Reforming education systems: Where to start?

by the Education Policy Outlook Team
Policy Advice and Implementation Division, Directorate for Education and Skills

Today the OECD Education Policy Outlook series is publishing five new country profiles: Chile, Finland, Mexico, Norway and Turkey. Policy makers and educational professionals will gain key insights into other countries’ recent experiences in education. These summaries outline how countries have responded to common challenges and provide lessons learnt about the different policy options adopted, as well as reflections on how to make reform happen in education.

Even when countries address similar reform areas, policy options vary widely.  For example, Chile, Finland, Mexico and Norway have all made early childhood education and care (ECEC) a priority, but in different ways. Chile and Mexico have increased funding and focused on quality aiming for universal coverage; Norway has invested in increasing accessibility, funding and staff; while Finland has defined a core curriculum and moved ECEC from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health to the Ministry of Education and Culture.

Many countries are similarly concerned with responding adequately to the educational needs of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Finland has been successfully implementing a preventive approach to target low-performing students earlier on, with the support of both schools and welfare staff. Australia and Ireland targeted disadvantaged students through education strategies that identify and support schools and school communities with additional resources. On the other hand, Chile has chosen to address the needs of disadvantaged students through financial incentives, which are either targeted at schools via grants or directly at students in tertiary education with a comprehensive scholarship programme.

Ensuring that all students complete upper secondary education is another major priority for many countries: Finland, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway and Turkey have aimed at improving their secondary completion rates, as well as the transition into higher education or to joining the labour market. Mexico and Turkey both have introduced reforms to lengthen compulsory education and also reform secondary education. Finland and New Zealand have implemented an initiative to increase the engagement of youth and ensure qualification completion and employment. Norway has aimed to increase the completion of upper secondary education with a specific measure that motivates low-performing students.

Research confirms what we know from experience high-quality teachers are essential for school improvement, and this is a key policy area for all countries. Looking ahead Chile, Czech Republic, Finland and Norway aim to attract a high-quality teaching workforce. Finland has developed teacher education into a selective and highly qualified profession, which is provided at university level and is research-based, having both a strong theoretical and practical content, as well as instilling pedagogical knowledge. According to selected evidence, only about 10% of candidates who apply to primary teaching studies are accepted and teachers must have a master’s degree. Chile introduced an incentives-based full scholarship to attract high-performing students into teaching. Norway introduced a new campaign that uses short films and a website to promote the teaching profession and this has helped increase applications by almost 60%.

The OECD Education Policy Outlook: Country Profiles inspire reflection and inform action: countries may use them as an opportunity to map out specific country reform processes and to explore co-operation with similar types of education systems.

More information at www.oecd.org/edu/policyoutlook.htm
More information about the Voices of Education Policy at http://www.oecd.org/edu/voices.htm

Photo credit: OECD/Sylvain Fraccola

Making education reform happen

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Indicators and Analysis Division, Directorate for Education

This is the time of year when a lot of us resolve to commit ourselves to self-improvement plans of greater or lesser magnitude. Spend more time reading? On the list. Eat better? Ditto. Reform the education system? Whoa—nice idea; but isn’t that a bit too ambitious? 

What is it about education reform that all-too-often turns resolve into sighs and resignation? If countries really want to keep that resolution, here’s a suggestion: invite teachers to get involved.

On the face of it, it seems elementary: The best—meaning the most sustainable and effective—reforms happen when those who are directly affected support them. You don’t have to take our word for it; just look at how some of the best-performing and rapidly improving school systems got that way. Take Finland,  for example–one of the consistently best-performing OECD countries in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) since the assessments were first conducted in 2000. While teachers there have long enjoyed high professional status (which should be one of the goals of reform in countries where teachers are poorly trained, poorly paid and not recognised as the professionals they are—or should be), their views on improving student performance are actively solicited and, to the extent possible, used to spur and support change.

Ontario, Canada, initiated a comprehensive reform of its education system in 2003 to improve graduation rates and standards in literacy and numeracy. Those who led the reform effort acknowledge that it couldn’t have been as successful as it has been without the involvement of teachers’ unions and superintendents’ and principals’ organisations. For example, a collective bargaining agreement with the main teachers’ unions there eased the way for a reduction in class size and more preparation time for teachers—changes that, in turn, led to the creation of some 7,000 new jobs.

When teachers, union leaders and education ministers meet again in New York this March for the second OECD co-sponsored International Summit of the Teaching Profession, they will no doubt take as a starting point their conclusion from last year’s Summit: that high-quality teaching forces are created through deliberate policy choices, and by engaging strong teachers as active agents in school reform, not just using them to implement plans designed by others. In other words, the resolve to reform education can only be turned into real reform if teachers are at the forefront of change.

So in these first few days of the new year, be ambitious in your resolutions—and wise in keeping them.

Links:
For a full summary of the evidence that underpinned the first International Summit on the Teaching Profession held in New York in March 2011 see the report:
Building a High-Quality Teaching Profession: Lessons from around the World
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS)
Video Series: Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education

Picture credit: Mark Rogers, fallingfifth.com