Higher but also more flexible teacher salaries

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

 

If one were to ask today’s education ministers which topics were at the forefront of their mind, they would almost certainly refer to the quality of the teaching work force in their country. Countries have been looking towards combination of ‘carrot’ and ‘stick’ policies to address quality concerns regarding teachers. ‘Stick’ policies mainly include strengthening accountability and teacher evaluation procedures, sometimes linked to student achievement measures. But many countries understand that tightening the screws on teachers might not be the best answer;  the attractiveness of the teaching profession also comes into play. They are concerned that they don’t get the most promising students in teacher training, that they don’t recruit the best graduates in the teaching profession, and that many of them leave the profession too soon. And several countries fear being confronted with / the confrontation of teacher shortages in specific subject fields, but also more generally as the ageing teaching work force will result in important replacement problems in the near future.  A bigger ‘carrot’ might also be part of the solution.

The compensation of professionals is a complex issue, with many costs and benefits entering the equation of the relative attractiveness of a profession in an increasingly competitive market. Salaries are seen as part of the full package which also includes medical insurance, pensions, etc. In the case of the teaching profession, several secondary benefits – such as the work-life balance or the autonomy in the time-organisation of the tasks in relationship to the overall work load –play an important role in the  student’s decision-making. But the monetary compensation in the form of salaries is a crucial component of the package.

The most recent issue of the Education Indicators in Focus series provides the comparative statistical evidence on the salaries of teachers. The positive side of the picture is that in virtually all OECD countries, teachers’ salaries increased in real terms between 2000 and 2011. This trend coincided with a general rise in the qualifications needed to enter the teaching profession. However, the brief also shows enormous/ significant differences between countries in the relative pay of teachers, measured against the salaries of tertiary qualified professionals in general. As the graph above shows some countries pay their teachers up to 30% more than the average for tertiary educated professionals, but there are many more which pay them up to 30% less. The OECD average for upper secondary teachers is 89% of that benchmark salary. For lower-secondary school teachers it is 85% and for primary school teachers it is 82%.

Even if partially compensated with various other benefits, these figures do not support  the claim that teachers are among the better paid professionals. Their level of monetary compensation does not match the increasing social expectations and demands being placed on teachers or the ambitions of policy makers to recruit future teachers in the upper ratio of skills distribution of tertiary qualified graduates. Budgetary concerns, with which many countries are confronted, preclude massive increases in the short term. The expectation that a demographic decline in the size of the student population would create some room for salary increases, did not materialize due to a higher participation to education as a result of the economic crisis. Still, it is difficult to see how countries will be able to resolve their concerns in regard to teacher recruitment, without including higher compensation in the package of teacher policies.

The brief also reveals another important point: the rigidity of the salary structure of teachers. Statutory salaries are mainly determined by the level of education and by the age of teachers, formal criterions for which the rationality is difficult to ascertain (why should a primary school teacher be less educated and less well paid than an upper secondary one?). There still seems to be very little diversification or flexibility in the compensation of teachers. This fact is at odds with developments in other highly educated professions. The role of remuneration in the attractiveness of the teaching profession is perhaps not so much determined by its average level, but instead by the more specific relationship of salaries and tasks and demands, as well as the way teachers can positively influence their salaries through excellent performance. Countries should use salary flexibility to address specific policy concerns, such as recruiting/placing the best teachers in the most demanding schools. Teachers deserve a better compensation, but excellent teachers in demanding jobsare the most deserving.

Links:
Education Indicators in Focus, issue No. 21, Eric Charbonnier
International Summit on the Teaching Profession 2014
On this topic, visit:
Education Indicators in Focus: www.oecd.org/education/indicators
On the OECD’s education indicators, visit:
Education at a Glance 2013: OECD Indicators: www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm
Related blog post:
The ever growing generation gap in the classroom, Dirk Van Damme

Chart source: OECD Education at a Glance 2013: Indicator D3.1  (www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm)

Charting the way towards excellence and equity in education

by Andreas Schleicher
Deputy Director for Education and Skills and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the OECD's Secretary General

Something remarkable is taking place in New Zealand right now: ministers and teacher union leaders from the best-performing and most rapidly improving education systems are making a unique global effort to raise the status of the teaching profession. The agenda of this year’s International Summit on the Teaching Profession focuses on three policy goals: excellence, equity and inclusion. Vital questions are being addressed, such as how can equity be achieved in increasingly devolved education systems, and how can high-quality teachers and leaders be attracted to schools with the greatest needs?

Why are these questions so important? To teachers, parents and young people, these questions may appear remote from the realities of school life; but the Summit’s unique mix of delegates enables both policy and practice to come under the spotlight. Largely as a result of PISA’s policy messages, many school systems have moved away from top-down administrative control towards giving schools greater autonomy. However, if autonomy is to benefit schools, teacher self-efficacy and the quality of learning, education systems should enable schools to enhance their capacity and encourage a culture of collaboration.

Knowledge about effective education practices tends to stay in the places where it is created, and rarely spreads without effective strategies and powerful incentives to share it. We need to think harder about how to spread good practice and innovation.

This year’s Summit host, the New Zealand Government, has one of the most devolved school systems in the world. Its schools are used to autonomy, but they also benefit from national interventions that focus on enhancing teaching and learning and sharing good practice, and that fully involve their teachers and their unions.

There is a message here. If the benefits of devolving responsibility to schools are to be realised, then the education system itself has to be coherent and effective enough to support schools. The evidence from PISA is that collaborative school management and co-operation among schools are factors in improving student achievement, as is a systemic approach to accountability. That requires a coherent, system-wide approach to the selection and education of teachers and to their pay structure. It also requires close attention to helping teachers who face difficulties in improving the quality of their teaching. And it requires an environment in which there are intelligent pathways for teachers to grow in their careers and in which they can work together to develop new knowledge and practice.

Indeed, everything that previous Summits tell us is that teachers’ engagement in reform is crucial, and that strong, proactive teacher unions have a vital role in developing education policy as well as in supporting teachers professionally.

Essential as the development of teachers is, equity and inclusion are also promoted by other measures being in place. Evidence shows that early tracking, or grouping students by ability, amplifies the impact of students’ socio economic status and limits the achievement of disadvantaged pupils. As a result, countries and regions, such as Poland and a number of Lander in Germany, have recently adopted more comprehensive school systems.

Evidence also shows that school choice has to be managed if the children of parents from disadvantaged backgrounds are not to be disadvantaged, themselves, when it comes to school admissions. In a system with greater school autonomy, it is crucial that equitable admissions criteria apply to all schools.

Nowhere is a coherent, system-wide approach more necessary than for schools with the greatest needs. Again we need to think harder about how to attract dedicated and committed teachers to work in the most challenging classrooms and the most effective principals into the toughest schools.

How education systems respond to disadvantage is a test of their overall effectiveness. Such schools need a range of strategies. They include: providing adequate learning resources; creating a teacher workforce that is responsive to students’ backgrounds; preparing teachers for working in disadvantaged schools; offering mentoring and coaching for such teachers on an ongoing basis; improving working conditions; introducing financial incentives as part of teachers’ career structures; providing regular professional development that addresses diversity issues; and guaranteeing effective employment conditions.

Above all, we need to do better in thinking about how to promote a common vision of schooling and a united school system. These are big issues for teacher unions and governments alike and we have only skimmed the surface. Watch the Summit's Youtube channel for video footage of the event.

Links:
International Summit on the Teaching Profession 2014
OECD Summit Background Paper: Equity, Excellence and Inclusiveness in Education, by Andreas Schleicher
OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey
PISA 2012 Results: Excellence Through Equity: Giving Every Student the Chance to Succeed (Volume II)
Follow the summit on twitter @OECD_Edu  #ISTP2014
Photography courtesy of: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

Sweet smarts: fighting the child obesity epidemic

by Tracey Burns
Analyst and Project Leader, Directorate for Education and Skills

The Academy Awards have come and gone, treating us to glimpses of the rich and famous – and very thin. Amid the buzz and glamour of this spectacle it can be hard to remember that the stars represent only a tiny portion (literally and figuratively) of our populations.

In fact, the growing rate of obesity is one of the most significant health trends in OECD countries and increasingly, in Brazil, Russia, India and China, the “BRIC” countries.  A just released Trends Shaping Education Spotlight highlights this issue from an educational point of view, with a special focus on children.

Obesity now affects more children than ever before, with one in five children between the ages 5 and 19 estimated to be overweight. The figures are higher for Greece, Italy, New Zealand and the United States, where almost one in three children is overweight. Especially disturbing is the leap in child obesity rates in China, Korea and Turkey, which jumped from 10% or less to 16% or more in only three years.

For those who think that it’s just a phase that children will naturally grow out of, we have bad news. A recent American study demonstrated that overweight 5-year-olds were four times more likely as normal-weight children to become obese by the time they were 14. Although the jury is still out on why this is so, it does suggest that efforts to prevent obesity must start much earlier than they currently do and focus more on the children at greatest risk.

What are some of the ways education can play a role in reversing this unhealthy trend? In general, education and better schooling is a positive - research has demonstrated that additional years of education are linked to a lower chance of being obese. More specifically, education can help:

• instil healthy lifestyle patterns at an early age and empower children and their families to make better choices for a healthy future;
• teach children important skills such as delayed gratification, moderation and critical thinking;
• improve psychosocial factors such as grit, self-esteem, resilience and empowerment.

Health education can teach children the consequences of risky behaviours (such as poor nutrition and a sedentary lifestyle) as well as improve their ability to gather and interpret health-related information. Education can also help children identify and deal with eating disorders, including anorexia and bulimia.

But of course this is a complicated problem, and there are no magic solutions. Reducing junk food in school cafeterias is a start, but challenging negative assumptions and stereotypes that can shape teacher and student expectations is crucial. If we cannot reverse this trend, even simple details like the size of desks, chairs, and yes, washrooms, will need to be rethought.

Many countries have been working hard in their schools to combat obesity, with little improvement to show for their efforts. It must be remembered that education does not exist in isolation. Children are in school for less than half their waking hours, and families, peers, and the community all have important impacts on their choices. Success in combatting this unhealthy trend on a societal level means involving all stakeholders: government, schools, parents, students, civil society and the private sector.

There is one other area where we can do more. Recent research has demonstrated that early intervention matters: overweight 5-year-olds were four times as likely as normal-weight children to become obese by the time they were 14.

Rising enrolments in early childhood education provide an opportunity for such early intervention. High quality early childhood education and care is linked to a host of positive outcomes, including improved child well-being and learning, the reduction of poverty, and increased inter-generational social mobility. It may also be able to help instil healthy eating and physical activity behaviours.

We have a challenge before us. Increasing obesity is not unavoidable. We must do all that we can to keep fighting the trend, and education is one of our best weapons. The health – and weight – of our nations depend on it.

Links:
Trends Shaping Education Spotlight No. 2: Body and Society
Center for Education Research and Innovation (CERI)
Trends Shaping Education 2013
Obesity and the Economics of Prevention: Fit not Fat
Photo Credit: Attractive Woman Makes A Choice Between Healthy and Unhealthy Foods / @shutterstock 

The ever growing generation gap in the classroom

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

It is perfectly normal that teachers and students are not of the same age. In contrast to other public services, it is a distinctive feature of education that the professionals, i.e. the teachers, are older than their clients, i.e. the students. One could think of education as an institutionalised dialogue between generations, as a social space in which they interact. Through education, societies transmit the knowledge, skills, culture and values of a society from one generation to another. Nevertheless, students are not just passive recipients of former generations’ knowledge and values, but also transform and build upon them, thus influencing the development of societies. Especially in a period of rapid social change, the dialogue between generations is critical to ensure that no generation gets left behind. Across OECD countries, some schools take this role very seriously and even try to organise opportunities for individuals of all ages to meet and exchange, for example by inviting grandparents to school or by welcoming senior members of the community to interact with younger students.

From an educational point of view, the age of teachers is an important variable in the quality of teaching and learning environments. Ideally, students should be able to interact with a variety of generations of teachers. Each age group adds a specific dimension to the learning process. Older teachers bring quality associated with their experience, both with regard to professional experience and wider life experience. And younger teachers bring innovation associated with recent training and the enthusiasm of youth itself. Adolescents generally connect and identify better with younger teachers and expect that they will have a greater understanding of their lifeworld and the challenges related to growing up in modern societies. Education systems benefit from a balanced age distribution among teachers.

The new issue of the Education Indicators in Focus series presents the most recent statistical evidence on the age of teachers. The data show a worrisome trend. The average age of teachers in secondary schools across OECD countries continues to increase. A male secondary school teacher’s age was 44 on average in 2000; and 45 in 2011. For a female secondary school teacher, the average age in 2000 was 42, while it was 43 in 2011. Correspondingly, the share of older teachers (>50 years old) in the teaching work force also increased. Among secondary school teachers, the share of older teachers increased from 35% to 39% for males, and from 28% to 34% for females. These changes may not seem very dramatic, but they imply that every year a typical secondary school teacher is one month older than the year before. Differences between countries are large: in 2011, 55% of the male secondary school teachers in Germany were over age 50, 52% in Iceland, 55% in The Netherlands and even 67% in Italy.

An ageing teaching force leads to various policy challenges, such as upward pressures on the salary mass, peaks in teacher replacement and recruitment, or increased needs to invest in training and professional development. From an economic point of view, countries would be better off with a more balanced age distribution of teachers. But maybe more important are the implications for the quality of the teaching and learning process. Older teachers have the experiential knowledge and skills which potentially make them excellent teachers. But if the professional development is lacking to enrich their experiential knowledge and skills with the best recent research and evidence from innovative practice, older teachers risk sticking to what has worked well in the past and may have the tendency to sidestep innovation.

No one would accept being treated in hospital by a medical doctor who would not have updated his knowledge and skills since he or she left college 20 years ago. The teaching profession also would benefit from balancing experiential knowledge embodied by older teachers and innovation-oriented, research-informed knowledge which comes with younger teachers. In order to connect and identify with schooling, adolescent students need teachers who can read and understand their behaviour, their issues, their culture and values, teachers whose world view is not too remote from their own. It is difficult to imagine that, with more than half of their teachers 35 years older than they are, adolescent students can identify with school and engage in high-quality teaching and interactive learning.

Links:
Education Indicators in Focus, issue No. 20, Dirk Van Damme
On this topic, visit:
Education Indicators in Focus: www.oecd.org/education/indicators
On the OECD’s education indicators, visit:
Education at a Glance 2013: OECD Indicators: www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm
Chart source: OECD Education at a Glance 2013, Indicator D5 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932851991)

Our mothers were right: Hard work and perseverance do pay off

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Directorate for Education and Skills

How many times have you heard successful people, in all walks of life, credit their triumphs to hard work and perseverance? Now PISA adds to the chorus with some hard evidence: when students believe that working hard will make a difference in their studies, they score significantly higher in mathematics.

This month’s PISA in Focus examines how students’ perseverance and belief that hard work yields positive results are clearly linked to better performance. Students who reported, through the PISA student questionnaire, that they continue to work on tasks until everything is perfect, remain interested in the tasks they start, do not give up easily when confronted with a problem, and, when confronted with a problem, do more than is expected of them, have higher scores in mathematics than students who reported lower levels of perseverance. In as many as 25 countries and economies, students who have greater perseverance score at least 20 points higher in mathematics than students who reported lower levels of perseverance; and in Finland, Iceland, Korea, New Zealand, Norway and Chinese Taipei, this difference is larger than 30 score points.

Similarly, students who strongly agreed with the statement “If I put in enough effort, I can succeed in mathematics” perform better in mathematics than students who did not agree by an average of 32 score points. The score-point difference in mathematics performance that is associated with this self-belief is 50 points or more in Iceland, Korea, Norway and Chinese Taipei – well over the equivalent of a full school year.

The relationship between students’ perceived control over their success in mathematics and their performance in mathematics appears to be particularly strong among the highest-achieving students. Among these students in OECD countries, those who strongly agreed that they can succeed in mathematics if they put in enough effort have a performance advantage of 36 score points over students who did not agree with that statement; among the lowest-achieving students, the difference is only 24 score points. In 24 countries and economies, this difference is 15 score points or more, and it is particularly large – 30 score points or more – in Hungary, the Slovak Republic, Sweden and Turkey.

Students’ perseverance and drive to learn are not immutable; they can be nurtured with the right kind of guidance and teaching. For example, PISA results reveal that teachers’ use of cognitive-activation strategies, such as giving students problems that require them to think for an extended time, presenting problems for which there is no immediately obvious way of arriving at a solution, and helping students to learn from their mistakes, is associated with students’ drive. And students who reported that their mathematics teachers use teacher-directed instruction (such as when teachers set clear goals for learning) and formative assessments (when teachers give students feedback on their strengths and weaknesses in mathematics) also reported particularly high levels of perseverance and openness to problem solving.

Yet, the use of such strategies among teachers is not widespread: only 53% of students across OECD countries reported that their teachers often present them with problems that require them to think for an extended time, and 47% reported that their teachers often present problems for which there is no immediately obvious way of arriving at a solution. On average across OECD countries, only 17% of students reported that their teacher assigns projects that require at least one week to complete.

What this suggests is that many more students need to be given the chance – and encouragement – to show that they are capable of putting in the hard work – and doing so over a longer time – so  that they, too, can ultimately add their voices to the growing chorus.

Links:
PISA
Pisa in Focus No. 37: Do students have the drive to succeed?
PISA 2012 Results: Ready to Learn: Students' Engagement, Drive and Self-Beliefs
Photo credit: Sisyphus, Simple Drawing and Modern Representation of famous Greek mythology character /@shutterstock

What’s at the root of women’s absence in STEM occupations?

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Directorate for Education and Skills

If you sift through all the education data the OECD has produced over the past year, you’ll come up with decidedly mixed results when it comes to women’s (and girls’) progress. Education at a Glance 2013 told us that gender gaps in educational attainment are not only narrowing, but are, in some cases, reversing, and that women are now more likely than men to enter and complete a university-level programme. Results from the first Survey of Adult Skills, a product of the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), found that gender differences in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) have narrowed considerably among 16-24 year-olds, and that, among younger adults, there is, on average, no gender difference in proficiency in numeracy or literacy. In fact, in those countries where there is a difference between young men’s and young women’s levels of literacy, it is young women who score higher.

So, given these data, we have reason to be optimistic.

Unfortunately, this is only part of the story; there are also some other data to consider: Education at a Glance revealed that, among tertiary-educated adults, women still earn less than men (only in Austria, Belgium, Finland, New Zealand, Slovenia and Spain do the earnings of tertiary-educated women amount to 75% or more of men’s earnings; in Brazil, Chile and Estonia, university-educated women earn 65% or less of what similarly educated men earn). What might explain these gender-related disparities in pay?

As the publication also reported, women are still less likely than men to work full time; and 15-29 year-old women are twice as likely as men the same age to be neither in the labour force nor looking for a job. Meanwhile, the Survey of Adult Skills found that in all countries that participated in the survey, similar proportions of men (36%) as women (32%) are proficient in using ICTs. But the survey also found that in 15 of 23 participating countries, men use ICT at work significantly more often than women do – and that the extent to which problem-solving skills are used at work accounts for nearly half the gender gap in wages.

One of the most troubling of findings comes from the PISA 2012 survey of 15-year-old students. Based on information gathered from students through questionnaires, PISA found that, even among the highest-achieving girls (many of whom perform just as well as boys in mathematics), girls have self-sabotaging attitudes towards mathematics: they are more likely to feel anxious towards mathematics, and have less confidence in their own mathematical skills and in their ability to solve mathematics problems than boys.

These attitudes have repercussions later on, as can be seen in other data from Education at a Glance. That publication reports that, in 2011, an average of only 14% of women entering university-level education enrolled in science-related fields (which include science and engineering) or in manufacturing and construction, compared to 39% of men who entered this level of education in these fields. If so few women aim for the so-called STEM professions (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), there will continue to be few role models in these fields for young girls to emulate, and the cycle will simply perpetuate itself.

What all these data, combined, tell us is that we have no reason to be complacent. The gender gap in students’ self-beliefs about their abilities in mathematics has remained stable in most countries since 2003. In the short term, changing these mindsets may require making mathematics more interesting to girls, identifying and eliminating gender stereotypes in textbooks, promoting female role models, and using learning materials that appeal to girls. Over the longer term, shrinking the gender gap in mathematics performance will require the concerted effort of parents, teachers and society, as a whole, to change the clichéd notions of what boys and girls excel at, what they enjoy doing, and what they believe they can achieve.

Girls and women have made genuine and enormous gains in education and in the labour force over the past half century; but as long as girls continue to tell themselves that they’re no good at math – or science or engineering or any other subject where men have traditionally dominated – even in the face of hard evidence to the contrary, then we’re still losing half of our talent to the destructive power of stereotypes.

Links:
Wikigender
International Women's Day
OECD Gender Data Portal
OECD Insights Blog: Gender Quiz
Are boys and girls equally prepared for life?
Photo credit: Moscow, USSR - Circa 1920s students-biologists conduct a scientific experiment / @shutterstock

Expanding PISA’s circle of influence (part two)

by Barbara Ischinger, Director, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills
Michael Ward, Senior Policy Analyst, PISA for Development
and Alejandro Gomez Palma, Policy Analyst, PISA for Development

In our previous blog about PISA for Development, we were pleased to announce Ecuador’s agreement to participate in this new pilot project. We’ve just returned from the Zambian capital of Lusaka and are delighted to report that Zambia has also agreed to participate – the first sub-Saharan African nation ever to take part in any PISA survey.

You might well ask: how can we compare the performance of students in highly developed countries – such as Japan and Germany – with that of students in low- and middle-income countries in Africa? And how do we assess the competencies of the tens of millions of 15-year-olds in developing countries who aren’t enrolled in school? These were precisely some of the challenges we put to ourselves when the idea of PISA for Development emerged from discussions with countries and OECD partners.

To make the assessments of 15-year-olds more relevant to a wider range of countries, including Zambia, we knew that we would have to adapt both the tests and the contextual information we collect through PISA’s student, school and parent questionnaires. For the assessment of reading, mathematics and science, we will tap into our large stock of questions that were already successfully used in previous PISA cycles and, in collaboration with our partners, select, review and adapt and then field trial those that we find are best suited to assess the level of skills we identify in the participating countries. The PISA for Development assessments will be better targeted to describe the performance at the middle and low end of the proficiency spectrum, while also measuring the higher levels and maintaining comparability with the international PISA scales. The range of questions included in the assessment will give us a fine-grained picture of performance at these lower levels that will, in turn, provide more valuable diagnostic information for countries. 

The questions we select will be field tested in Zambia and the other participating countries to see how well students respond to them, then reviewed and adapted, as necessary, with the assistance of local and regional experts, to ensure they are relevant across countries and cultures. This adaptation may involve making the questions more familiar to students by changing choices of words and references, for example, and, where necessary, translating the questions into the languages of the participating countries. The translation and verification process is well established in the main PISA assessment and it also allows for some adaptations to accommodate local contexts. There are, for example, different ways of asking the same question depending on whether the student taking the test lives in Australia or in the United Kingdom; and Scotland also adapts some of the terminology of some of the PISA test questions. But regardless of these contextual changes, the nature of the questions, and the knowledge and skills assessed, must remain true to the original intent of the question, so that the assessments still measure what they were originally designed to measure and results are comparable with those of other countries.

The context questionnaires, distributed to students, school directors and parents, will be similar to those we already use in the main PISA assessment, but will be developed to include questions that may be more relevant to countries like Zambia. So, for example, where the current PISA questionnaire to school directors asks about school facilities and resources, this would need to be adapted to include such questions as: Does the school have separate sanitation facilities for girls and boys? Does the student have electricity at home? Running water? A separate kitchen? And we will have to be prepared for very different answers to some basic questions – like: who is the head of your household? – as households in developing countries are sometimes headed by children or grandparents. An important point to remember is that we have to keep some questions common to all so that we can assess all countries on the same scale.

Field trials of the PISA for Development assessment will begin in the second half of 2015; we’re expecting that more than 25,000 students in 4 or 5 countries – including Ecuador and Zambia – will participate. The main assessment will be conducted during 2016 and early 2017. During this time, we’ll also continue working with our partners, including the World Bank, UNICEF and UNESCO, to try to identify 15-year-olds who are not enrolled in school and develop ways of reaching them, too. It’s an ambitious agenda, certainly. But we’re convinced that, as the world moves beyond the Millennium Development Goals towards a new post-2015 education agenda that is focused on improving learning outcomes worldwide, we must be sure that children in all countries not only have access to school, but are acquiring both fundamental and 21st century skills when they get there.

Links:
Expanding PISA’s circle of influence
PISA for Development
Millennium Development Goals
Photo Credit: Drawing of Zambia on Blackboard, drawn in chalk / @Shutterstock