has a strong demographic advantage and thus a unique window of opportunity. But it also faces common challenges to bring the skills of its population up to the requirements of the global digital economy. The time to act is now. Mexico needs to boost the development, activation and use of skills to drive further innovation and inclusive growth while dealing more effectively with longstanding, but increasingly urgent issues, such as improving equity and reducing informality. To this end, the aim of current educational reform in Mexico is a must to provide quality education to all the individuals. However, challenges remain. According to the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data many youth in Mexico are not developing high levels of skills with a very high share of students performing poorly in mathematics (56.6%), in reading (41.7%) and in science (47.8%). In addition, due to high drop-out rates only 56% of 15-19 year-olds complete upper secondary education, far below the OECD average of 84%. Similarly, on tertiary level only 16% of the population aged 25 to 64 years old in 2015 had attained tertiary education, which is significantly below the OECD average of 36%. To these outcomes, we should add the fact that young people connect with informal labour market, reinforcing the precariousness of their job opportunities. Therefore, despite recent progress, Mexico still remains in a low-skill equilibrium. Indeed, Mexico tends to specialise in low value-added activities linked to informal employment arrangements, which are estimated to account for 52.5% of all employment. Workers in the informal economy are, on average, less likely to: receive training, participate in high performance workplace practices that make more effective use of their skills, and find themselves employed in precarious and low quality jobs. Therefore, demand-side barriers which discourage employers from hiring formally should continue to be addressed, as well as the high cost to firms for hiring low income workers, a complex tax system, and heavy labour market regulations. Targeted support will be also needed if young people and women are to enter and remain engaged in the labour market. Over one in five young people are currently neither in employment, education, or training (NEETs), risking becoming permanently marginalised - from the labour market, from education, and from society. Given the differences between boys and girls not in employment or in schools, special emphasis should be placed on women’s conditions, and to sustain their involvement with high quality jobs. Mexico cannot be losing the talent of half of its population. More needs to be done to improve the use of skills in the workplace. There are significant skills mismatches with a quarter of workers (26%) over-educated and just under a third (31%) under-educated for their current job. Companies and educational institutions need to co-operate to reduce these mismatches at source, while firm-sponsored training could help the low-skilled. At the same time boosting innovation and research are critical if Mexican firms are to continue improving productivity, move up the global value chain, and increase the demand for higher skills. But in 2013, Mexican businesses invested the equivalent of just 0.2% of GDP in R&D. That’s not just well short of the OECD average but well below Korea’s 3.3% of its GDP investment in R&D during the same time period. Making this all happen in practice requires concerted government action. Mexico has undertaken a number of reforms aiming to enhance the quality of teaching, raise productivity, stimulate innovation and improve integration into global value chains. Actually, one of the positive pieces of news is that productivity has increased recently as a result of recent reforms, particularly in the telecommunications market. It is necessary to improve effectiveness of government institutions, and formal collaboration arrangements across ministries. The National Productivity Committee is good news in this sense – but much remains to be done. Yet governments cannot achieve better skills outcomes alone. Success will depend on the commitment and actions of a broad range of stakeholders. The help of employers, trade unions, students and trainers is needed. These are the people who, each and every day, invest in skills, set skills in motion and put them to work. Best practices of other countries Countries that are most successful in mobilising the skills potential of their people share a number of features: they provide high-quality opportunities to learn throughout life, both in and outside school and the workplace; they develop education and training programmes that are relevant to students and the labour market; they create incentives for, and eliminate disincentives to, supplying skills in the labour market; they recognise and make maximal use of available skills in workplaces; they seek to anticipate future skills needs and they make learning and labour market information easy to find and use. The OECD Skills Strategy provides countries with a framework for developing co-ordinated and coherent policies that support the development, activation, and effective use of skills. In Norway, our collaboration clearly demonstrated the value of a whole of government approach to tackle the country’s longstanding skills challenges. The diagnostic and action reports fed into policy measures to improve career guidance and outreach to low-skilled adults – and served as the foundations for the new National Skills Strategy to be launched this year. Portugal used our project to build broad stakeholder engagement in defining the key skills challenges facing the country as it emerged from the worst economic crisis of its history. This year we will be using our shared diagnosis to help design concrete actions to provide adult education and training across the country. Korea has built on the results of its diagnostic report and ongoing OECD support to engage actively with a wide range of stakeholders on critical issues such as youth employability and lifelong learning. Mexico finds itself in a context with many other countries moving at a high speed. The digitalisation of the economy and the rapid pace of change require not only a good knowledge basis, but also lifelong learning and the flexibility to adapt skills to changing conditions and demands. The future of work and the capacity to anticipate the evolving needs of the markets, due to the rapid technological progress, is a common challenge that all countries are trying to address. Mexico has been participating in the OECD Skills Strategy project to work with us to advance the best practices of other countries that have been able to improve their outcomes in this field. Mapping Mexico’s skills challenges together Since March 2016, we have been working closely with Mexico in applying the OECD Skills Strategy framework as part of a collaborative project to build a more effective national skills strategy. The National Project Team established by the Mexican government to oversee this process is co-ordinated by the National Productivity Committee (NPC) and includes representatives from Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Economic Affairs and the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT). The CNP has been critical in this process, as it embodies the spirit of partnership across government ministries and with key sectors of the economy and society as well as focuses on the nexus between productivity, inclusive growth and skills. The results of this work are published in the OECD Skills Strategy Diagnostic Report: Mexico that sets out 8 skills challenges for Mexico. These challenges were identified in the course of several rounds of discussions with the National Project Team, technical meetings with Mexico’s leading experts and input from over 100 stakeholders such as employers, trade unions, education providers and experts including from other International Organizations, gathered during two interactive workshops held in June 2016 and September 2016 in Mexico City. Mexico’s 8 skills challenges So what are the main skills challenges facing Mexico today? With regard to developing relevant skills, the report concludes that Mexico should focus on: • Improving the foundation skills of students in compulsory education • Increasing access to tertiary education while improving the quality and relevance of the skills developed in tertiary education. When it comes to activating its skills supply, Mexico will need to tackle the challenges of: • Removing supply and demand-side barriers to activating skills in (formal) employment. • Boosting the skills activation of vulnerable groups. Mexico could make more effective use of the skills it already has by: • Improving the use of skills at work. • Supporting the demand for higher skills to boost innovation Finally, Mexico could strengthen the overall governance of the skills system by: • Supporting collaboration across government and stakeholders to achieve better skills outcomes • Improving public and private skills funding. Building a shared road-map for action As the first OECD country from Latin America to embark upon a National Skills Strategy country project, Mexico has demonstrated its commitment to leveraging international comparative data and good practice to tackle its own skills challenges. Equally, this analysis of Mexico’s skills system will be of great interest to many other countries around the world. Throughout this initial diagnostic phase, we have witnessed first-hand a strong commitment to improving Mexico’s skills outcomes across government, employers and trade unions, as well as education and training providers. The true test lies ahead, in designing concrete actions to tackle the skills challenges facing Mexico. Government cannot achieve better skills outcomes alone, so moving from diagnosis to action will require a whole of government and a whole of society approach. The OECD stands ready to contribute to Mexico’s ongoing efforts to achieve its ambitious goals in designing and implementing better skills policies for better jobs and better lives.

Links:

OECD Skills Strategy Diagnostic Report: Mexico

Executive Summary (English)

Executive Summary (Spanish)

OECD Skills Strategy

Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC)

OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First results from the Survey of Adult Skills

OECD Skills Outlook 2015: Youth, Skills and Employability

OECD PISA 2015

For more on skills and skills policies around the world, visit: www.oecd.org/skills

Follow the conversation on twitter: #OECDSkills

Photo credit: Hands were a collaboration concept of teamwork @Shutterstock

#PIAAC #partnerships #OECD Skills Strategy #Mexico #adult skills

Skills are the key to unlocking prosperity in Peru

by Andreas Schleicher Director, Directorate for Education and Skills Skills are central to the future prosperity and well-being of Peru’s people

Peru has been one of the strongest economic performers in Latin America with steady GDP per capita growth over the past decade, which has been accompanied by a sharp decline in poverty rates and a significant rise in educational attainment.This impressive track record can only be if supported by a process of economic diversification, in which skills and human capital must play a central role. Peru’s goal for the future is to diversify the economy and tackle informality, boost productivity in firms and expand export capacity, while raising its capacity to innovate and take part in global value chains with more complex goods and services. All of which will require a stronger skills base. Achieving better and more equitable skills outcomes will also contribute to building a healthier, more equitable, and more cohesive society. Now is the time for Peru to invest in developing skills that are relevant to the needs of a rapidly evolving labour market, to fully activate the skills hidden in informal employment arrangements and to make the best use of skills by promoting high performance workplace practices. Skills investments pay off We know that in countries where a significant proportion of adults have poor skills, it is difficult to introduce productivity-enhancing technologies and new ways of working. This, in turn, stalls innovation and improvements in living standards. Yet skills affect more than just earnings and employment. The Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) shows that adults with lower literacy proficiency are far more likely than those with better literacy skills to report poor health, to perceive themselves as objects rather than actors in political processes, and to have less trust in others. The Survey has been conducted in over 30 countries and new data on the skills of Peru’s adults (aged 16 to 65 years old) will be available in 2019. This comparative data shows clearly that people who lack foundation skills struggle to participate fully in society, democracy and the economy. Countries that are the most successful in mobilising the skills potential of their people share a number of features: they provide high-quality opportunities to learn throughout life, both in and outside school and the workplace; they develop education and training programmes that are relevant to students and the labour market; they create incentives for, and eliminate disincentives to, supplying skills in the labour market; they recognise and make maximal use of available skills in workplaces; they seek to anticipate future skills needs and they make learning and labour market information easy to find and use. Mapping Peru’s skills challenges together The OECD Skills Strategy provides countries with a framework for developing co-ordinated and coherent policies that support the development, activation, and effective use of skills. Since October 2015, we have been working closely with Peru in applying the OECD Skills Strategy framework as part of a collaborative project to build a more effective national skills strategy. The National Project Team established by the Peruvian government to oversee this process is co-ordinated by the Ministry of Labour and Employment Promotion, and includes representatives from the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Today, the results of this work are published in the OECD Skills Strategy Diagnostic Report: Peru that sets out 9 skills challenges for Peru. These challenges were identified in the course of several rounds of discussions with the National Project Team, technical meetings with Peru’s leading experts and input from over 100 stakeholders such as employers, trade unions, education providers and experts gathered during two interactive workshops held in November 2015 and May 2016 in Lima. The report also draws upon OECD analysis and data as well as that of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), and national data. Peru’s 9 skills challenges

So what are the main skills challenges facing Peru today?

With regard to developing relevant skills, the report concludes that Peru should focus on:

Improving school completion and foundation skills in compulsory education

Improving access to quality higher education and transition to work

When it comes to activating its skills supply, Peru will need to tackle the challenges of:

Improving the labour market institutional setting to boost formal employment

Extending the reach of active labour market policies to improve workers’ employability

Peru could make more effective use of the skills it already has by:

Improving the alignment between skills supply and demand and fostering a better use of skills in the workplace

Putting skills to better use to foster a more diversified and productive economy

Finally, Peru could strengthen the overall governance of the skills system by:

Improving learning and labour market information to support better education and career choices, and evidence-based policy making

Improving co-ordination across different actors and levels of government to achieve better skills outcomes

Building partnerships to ensure that policies are responsive to changing skills needs

Building a shared road-map for action As the first non-member country to embark upon a National Skills Strategy country project with the OECD, Peru has demonstrated its commitment to leveraging international comparative data and good practice to tackle its own skills challenges. Equally, this analysis of Peru’s skills system will be of great interest to many other countries around the world. Throughout this initial diagnostic phase, we have witnessed first-hand a strong commitment to improving Peru’s skills outcomes across government, employers and trade unions, as well as education and training providers. The true test lies ahead, in designing concrete actions to tackle the skills challenges facing Peru. Government cannot achieve better skills outcomes alone, so moving from diagnosis to action will require a whole of government and a whole of society approach. The OECD stands ready to contribute to Peru’s ongoing efforts to achieve its ambitious goals in designing and implementing better skills policies for better jobs and better lives. Links: OECD Skills Strategy Diagnostic Report: Peru Executive Summary (English) Executive Summary (Spanish) OECD Skills Strategy OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First results from the Survey of Adult Skills OECD Skills Outlook 2015: Youth, Skills and Employability A Skills Beyond School review of Peru, 2016 For more on skills and skills policies around the world, visit: www.oecd.org/skills Photo credit: Man measuring SKILLS @Shutterstock

#PIAAC #Peru #OECD Skills Strategy #OECD Skills Outlook #A Skills beyond School Review

Skills Summit 2016: Skills strategies for innovation, productivity and inclusion

by Andreas Schleicher

Director, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills

Building the skills needed to succeed at work and in life: Charting the path to 2025

In all OECD countries the working-age population is now either growing at a much slower rate than in the past or shrinking, making productivity and innovation the primary engines of economic growth. The expansion of global value chains and technological advances are reshaping the structure of employment and the skill requirements of jobs. Skills demand and supply continue to diverge rather than converge, despite large numbers of unemployed in many countries and pockets of entrenched unemployment in all. Everywhere, too few adults are upgrading their skills in response to the rapidly changing skills needs of the economy and society. At the same time, countries are also struggling with significant social challenges, such as rising inequality and large increases in flows of migrants. Skills are central to responding to all of these challenges.

On June 29 and 30, 26 Ministers and senior government officials from 15 countries representing a wide range of portfolios, including education, employment, trade, economy, and local government, met in Bergen, Norway, for the Skills Summit 2016: Skills Strategies for Productivity, Innovation and Inclusion. They gathered to chart a path towards 2025 and departed with a renewed resolve to prepare their countries for the skills challenges on the horizon.

Effective skills strategies are essential, yet hard to build

Building effective national skills strategies is critical for making progress on these issues, but countries often struggle to foster the government and society-wide commitment needed to make cross-sectoral skills strategies a reality.

Participants at the Skills Summit spoke frankly about the difficulties they face in putting skills policy at the top of a crowded policy agenda and keeping it there. While action needs to be taken today to ensure that we have the skills we will need tomorrow, this can often be forgotten in the face of pressures to respond to the immediate crises of the day. Too often, the urgent crowds out the important.

Evidence from many quarters, including the Survey of Adult Skills which released new country data earlier this week, shows that skills are critical to people’s economic and social success. What is far less clear is what skills will matter the most in the future. People need to develop skills today that will allow them to succeed in jobs that in many cases do not yet exist, to use technologies that have not yet been invented, and to solve problems that have not yet been identified. It is even possible that in the future, as technological advances replace more and more of the work currently performed by humans, we will be asking less about what skills matter for the labour market and more about what skills matter for meaningful social participation and inclusion. While none of us knows for sure what challenges and opportunities the future holds, what is certain is that we will face them with the skills we develop today.

At the Summit, Ministers acknowledged the need to craft whole-of-government approaches to skills policy. A wide range of factors influence skills needs and outcomes, and responsibility for these areas is spread widely across many ministries and all levels of government. Beyond the ministries of education and employment, ministries of industry, economic development and finance are also involved. Despite growing awareness, all too often cross-ministerial and cross- government collaboration fails to happen in practice.

Collaboration with social partners and other stakeholders is equally critical if we are to achieve enduring success in developing and deploying skills effectively. Ministers were clear that Governments cannot act in splendid isolation if their aim is to improve skills outcomes. Yet engaging employers, labour and people in the co-production of skills policies is complex and requires sustained political commitment.

Maximising a country’s skills potential is everyone’s business. As hosts of the Skills Summit, and pioneers in undertaking a national skills strategy project with the OECD, Norway was well placed to share lessons learned from its experience in building shared commitment and concerted action across ministries, counties, local governments and social partners. Ever-mindful that the actions Norway takes today will drive innovation, productivity and prosperity in the future, while ensuring that no-one is left behind.

International cooperation on skills policies is needed to deliver better skills outcomes

So what more can be done? Despite their diversity, countries appear to be struggling with similar and longstanding challenges, so there is a clear case to be made for greater international cooperation in this area. The Skills Summit provided a valuable opportunity for countries to learn from one another. But it was just a starting point.

For its part, the OECD is upgrading its capacity to meet growing demand from countries for support in building effective skills strategies.

During the Skills Summit, OECD Secretary General Angel Gurría announced the launch of the OECD Centre for Skills saying “Better skills policies can help us to overcome these challenges and transform many into opportunities”, according to Angel Gurría, Secretary General at the OECD. “But despite growing recognition of the importance of skills for economic growth and social inclusion, many countries are still failing to anchor skills policies at the centre of national policy agendas and make progress on long standing skills challenges.”

This Centre will support countries in developing and implementing better skills policies in three main ways:

First, the Centre will continue to carry out national skills strategy projects with both member and non-member countries, building upon our successful experience to date of working with 10 countries;

Second, the Centre will mobilise expertise from across the OECD to develop useful analytical tools while promoting peer-learning by convening policy-makers at the Skills Summit and practitioners on a regular basis;

Third, the Centre will draw upon this rich experience to periodically update the OECD Skills Strategy to ensure it continues to respond to countries’ changing and evolving needs.

At the OECD we are excited about the new opportunities that the Centre will offer countries. For it is only by working together that in 2025 we will be able to fuel innovation, productivity and inclusion through better skills.

Links:

The Skills Summit 2016

National Skills Strategies

Better Skills, Better Jobs, Better Lives: A Strategic Approach to Skills Policies

Skills Matter: Further results from the Survey of Adult Skills

For more on the OECD’s work on skills and skills policies around the world, visit: http://www.oecd.org/skills/

Photo credit:@OECD

#Survey of Adult Skills #skills #PIAAC #adult skills

Why skills matter

by Andreas Schleicher Director, Directorate for Education and Skills It’s the time of year when young people in the northern hemisphere are finishing their formal studies for the year – or for the foreseeable future. Some will soon be working at their first jobs, some are just beginning to look for a job, some may have been looking for months with nothing to show for it. What links the classroom and lecture hall to the workplace? Skills.

Three years ago, the OECD published the First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills, a product of our Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC. That report found that adults who are highly proficient in the information-processing skills measured by the survey – literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments – are more likely to be employed and earn high wages. They are also more likely to report that they trust others, that they have an impact on the political processes, and that they are in good health. Since those first results were published, nine more countries and economies have joined the survey. While the results from these countries/economies, published today in Skills Matter: Further Results from the Survey of Adult Skills, broadly confirm those from the countries/economies that participated in Round 1 of the survey, some messages have emerged more clearly. For example, in Singapore, one of the nine countries/economies that participated in the second round of the survey, young people perform much better than older adults in all three domains assessed. While younger adults outperform their older compatriots in many of the countries/economies surveyed, in no other country is the difference between the proportion of 25-34 year-olds with tertiary education and the proportion of 55-65 year-olds who have attained that level of education as large (53 percentage points) as it is in Singapore. Only 2.4% of Singapore’s 55-65 year-olds demonstrate strong literacy skills, while young Singaporeans now benefit from one of the world’s most advanced education systems. This shows that even as Singapore expanded access to education over the past few decades, the country was able to maintain the quality of the education provided – adding further strength to the argument that expansion of education does not have to come at the expense of the quality of education. Jakarta (Indonesia) is also among the nine Round 2 countries/economies. Although adults in Jakarta score lower in literacy and numeracy, on average, than adults in any other participating country/economy (more than one in two adults in Jakarta score at or below Level 1 in literacy), their participation in the survey confirms that valuable data on education and skills can be gathered in less economically developed countries. For example, several participating countries and economies, including Jakarta, have large populations of adults who perform poorly in literacy; but none of these populations can be said to be illiterate. How do we know that? The survey includes a special assessment for these adults to pinpoint where their difficulties in literacy lie. Most of these adults recognise words, but have trouble determining whether a sentence makes sense logically in a real-world context. In both rounds, there is a relatively strong link between performance in the survey and in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for the age cohorts covered by both surveys. The performance of a particular age group in PISA is a reasonably good predictor of that group’s performance some years later in the Survey of Adult Skills. The message is loud and clear: if countries want a highly skilled work force, they have to get compulsory education right. This is not to say that acquiring and developing literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills stops once people leave school. In fact, the evidence shows that proficiency continues to improve over time, and that developing and maintaining – or losing – skills over a lifetime is affected by such factors as participation in work and training, which, in turn, can be influenced by policy. But school is one of the key places in which these skills are acquired, and the failings of schooling can be costly and difficult to rectify. Links: Skills Matter: Further Results from the Survey of Adult Skills The Survey of Adult Skills: Reader's Companion OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills For OECD work on skills: www.oecd.org/skills Follow: #OECDSkills

#Survey of Adult Skills #PISA #PIAAC #adult skills

Going grey, staying skilled

by Marco Paccagnella Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills, OECD

The population is “greying” in most advanced countries as well as in some developing countries. Many governments are struggling to address the challenges resulting from this demographic transition, from rising costs of healthcare, to worries about the sustainability of pension systems.

Increased life expectancy represents one of the great achievements of modern societies: living longer and better has been a dream of past generations. At the same time, it implies changes to many aspects of life. To finance retirement incomes and aged care, many governments have reformed their pension provisions and are asking individuals to work longer for less-generous pensions and to contribute more to the costs of care. When such reforms are passed during times of sluggish economic growth and rising unemployment, they tend to create discontent not only among older workers (who may long to retire), but also among younger adults, who may feel that delaying the retirement of older workers reduces their opportunities. At the same time, older workers may feel threatened by the increasingly rapid pace of technological change, and fear that they will not be able to find a new job, should they be laid off in a highly competitive labour market.

Managing these issues is extremely complex, given the interests involved and the interaction between different areas of social and economic policy. Yet, there is little doubt that skills development will play a central role in solving the puzzle. A big question is whether, and to what extent, skills decline with age. Is it true that older workers are less skilled, and therefore less productive than younger workers? If that’s the case, how can we make sure that people maintain a sufficiently high level of skills proficiency over an increasingly long horizon?

New evidence from the OECD Survey of Adult Skills and examined in the most recent issue of Adult Skills in Focus is extremely relevant to this debate. It provides an accurate picture of the cognitive skills of adults in a wide range of countries, and links such skills to important economic and non-economic outcomes, such as employment, wages, and health status.

The data suggest that proficiency in skills such as literacy and numeracy declines with age, although slowly, and not much. More important, there is considerable variation across countries in the extent and size of differences in skills proficiency related to age, suggesting that policies can play an important role in shaping the evolution of skills over a lifetime. Yet while skills decline with age, wages and employment rates typically do not. This could suggest that older workers are overpaid, given their productivity. If that were the case, older workers would be justified in fearing they are more likely to be dismissed, and that they would have a hard time finding a new job if they were. But productivity is a complex concept, and the cognitive skills measured in the Survey of Adult Skills constitute only a fraction of the skills portfolio that employers reward. With experience, workers are likely to develop an entire range of other skills that are much more difficult to measure than literacy or numeracy, but that are equally, if not more, valuable to employers.

This is not to downplay the importance of cognitive skills. The data also show that proficiency in literacy influences the wages and likelihood of employment among older workers more than it does among younger workers.

What can be actually done to sustain the skills of people as they age? As usual, prevention is better than cure. Improving the quality of education, i.e. ensuring that people leave formal education with the highest possible level of literacy and numeracy proficiency, is likely to yield large benefits, more than simply increasing the time spent in education. Starting working life with high skills increases the chances of entering the virtuous circle in which skills provide access to the opportunities, such as good jobs and training that further develop skills.

Training is clearly important, but targeting access is probably even more important. The overall rate of participation in training appears to have little relationship to the size of differences in literacy proficiency between the young and the old. Countries with large differences in literacy proficiency between younger and older adults tend to be countries in which training is disproportionately taken up by young adults.

As other recent research show, retirement appears to accelerate the loss of cognitive skills. This suggests that policies to delay retirement may benefit the cognitive skills of existing workers, but also that policies to encourage older people to remain engaged are important for those who have left the workforce.

The bad news is that cognitive skills inevitably decline with age. The good news is that this is only part of the story. There is large scope to shape the evolution of skills over a lifetime; and cognitive skills, while important, are not the only determinant of people’s success in life.

Links: What does age have to do with skills proficiency? Adult Skills in focus, issue No.3 by Marco Paccagnella Quel rapport entre l’âge et les compétences? Age, Ageing and Skills: Results from the OECD Survey of Adult Skills Photo Credit: © OECD

#Survey of Adult Skills #skills #PIAAC #ageing

How well are teachers doing in solving problems using ICT?

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

If one were to ask ministers of education what they consider to be the most important factor determining the quality of their education systems, the odds are high that they would refer to the quality of the teaching work force. The saying goes that the quality of an education system can never exceed that of its teachers. Ensuring that the most talented candidates are attracted to the teaching profession is now widely recognised to be the most effective strategy to improve education. But how does one assess how teachers compare to the rest of the working population? We still lack reliable, robust and comparable measures of some of the essential elements of teachers’ knowledge and skills. A new tool developed by the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, known as the Innovative Teaching for Effective Learning (ITEL) assessment, focuses on teachers’ pedagogical knowledge. It will provide comparative measures of some core elements of the knowledge and skills that we expect from teachers. In the meantime, the results of the Survey of Adult Skills, a product of the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), provide some insights into the skills of countries’ workforces – including teachers – in key areas, such as numeracy, literacy and problem solving. These data make it possible to compare the skills of teachers with those of other college and university graduates and with the working population as a whole. A recent OECD report, prepared for the International Summit on the Teaching Profession, held earlier this year in Berlin, found that teachers’ skills in numeracy tend to be similar to those of other tertiary-educated professionals. The Survey of Adult Skills also assessed adults’ proficiency in problem-solving in technology-rich environments. The most recent Education Indicators in Focus brief compares teachers’ ICT and problem-solving skills with those of the working population as a whole and with other tertiary-educated professionals. The chart above confirms that, as with numeracy skills, teachers’ problem-solving skills using ICT more or less match those of other tertiary-educated professionals. On average, 51% of teachers, compared to 31% of the adult population as a whole, demonstrated good problem-solving and ICT skills (proficiency was characterised as “good” when adults demonstrated a high level of problem-solving competence and at least a basic level of ICT skills). But on average, the share of other tertiary-educated professionals who demonstrated “good” ICT skills was 3 percentage points larger than that of teachers. In only four countries/subnational entities (Canada, England/Northern Ireland, Japan and Korea) did teachers outperform their tertiary-educated peers. In many other countries and subnational entities (Denmark, Estonia, Flanders [Belgium], Ireland and Poland) teachers’ problem-solving and ICT skills were significantly weaker than those of other tertiary-educated professionals. Age could be part of the explanation. After accounting for age, teachers are 4 percentage points more likely than other tertiary-educated adults to have good problem-solving skills using ICT. This finding reinforces the conclusion, consistently noted in Education at a Glance, that policy makers need to take seriously the implications of an ageing teaching force. When only one in two teachers – and, in several countries, even fewer – are capable of solving problems using ICT, then it is not unreasonable to question their capacity to address complex issues in their professional environment. For example, if teachers lack these skills, they cannot be expected to move away from a routine-based professional practice, controlled by bureaucratic procedures, to a much more autonomous professional culture. And the use of technology to improve teaching and learning environments will depend on teachers’ skills to use ICT creatively and to its fullest potential. The recent sobering findings from PISA about the role of computers in improving learning outcomes might be partly attributed to a lack of excellence in ICT skills among teachers. But the age gradient in problem-solving and ICT skills is also good news: younger generations of teachers seem to be closing the skills gap. New generations of teachers who are better trained and who participate in professional development activities throughout their careers will probably be able to adopt innovative practices that are more suited to 21st-century learning environments. Governments should not blame older teachers for having poor problem-solving and ICT skills; equally, they cannot afford to miss the opportunity to fill the teaching posts left vacant by retirees with younger, more tech-savvy problem solvers. Links: Teachers’ ICT and problem-solving skills: Competencies and needs. Education Indicators in Focus, issue No.40, by Elian Bogers, Gabriele Marconi and Simon Normandeau. Compétences en TIC et en résolution de problèmes : où en sont les enseignants ? Les indicateurs de l'éducation à la loupe issue No. 40 (French version) Innovative Teaching for Effective Learning - Teacher Knowledge Survey Teaching Excellence through Professional Learning and Policy Reform Education at a Glance 2015: OECD Indicators Students, Computers and Learning: Making the Connection Chart source: OECD Education database, www.oecd.org/site/piaac/publicdataandanalysis.htm.

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