More data for better policies

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

As recently as 30 years ago, politicians, leaders and practitioners believed that all economic and social systems could and should be measured, and that managing these systems better would require more data. Except for education systems. Education systems were considered to be so different across countries that international data would never do justice to each system’s specificity. And what happened in the classroom was something believed to be unmeasurable. Yes, maybe you could count the number of students or calculate the years people spend in school; but that was basically it.

Some pioneers had the courage to think differently. Against the tide, and confronting a lot of resistance, they organised international network meetings to discuss the essence of what was happening in education, agree on definitions, develop measurement tools, and exchange and compare data. After all, how could it be that what seemed to be so evident in many other complex systems was impossible in education?

Back to the present. The pioneers have gone; highly professional teams are now bringing their ideas into fruition. We have come to understand that, just as in all other spheres of life, many dimensions of what happens in education can be measured and assessed in an internationally comparative way, without doing injustice to the complexity and sensitivity of education. We now know not only how to count students and the amount of money invested in education, we also know how to translate complex realities into accessible language, thanks to tools such as ISCED. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has taught us how to master the challenge of assessing the knowledge and skills that students acquire in schools. We have been able to relate education to external data on employment, earnings, health outcomes and more intangible outcomes, such as interpersonal trust, to better understand the many social purposes that education serves.

On 9 September the OECD will publish its 2014 edition of Education at a Glance, the world’s most extensive and authoritative data source of international educational statistics and indicators. This year’s edition includes no less than 30 different indicators and over 100 000 pieces of data. Policy makers, education leaders, practitioners and a wide variety of stakeholders will try to find out how their system is doing compared to that of other countries. How educated have our societies become? Have the investments in our schools decreased as a consequence of the economic crisis? How large is the earnings premium from which tertiary graduates benefit over their lifetime? Do pupils in private schools perform better than in public schools? Is social mobility a reality or just an aspiration? How well do we pay our teachers? How many students now travel over the globe to study elsewhere? These questions emerge not just out of curiosity. The data and the evidence increasingly serve to underpin and improve policies. A system as complex as education cannot be managed and steered without reliable and comparable data. Better and more data result in better policies.

This year’s edition is particularly rich because the OECD has been able to benefit from three main sources of survey data: the PISA 2012 database on learning outcomes of 15-year-olds, the data from the Survey of Adult Skills (a product of the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC), and data on teachers from the 2013 OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS). Combined with the data collected from administrative sources, we now have the largest database in education ever brought together in human history.

Does this mean that the mystery of the educational encounter between teacher and learner has been sacrificed on the altar of numbers? No, just as the sophisticated data-monitoring systems in the health sector have not destroyed the genius of the medical act. In both cases the data have helped to create better conditions for the magic to happen.

Launch events:
Live streaming of launch event in Brussels with Andreas Schleicher, OECD Director of Education and Skills, and Xavier Prats Monné, European Commission Deputy Director-General for Education and Culture
OECD Education and Skills webinar presenting Education at a Glance: 2014 OECD Indicators (registration required. Password: OECDEDU)
Follow #OECDEAG on Twitter:  @OECD_Edu @OECDLive @EAG_Indicators
See full listing of media events
Links:
OECD Education at a Glance
Education GPS - the OECD source for internationally comparable data on education policies and practices
Photo credit: © OECD

Smart policies matter in education

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

Education policies are meant for the future, they target society-wide outcomes in the next generation. But constructing these policies demands foresight and planning, while simultaneously dealing with difficult trade-offs in the present. Take Korea, a remarkable success story of fast increasing educational attainment which made the country one of the highest educated nations in the world: 64% of its 25-34 year-old population has a tertiary qualification. And the PISA and Survey of Adult Skills data show that this incredible educational revolution did not cause any decline in the quality of learning. Clearly, Korea is successful in preparing its young workforce for a highly-skilled technological economy. How did they do that? A new issue of Education Indicators in Focus sheds some light on the policy trade-offs that countries face when they want to raise the tertiary attainment rate in the young generation.

Korea has invested heavily in education in the second half of the 20th Century. All levels of education combined they spent 6.1% of GDP on education already in the year 2000, climbing to 7.6% in 2010, well above the OECD average of 6.3%. On tertiary education, they spent 2.6% in 2010, a full percentage above the OECD average of 1.6%. But, due to the many students that were served, the per student expenditure was quite moderate, as can be seen in the graph above, just under USD 10 000. The graph shows that there are many countries spending a lot more, but failing to produce a high number of graduates in the young population. Korea demonstrates huge value for money from investments in tertiary education.

Money clearly matters, but there are wide differences between countries in the efficiency on how it is spent. Raising budgets for tertiary education is a hard thing to do, especially in times of economic crisis, fiscal consolidation and austerity. The considerable increases in educational expenditure seen in the past ten years will not be repeated again. And shifting the cost for tertiary education to students and families is a popular alternative, but faces resistance and drawbacks. No doubt, the imperative for efficiency resounds.

Is having more students a good strategy? The number of students as a percentage of the 20-29 year-old population is a good indicator. It combines the effect of participation rates and the time spent in education to earn a degree. Korea only has an average number of students in the 20-29 age cohort. So, probably they are very successful in their studies and they complete them in a short time. Canada, another country with a highly-skilled young population, has even less, with 25% students among the 20-29 year-olds. In contrast, Germany, a country with relatively few tertiary graduates (less than 30% in the 25-34 year-old age group) has close to 32% of students among the 20-29 year-olds. Spending a lot of time in universities is not a good way to produce more graduates.

Investing in the future comes at a high a price, and not only in monetary terms. Is the labour market following? For the time being, Korea seems unable to absorb the entirety of its well-qualified youngsters in skilled professions. With 75%, graduate employment among their 25-34 year-olds with a tertiary qualification in Korea are among the lowest in OECD countries (average 82%). It could be questioned as to whether  the inclusion of employment in Korea was  sufficiently integrated into the educational policy mix. Whereas, the small country of Belgium appears to have been able to combine the policy trade-offs better: spending is average, student participation is slightly above the average, however, it has a high tertiary attainment and high graduate employment rate.  Sometimes, ‘middle-of-the-road’ policies combined with a smart policy mix offer the best prospects.

For more information
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:  Indicators A1 and B1 (www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm)