Skills will drive inclusive economic growth in Portugal

by Andreas Schleicher

Director, Directorate for Education and Skills

Skills and human capital are the bedrock upon which Portugal is building a new bridge to growth.

Portugal is recovering from the most serious economic and financial crisis the country has experienced in recent history. The reform agenda over the past few years has been ambitious, comprehensive and challenging.

Awareness is now growing among policy makers, employers and households that Portugal’s future economic and social well-being will depend upon securing equitable and high-quality education and jobs while promoting innovation and entrepreneurship.

Portugal is on the road to recovery

Signs of Portugal’s recovery can be seen across the board. Youth unemployment and long-term joblessness rates are falling, even if levels remain too high. Job creation is picking up, and the majority of new jobs created in 2014 were on permanent contracts, which is a good indication that Portugal’s longstanding labour market dualism has been reduced by recent reforms. Educational attainment levels and learning outcomes are rising steadily, as reflected in Portugal’s PISA scores which now approach the OECD average. Measures have been introduced to stimulate entrepreneurship, and in 2014 Lisbon was selected as one of the European Entrepreneurial Regions (EER), in recognition of its strategies to promote entrepreneurship and spread innovation among small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Building a shared diagnosis of Portugal’s skills challenges 

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. Data from the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) show that in all countries, 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.

Put simply, a lack of proficiency in foundation skills prevents people from fully participating in society and democracy.

In the course of 2014, we have worked closely with Portugal on a collaborative project to build a more effective skills strategy. Throughout this initial diagnostic phase, we have witnessed strong commitment to improving Portugal’s skills outcomes across central and local governments, employers and trade unions, as well as education and training providers.

Today, the results of this work are published as the OECD Skills Strategy Diagnostic Report: Portugal. The Prime Minister of Portugal, Mr Pedro Passos Coelho, will be officially launching the report in Lisbon together with the OECD Secretary-General, Mr Ángel Gurría. This is a strong signal of the importance afforded to skills policies in Portugal.

Portugal’s 12 skills challenges

The diagnostic report applies the framework of the OECD Skills Strategy to identify 12 skills challenges for Portugal as it seeks to maximise its future skills potential. These skills challenges were distilled from a series of four interactive workshops held in Lisbon and Porto in 2014, which engaged a wide range of stakeholders. The report includes a rich set of evidence from OECD and other sources, and offers concrete examples of how other countries are tackling similar skills challenges.

So what are the main skills challenges facing Portugal today?

With regard to developing relevant skills, the report concludes that Portugal should focus its efforts on:
- Improving equity and quality in education
- Strengthening the responsiveness of VET to labour market demands
- Targeting adult education and lifelong learning towards the low-skilled

When it comes to activating its skills supply, Portugal will need to tackle the challenges of:
- Reducing youth unemployment and NEETs
- Increasing labour market re-entry for the long-term unemployed
- Reducing barriers to employment

Furthermore, Portugal could make more effective use of the skills it has by: 
- Promoting entrepreneurship
- Stimulating innovation and creating high-skilled jobs
- Providing employers with incentives to engage in skills development, especially SMEs

Finally, Portugal could improve the overall governance of the skills system by: 
- Financing a more equitable and efficient skills system
- Adjusting decision-making power to meet local needs
- Building capacity and partnerships for evidence-based skills policy

Moving from diagnosis to action 

Taken individually, these challenges may not be new or surprising to the people of Portugal. Yet by laying them out side by side, the need for a more systemic approach to skills policies emerges clearly.

As the diagnostic report demonstrates, skills policies are not just a matter for one ministry. Tackling skills challenges requires a whole of government approach. Moreover, skills are everybody’s business. Stakeholders and civil society need to play an active role in developing and implementing skills policies that are sustainable over the long term. 

By bringing together stakeholders, ministries and agencies to map out Portugal’s skills challenges, this project has built shared insights and deeper mutual understanding. The next step for Portugal will be to decide which challenges should be tackled as a priority and to develop concrete plans for action. This will mean building on the many reforms already underway and the continued engagement of all skills stakeholders.

Skills and human capital are the bridge to a more inclusive and prosperous future for the people of Portugal. The OECD stands ready to support Portugal as it designs and implements better skills policies for better jobs and better lives.

Links:
OECD Skills Strategy Diagnostic Report: Portugal 
OECDSkills Strategy
Survey of Adult Skills
For more on skills and skills policies around the world, visit: skills.oecd.org
See also the country page on skills for Portugal

Photo credit: The 25 de Abril bridge over Tagus river and big Christ monument in Lisbon at sunset, Portugal/ @Shutterstock 

Related blog posts on skills:

Boosting growth through better foundation skills

Supporting social and emotional skills to balance our lives

Skill up or lose out

Let's talk about skills

Under the radar? Professional education and training

by Simon Field
Senior Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills

Percentage of adults aged 20 – 45 who have short cycle professional education and training as their highest qualification

In centrally planned economies in the former Soviet bloc, apartments and housing came in rigid standard sizes - there was little choice. The same was true of cars. So households had little choice, and provision was dominated by the supply-side. 

We are quick to see the inefficiencies in those arrangements, we who have become so used to the idea of choice over everything. But oddly enough, education systems sometimes operate a bit like a centrally planned economy.  The most visible post-compulsory qualifications, come in standard sizes: two to four years of upper secondary education, and three to four years for a bachelors programme. Often this sequence is seen as the 'royal road' for a young person.

But out there in the labour market, modern economies are generating demands for skills that are every bit as diverse as our varying needs for housing or road transport. These demands come in chunks of different sizes, and quite often in the shape of demand for qualifications beyond school, but involving less time than a full three to four year bachelor's degree.  For example, a recent review of the United States concluded that in the decade to 2018, nearly one third of job vacancies will require a post-secondary qualification of some sort, but less than a four year degree.

So how are countries responding? Are they widening choice in response to demand, or, as in a centrally planned economy offering no more than a rigid and limited set of options? A new OECD report on Skills beyond School, based on 20 individual country studies, sheds light on this. 

Some countries have responded well. In the United States, around 12% of the labour force has a post-secondary certificate – typically a short vocational programme - and certificate graduation rates have tripled in recent years; a further 10% have associate degrees. In Austria, around 20% of the cohort graduate with a post-secondary qualification from a vocational college. In France more than one third of a million students are enrolled in two-year professional programmes. But in some other countries the response is weaker (see chart above).

Much of this activity is under the radar – it simply doesn’t get noticed in the way that university programmes do.With that in mind, the Skills beyond School Synthesis Report proposes a common international name for the sector – "professional education and training" – following the Swiss example. This would include all vocational post-secondary programmes requiring more than six months full-time learning (or the equivalent).

Of course these programmes are not without their challenges, and choice does not guarantee quality. Professional training sometimes needs to raise its game. Teachers and trainers need more up-to-date industry experience; qualifications need to be developed with the social partners nationally, and allow local flexibility to adapt to local labour market requirements; transition to higher education should be made easier; the needs of adults for flexible and part-time study need to be accommodated; recognition of prior learning, including informal workbased learning, also needs to be built in.

But there is also one topic that stands out. This report argues that work-based learning should be made a mandatory element of programmes, allowing employers not only to provide training, but also to strongly influence the mix and content of training provision.  As an aside, work-based learning is such a critical part of vocational programmes that a whole new OECD project will be devoted to this topic in 2015-16.

Links:

Better professional training would boost skills and job creation, says OECD

Skills beyond School Synthesis Report

Full set of OECD Reviews of Post-Secondary Vocational Education and Training: http://www.oecd.org/edu/skills-beyond-school/skillsbeyondschool.htm
For more on OECD work on skills go to: http://skills.oecd.org/ 

Follow on twitter: #OECDSkills

Image credit: ©OECD

Lessons for the UK

by Ken Manson 
Co-ordinator (Communications), UK Commission for Employment and Skills

Simon Field is an expert on the comparative analysis of vocational education and training (VET) systems. He leads the OECD’s policy review of VET systems, and is lead author on the OECD’s VET policy publications. I spoke with him about the upcoming launch of the Skills Beyond School review of post-secondary VET systems based on studies in 20 OECD countries.

Skills Beyond School Synthesis Report will be published on the 13th November, and will hold its publication launch at the VET Conference at the Skills Show at the NEC in Birmingham. For information on how to attend, see the Vocational Education and Training Conference website.

Ken Manson: Could you talk a little bit about the background to the report and some of the individual country studies you've done that have fed into this synthesis? 

Simon Field: We have done a lot of work on vocational education and training (VET) at the upper secondary school level, where a number of European countries have substantial apprenticeship systems. We published a report called Learning for Jobs back in 2010 which drew that together. One of the things that came out of that was the importance in many countries of post-secondary vocational systems.

First of all, if you go to some of the countries with very strong classical dual apprenticeship systems, like the Germany and Austria and Switzerland, what you find is that at post-secondary level they support that system with a whole tier of further vocational qualifications. That's very important, because it provides a career ladder for apprentice graduates to aspire to and go on to.

Conversely, if you go to the United States, what you find is that very often people are going through general high school education, and later on, at post-secondary level they will be pursuing some form of technical or professional training that will lead them into work. So that would be their first vocational qualification. That’s a different model, but it is still one where post-secondary vocational programmes are very important.

In the UK, there isn't a huge amount of post-secondary vocational education and training in the sense of shorter, after-school vocational qualifications. Where it exists, it has very often occupied quite niche areas where there is a particular legally required qualification in a regulated profession like childcare.

KM: One thing that UKCES is particularly interested in is trying to encourage employers and training providers to work together. In your research, have you seen any good examples of that, and what lessons do you think the UK could draw from those systems?

SF: We think that encouraging partnership between training providers and employers is absolutely fundamental. Unless you have that, you don't have very much, in truth.

Sweden is a particularly interesting example, and this example will be presented at the event on the 13th November. Their higher vocational education system involves grant funding by central government of employer/training provider partnerships. They're not just funding training providers. Instead, they're funding training providers who are in partnership already with employers to provide a programme of study to students with a built-in element of work based learning. That has been very successful, the labour market outcomes look good, and there is very rapid growth in that programme.

The key thing about this model is that it changes the incentives, because instead of saying, well, we'll fund people to provide training places, and they're going to try very hard to work with employers who will then provide some element of work-based learning, but often they fail. Instead, it's very simple: unless you actually have the employer from the outset working in conjunction with the training provider, then the programme is not funded. That changes the incentives radically.

KM: Where have you seen examples of [education] providers making links with employers to make their qualifications more attractive? Almost a promotion exercise, where providers have been proactive and marketed themselves to that employer audience. Have you seen good examples of that?

SF: There is no better test of marketing to an employer audience than by building in work placements into your programme of study. If an employer is interested enough to provide work placements and support a programme of study, then that almost certainly means that the employer is going to be interested, potentially, in employing graduates of that programme. If there is a programme of study that can't find an employer willing to offer a work placement, then that raises some serious questions about whether the programme of study, if pursued, is likely to lead to employment.

That led us to recommend building in work-based learning as a mandatory element in programmes. It is often said, well, you can't make this mandatory, because you won't be able to find the employers to offer work placements.  But we find this fairly robustly contradicted in a lot of different country circumstances. We believe it is feasible to insist on work-based learning.   Whats more, work-based learning brings other good things in its train, linking teachers in vocational colleges with employers, getting employers interested in working with providers to build relevant vocational qualifications.  In many ways it is the key that unlocks the door to employer engagement.

KM: How will we know when it works? With the broad range of systems that you've studied, what kind of metrics would you be looking at to quantify the success of that system? 

SF: Well, you've put your finger on it. The data in many countries are very weak. The acid test of any vocational programme is whether it leads to a job in which the skill that has been learnt is exercised. There are different types of destination surveys which measure exactly that; you follow up students six months or one year after they've left the vocational programme to find out what they're doing. They have to be used with a little bit of discretion, of course. It's well established that, even in countries with dual-system apprenticeships, you often follow up apprentices and find that they're working in slightly different fields of study. That's not a bad thing; it shows that their careers are developing.

KM: If someone reading this interview wondered if they should come along to [the VET Conference at the Skills Show in] Birmingham, why should they come to the launch of this report?

SF: The main reason is that the Birmingham event and our report will provide a picture of what is going on in the UK and how it compares with other countries, and that's hugely valuable. The truth is, what is going on in the UK is really quite different from other countries.  One can have all sorts of opinions on whether that is a good thing or a bad thing and in what ways things are done better or worse in different countries, but there is no question that a lot can be learnt from those comparisons. It means that at the very least what goes on in the UK is less likely to be seen as something that is just taken for granted. It is a particular and special system that has grown up in a particular way. It could be managed in other ways. Seeing that in itself is enormously healthy and will open eyes to all sorts of possibilities.

Links:
The National Vocational Education and Training Conference, at The Skills Show, Birmingham, 13-14 November 
The Skills Show: Programme
Skills Beyond School Synthesis Report
A Skills beyond School Review of England
Learning for Jobs
OECD Vocational Education and Training (VET) webpage
UKCES blog: “What is going on in the UK is really quite different from other countries”
Photo credit: Teacher teaching students bricklaying in vocational school / @Shutterstock

Understanding Employer Engagement in Education

by Anthony Mann
Director of Policy and Research, Education and Employers Taskforce, London, UK

Across the world, governments are asking themselves how can they close the gap between the worlds of education and employment? How can they better engage employers in the work of schools?

While hardly a new phenomenon, the attention of policy makers and commentators has grown significantly over the last decade.  It is a policy which has won the recent attention and the strong endorsement from the OECD – in its key 2010 strategic review of vocational education, Learning for Jobs – from European Union agencies (CEDEFOP and InGenious) – and from an influential team at Harvard University (Pathways to Prosperity).  In England, the main political parties no longer argue whether a period of one or two weeks work experience should be a mandatory element of secondary education, but at what age placements should best be undertaken.

Employer engagement has become rapidly established within global priorities for schooling.  It is a development which has happened largely in the absence, as set out in a new collection of essays published by Routledge, of significant research.  The collection, Understanding Employer Engagement in Education, marks the very first gathering together of serious research essays into the character, delivery and consequences of employer involvement in the learning and progression of young people.  It brings together insights from papers first offered at the international conferences and seminars arranged by the London-based education charity, the Education and Employers Taskforce.  Over seventeen essays, authors from around the world (if with a strong UK focus), analyse the phenomenon of employer engagement both within vocational education and training, through school or college based apprenticeships, and within mainstream academic schooling seen in such activities as careers talks, enterprise competitions, business mentoring and workplace visits as well as short work placements. Collectively, the contributors consider why governments have become so determined to bring workplace experiences into schooling, how such interventions can best be theorised and understood within labour markets undergoing radical change, what impacts school-mediated workplace exposure can be expected to have on recipients and how access to such experiences are distributed across society.

The collection is likely to gain most attention for three chapters which offer measurements of the impact of employer engagement in education on the educational and employment outcomes of young people.  Percy and Mann (Education and Employers Taskforce) apply quantitative analysis to recent UK survey data to show significant links between the extent of teenage employer contacts arranged through schools and later earnings, employment levels and self-declared career confidence. Massey (UKCES) explores the phenomenon from an employer perspective, analysing large scale polling to show how commonplace it is for British employers to take on permanent recruits after short periods of school-managed work placement.

From a Canadian and VET perspective, Taylor et al (University of Alberta) finds participants in school-based apprenticeships to achieve better in school and apprenticeship completion rates than peers.  The three studies add considerably to a relatively slim literature applying robust methodologies to provide the evidence that endorses the instincts of so many policy makers.

The ambition of the collection though is not just to measure gains related to employer engagement, but to critically understand how and why such benefits might be expected and to who can be expected to gain most from them.  The work begins by offering a long overdue attempt to conceptualise the experience of employer engagement within wider social and economic theory concerning the progression of young people through their educational experiences and into the labour market.  Louise Archer (King’s College, London) provides a critical review of the concept of aspiration and Julian Stanley (University of Warwick) and Anthony Mann (Education and Employers Taskforce) draw on human, social and cultural capital theory to offer a conceptual framework to help understand how young people encounter such employer contacts and how they might turn such experiences into resources of ultimate labour market value.  From a US perspective, James Stone III (University of Louisville) locates employer engagement firmly within pedagogic debates concerning the nature of practical and academic learning, while the OECD’s Kathrin Hoeckel describes the character of contemporary youth unemployment.  The collection locates employer engagement in education, consequently, squarely within fundamental debates over the relationship of education and skills provision to individual and national economic success and the changing character of school to work transitions.

Essays by Li and Devine (University of Manchester) and Holmes and Mayhew (University of Oxford) provide new quantitative analysis of longitudinal data tracking the winners and losers in the changing British labour market.  Casting new light on the nature of the problem, studies of British teenagers in urban areas by St Clair et al (University of Glasgow) and Norris (RSA) and Francis (King’s College, London) show teenage career aspirations to be almost uniformly high, but formed without “the active knowledge of what the labour market offered or close knowledge of the educational requirements of particular occupations.”

In the British context, through a series of essays it becomes clear that it is young people from more disadvantaged backgrounds who are placed at structural disadvantage in attempting to access workplace experiences to inform developing career aspirations and to provide access to resources of value to their progression out of secondary schooling.  Teenagers educated in English fee-paying schools are seen, in essays by Mann and Kashefpakdel (University of Bath), Huddleston et al (University of Warwick) and Jones (University of Manchester), to be routinely accessing work placements and careers related engagements closely linked to occupational ambitions and highly relevant to immediate designs on university admission.  In contrast, Le Gallais and Hatcher (Birmingham City University) show how social circumstances dictate access to work experience placements, unless schools actively intervene to secure and manage placements. Through these chapters, the influence of social and cultural capital theory is writ large. Bourdieu and Granovetter have much to say of relevance to contemporary policy.

In their foreword to the collection, Nancy Hoffman (Boston’s Jobs for the Future) and  Robert Schwartz (Harvard University) reflect on the significance of the issues raised in the book following their own participation in the OECD’s Learning for Jobs review.  “The urgency to engage employers in the transition from school to work in not only about the labour market”, they write. “It’s about the welfare of young people.  Youth unemployment has risen to historic proportions in many countries as a result of the global fiscal crisis, and youth across the world have articulated their frustrations about the lack of opportunities for their futures.”  In this context, the collection serves to introduce employer engagement in education as a new field of critical enquiry relevant to policy makers, practitioners and young people themselves as they seek to gain footholds in the shifting sands of the twenty-first century labour market.  In so doing, the book raises many important questions for ongoing research, marking the beginning of what is hoped will be an international exchange of evidence enabling fuller understanding of what can happen when a young person interacts with the economic community and how positive impacts can be most fully, and most equitably, distributed.

Links:
Understanding Employer Engagement in Education: Theories and Evidence, Edited by Anthony Mann, Julian Stanley and Louise Archer (London: Routledge, 2014)
OECD work on Vocational Education and Training (VET)
OECD work on Skills
Photo credit: Young employees / @Shutterstock

Education Policy Outlook: Vocational Pathways in Denmark, France, Germany and Spain

by Andreas Schleicher
Acting Director and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General

As Helen Keller said “alone we can do so little; together we can do so much”. In classrooms around the world, teachers encourage peer-to-peer learning in order to enhance student learning outcomes.  In the same way, fellow peers learn from each other on how to improve their educational systems.

Since early 2012, the OECD Education Policy Outlook series has produced profiles for Australia, Chile, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, and Turkey. Today, four new country profiles are being added to the roundtable discussion: Denmark, Germany, Spain and France. While each of these countries face specific educational challenges, they each have successes that can serve as a lesson for others.

Every country assessed is concerned with similar reform domains. Vocational education and training programmes (VET) is a common area to all four countries that could stand to see improvements. According to the Education Policy Outlook on Denmark, for example, VET programmes see high enrolment rates, but also high dropout rates. In 2012, only 52% of VET students completed their programmes. Denmark responded with recent reforms that improved flexibility and attractiveness so that students can tailor the programmes to fit their needs. Further educational reforms will enter into force in 2015, which aim to improve the quality and attractiveness of current programmes through increased apprenticeships and professional development.

Germany also faces challenges to their long-established VET programmes. The dual functioning system consists of 3-4 days a week spent in hands-on training in a firm and 1-2 days a week spent in the classroom. Contrary to Denmark, where the challenge lies in students’ completion of programmes, the challenge in Germany lies in the transition from compulsory education to VET programmes. Germany has already implemented a few initiatives to address this challenge. A vocational orientation programme has been implemented early on in a students’ education path as preventative support. The goal is to facilitate job creation prospects, avoid early dropout and ensure a smooth transition into VET programmes.

Education in Spain has also been faced with some challenges regarding enrolment. Spain, similar to Denmark, is seeing high student dropout rates. In order to tackle this challenge, policy makers in Spain are proposing to introduce a new reform that will allow for greater flexibility in students’ educational path. At age 15 and 16, students could be able to choose to continue with general academic courses or pursue more vocationally oriented courses. At the end of the school year, the student, again, could have the choice to take an exam to earn a traditional diploma or choose to take an exam that would allow transitions into a VET programme.

France has also implemented educational reforms geared towards VET programmes. Social inequalities are a reality that France has been faced with and in order to level the playing field somewhat, these reforms aim for increased individualism in education. Accompanying the learning experience better prepares students for higher education, ensures academic success and allows for a better understanding of the appropriate career choice after school. France, similar to Denmark, Germany and Spain, also struggles with students’ transition from education to the labour market.

Denmark, Germany, Spain and France all face challenges to transitions in different ways. Among other hurdles discussed in the reports, each country is faced with challenges to their vocational education and training programmes, such as transitions to and from VET programmes, high dropout rates, or inflexible paths.  Each country has implemented note-worthy reforms, but would be well-served to make additional improvements. The Education Policy Outlook series are valuable because they  enable countries to learn from each other. But, more importantly, recognition from peers is a positive way in which we can congratulate others on their achievements, and encourage future progress.

Links:
Education Policy Outlook
Country profiles
OECD Work on Vocational Education and Training (VET)
Image credit: © Copyright Sasha Chebotarev

Learning for jobs: Quality pays off

by Dirk Van Damme and Rodrigo Castaneda Valle
Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education and Skills

In 2010 the OECD published Learning for Jobs, a major review of vocational education and training (VET). The economic crisis has since continued to worsen the job prospects for young people in many OECD countries.  To counterbalance governments have increasingly been looking to strengthen vocational tracks in secondary education as a way to better prepare youth for the job market. The evidence base on VET remains weak, however Education at a Glance is providing improved data on VET systems and the latest issue of Education Indicators in Focus draws attention to some interesting findings.

The very basic policy question that governments ask is: Do more and better VET programmes help to improve employment prospects for young people? International evidence shows us that VET programmes are a costly investment. VET programmes are expected to be up-to-date with the latest technologies in the different industry sectors, and once you factor in the costs of instructors and facilities, it becomes a costly endeavour. On average, the annual expenditure per student in an upper secondary VET programme is 12% higher than in a general programme. In some countries such as Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the Czech and Slovak Republics – countries which have extensive VET provision, enrolling more than 60% of students – the difference in annual expenditure per student can exceed 20%.

It is tempting to relate the size and cost of VET programmes to employment prospects for young people. Indeed, countries like Germany and Switzerland have relatively healthy youth employment rates. Young people with a secondary VET qualification are doing much better in the labour market than their counterparts with only a general secondary qualification as their highest level of educational attainment.

But, as the graph demonstrates, a high proportion of secondary school students in VET programmes is no guarantee for high employment outcomes. It is interesting that it is the relative cost of VET programmes which differentiates countries on employment. Countries which invest more than the average succeed in offering better job prospects. Assuming that more monetary investment in VET programmes also means higher quality programmes, it becomes clear that it is not the size of VET provision that counts, but the quality. Of course, many other factors also impact youth employment, but the graph suggests that it doesn’t really help to have a large proportion of students in VET tracks – as is the case in the Czech and Slovak Republics. Rather, it is much better to have about 35% of students in vocational tracks and to fund them well, as can be seen in the case of Switzerland.

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
For more information on OECD work on Vocational Education and Training: www.oecd.org/education/vet
Chart source: OECD Education at a Glance 2013: Indicators A1, A5 and B1 (http://oecd.org/edu/eag.htm)

Competitions: the secret to developing and measuring skills?

Interview with David Hoey, Chief Executive Officer of WorldSkills International
by Cassandra Davis and Julie Harris, Editors, Educationtoday

“A high-performing athlete is the result of his or her training,” he explained during a break at the OECD Forum in Paris in May, focusing in on the question of how one benchmarks skills development and acquisition. “A well-trained athlete will perform well. But how do you measure ‘well’? Competitions draw out real excellence. By creating international skills competitions, deep learning can be demonstrated and witnessed. But more than that, competitions introduce fun into the process with games, introduces a healthy competitive spirit, and raises both levels and training. At WorldSkills, we’ve instituted a ranking and a scoring system, at the individual, sector and country levels.”

If we didn’t know better, we’d returned to the first Olympic games.

David Hoey, Chief Executive Officer of WorldSkills International spoke to us of the international skills extravaganza (WorldSkills Leipzig 2013) going on now, between 2-7 July. Over 200,000 people and representatives from upwards of 50 countries will be walking through the doors in Leipzig, attending the main and side events, witnessing some of the stellar skills and talents of the world’s top carpenters, graphic designers, technologists, robotic engineers, hairdressers, plumbers and more (46 skills in all).

But let’s learn more about David’s thoughts on the skills of today and tomorrow.

educationtoday: We’ve heard that 65% of today’s students (in the United States) will work in jobs that do not yet exist. Given this, what would you say the most important skills are to develop going forward?

David Hoey: I agree with this statistic. Traditional skills are not the future. Green and sustainability skills, for example, is a whole new area that requires both the traditional and a multi-discipline and a multi-skill approach.

educationtoday: Is there a big rise in the need for technical skills?

DH: Definitely. Look at the products consumers use today. They are born out of multi-disciplinary teams (concept, design, production). Look at what we are using, and how that drives what we will need to use. These needs are driving innovation and development. If we do not have a wider pool of creative and technically skilled individuals (and by this I mean those who can conceive product innovation and development, those who can design these needs-driven, future-oriented products and solutions, and those who can produce such products and solutions), then our economies will suffer and progress will be stilled by the shortfall. 

Take a look, for example, at wireless networks in developing countries. This is just one example of a need developing (communication, learning, getting help), but the development of the solution (creation of a wireless network) not being logical or straightforward. The solution was leap-frog, and around, rather than linear. Would you have thought to create a wireless network in Africa? Would you have been able to do it?

educationtoday: What is your take on the MOOC (massive open online course) revolution?  Is it a threat to vocational education?

DH: We’re seeing a move to online delivery, that’s true. But you still have to demonstrate competency and excellence. At WorldSkills International, we run skills competitions to show skills competency. MOOCs is another method for developing skills, but the proof is in the pudding.

At WorldSkills, we provide the ability for countries to benchmark themselves against other countries, and provide individuals the opportunity to showcase their competency excellence – moving beyond a binary system of “competency or not”.

I’ll give you an example of what these competitions do. Finland hosted the WorldSkills competition in 2005. Do you know what happened? 70% of its youth increased VET (vocational education and training) enrolments from 37% to 44%. That’s a lot of youth deciding to develop their skills.

We want to show young people that a career in skills trades technologies is a very good option. If you can find people who can do something with their hands, put them together with design people and technicians, and by this I mean technicians with knowledge of both mechanics and design, then you’re in a great place. We need people who can do, in addition to those who can conceive and talk about their ideas.

educationtoday: Is there such a thing as a universal set of skills that is valued nearly everywhere? If so, what does that skill set look like? 

DH: Team work, project management, costing. These are but a few. But it’s not the individual skills. It’s the combination with traditional skills (reading, writing, arithmetic) that makes the whole package so powerful.

Links:
WorldSkills International 
OECD work on skills
OECD work on Vocational Education and Training
OECD Skills beyond School reviews: Austria and Germany
International Conference: “Skilling the Future – VET and Workplace Learning for Economic Success”, Leipzig, Germany (during the WorldSkills Leipzig 2013 event).
Barbara Ischinger, Director for Education and Skills: Global Award for Leadership in Education and Workforce Development   
Follow #GSx2013 @OECD_edu for coverage on twitter and livestreaming
Related blog post: Skills on Show
Photo credit : Flickr

Investing in people, skills and education for inclusive growth and jobs

by J.D. LaRock
Senior Analyst, Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education

As the spectre of another economic downturn looms large in many countries and is already a reality in others, new data from the 2012 edition of Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators – released today – provides powerful insights into the link between education, economic progress and social mobility around the world.

For example, as detailed in the book’s new indicator on education and economic growth, more than half of the GDP growth in OECD countries over the past decade is related to labour-income growth among workers with higher education.  Indeed, even as GDP across all OECD countries shrank by 3.8% during the global recession year of 2009, growth in labour income among people with higher education contributed nearly 0.4% to the GDP of these countries overall. In contrast, the contraction of labour income that year among people with a medium level of education reduced the GDP by 0.8%, while shrinking incomes among people with lower levels of education trimmed another 0.5% off GDP.

In light of the substantial role education can play in promoting economic growth, countries’ success in assuring that younger people achieve a higher level of education than their parents – what is known as intergenerational mobility in education – is especially important. The new indicator on educational mobility in this year’s Education at a Glance shows that many countries are making good progress in this regard.  On average across all OECD countries, 37% of 25-34 year-old non-students have surpassed their parents’ level of education, while only 13% have achieved a lower level.  Half of younger adults in OECD countries have achieved the same level of education as their parents: 13%, a low level of education; 21%, a medium level, and 16%, a high level.

Meanwhile, as detailed in the new indicator on early childhood education, many OECD countries are working hard to expand schooling opportunities for their youngest children. For example, among OECD countries with data for both years, 81% of four-year-olds were enrolled in early childhood programmes in 2010, up from 77% in 2005.  What’s more, enrolments among three-year-olds rose from 64% to 69% during this same period. Since participation in early childhood education is linked to better performance later on in school, these developments bode well for a future in which improving young people’s skills will be more important than ever.

At the same time, this year’s Education at a Glance also shows that many OECD countries need to address the growing problem of youth who are not in employment, education or training. After several years of decline, the so-called “NEET” population began to rise in 2009 and spiked to nearly 16.0% in 2010 – a sign of the particular hardship young people have borne as a result of the global recession. As such, OECD countries would do well to examine measures that can productively engage people in this crucial age group, such as vocational education and training programmes and opportunities for non-formal education and training.

As always, the 2012 edition of Education at a Glance contains a rich array of indicators on educational attainment, graduation and completion, education financing, enrolment trends and the globalisation of higher education, and schools and teachers. In addition to the data discussed above, this year’s edition contains a number of other new indicators, including information on how the career aspirations of boys and girls compare to the fields young men and women study in higher education ; the factors that influence immigrant students’ performance in school ; who makes key decisions in education systems ; and the pathways and gateways to gain access to secondary and tertiary education.

For more information, and to download a copy of the book, visit the Education at a Glance website at: www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012
Browse and share the book
Education at a Glance Highlights
Watch the video interview with Andreas Schleicher
Photo credit: Digital Vision/Inmagine