What’s your strategy for learning?

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Directorate for Education and Skills

Here’s a little test for you: Write a one-paragraph summary of a newspaper or web article you just read. After you’ve done that, try to explain how you did it. Did you read the text over and over to try to commit it to memory? Did you make sure the most important facts in the article were represented in your summary, in your own words? You might ask: what does it matter?

Knowing the best way to summarise information you read is key to being a proficient reader. In fact, this month’s PISA in Focus suggests that if disadvantaged students – who consistently score lower on PISA assessments than advantaged students -- used the most effective learning strategies to the same extent as students from more advantaged backgrounds do, the performance gap between the two groups would shrink considerably.

PISA 2009 asked students to describe how they summarise texts they read. Based on their responses, and on experts’ judgements of the relative effectiveness of different strategies, PISA was able to determine the extent to which students were aware of the most effective strategies for learning. 

Results show that countries with a strong average reading performance are those whose students generally know how to summarise information. Across OECD countries, the difference in reading performance between those students who know which strategies are best for summarising information and those who know the least is 107 PISA score points – the equivalent of more than two years of schooling. The findings also indicated that, within OECD countries, students from socio-economically advantaged backgrounds know more about the relative effectiveness of different learning strategies than students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Could these differences contribute to performance differences between advantaged and disadvantaged students?

The answer is “yes”: students from disadvantaged backgrounds could attain scores much closer to those of their advantaged peers if they had a greater knowledge of how best to approach learning. In as many as 31 countries and economies, if the most disadvantaged students had the same levels of awareness about summarising strategies as the most advantaged students in their countries and economies, their reading performance would be at least 15 points higher. In Austria, Belgium, Dubai (UAE), France, Hungary, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Portugal, Switzerland and Uruguay, the score-point difference between what disadvantaged students could achieve if they had the same levels of knowledge about effective summarising strategies as advantaged students is more than 20 points, or the equivalent of half a year of formal schooling. Across OECD countries, if disadvantaged students used effective learning strategies to the same extent as students from more advantaged backgrounds do, the performance gap between the two groups would be almost 20% narrower. In Belgium, Finland, Korea and Liechtenstein, the gap would be 25% narrower.

While PISA cannot firmly establish cause and effect, these results suggest that one of the ways socio-economic advantage translates into better proficiency in reading is by providing more opportunities for students to develop an understanding of which learning strategies are the most effective. But there is no reason why these opportunities should be available mostly to advantaged students. By reading to their young children or talking with adolescent children about cultural or political events, all parents can give their children opportunities to experiment with and practice various learning strategies. Teachers, particularly those who work in schools with large proportions of disadvantaged students, can focus some of their reading lessons on the best strategies for summarising information. After all, knowing how to learn from the earliest age equips a student for a lifetime of learning.

Now: can you summarise, in two sentences, what you just read?

Links:   
For more information on PISA: www.oecd.org/pisa/
PISA in Focus No.30 :Could learning strategies reduce the performance gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students?
Photo credit: Definition of the word summary/ Shutterstock

Students – the migrants everyone wants

By Joris Ranchin and Cuauhtemoc Rebolledo-Gómez 
Staticians, Innovation and Measuring Progress Division 

International students are one of the fastest growing parts of the global education system. In just 20 years their numbers have more than doubled, and there are now over 4 million young people currently studying abroad to get their degree. Driven as much by a rise in tertiary education as by an increasingly globalised world, they are taking advantage of cheaper travel and communication costs to improve their language skills, get high-status qualifications – and give themselves a leg up in a competitive job market. But they’re not the only ones benefiting. The countries they are flocking to are cashing in while countries like China encourage their young people to travel abroad to study in order to bring their new skills home.

So who are these new students and where do they go? The latest edition of Education Indicators in Focus suggests that the global market in education is changing and that there’s increasing competition for these globetrotting young people.

Meet the international student
Your typical international student will be from Asia – most likely China, India or Korea, the top three countries of origin for foreign students. They are overwhelmingly likely to be studying in an OECD country, and preferably  an English-speaking one  – with the United States the number one destination, followed by the United Kingdom and Australia. They’ll probably be studying social sciences, business or the law, and increasingly they’ll be found at the very highest levels of education – one in five of those enrolled in advanced research programmes in the OECD are now international students, and more than one in four in some countries.

Price isn’t everything (but it helps)
With so much choice on offer, international students have to take many factors into account. A country’s reputation and the courses it offers matter – as does the cost. Fees have been rising, with the vast majority of countries charging their international students more than their domestic ones. High fees needn’t necessarily be a deterrent, especially if there are scholarships available or students can work to offset the cost. But at least some of America’s decline as a destination for international students may be due to high university fees, especially as a good quality degree is now on offer more cheaply elsewhere. Sweden is a prime example of this – after introducing tuition fees for students from outside Europe, it saw numbers plummet by more than half in a single year.

Language and laws are also key
There are other barriers – and bridges – to international students, the most important being language and immigration policies. Because English-speaking destinations are so popular, some non-English speaking countries have even taken to offering courses in English to attract more students. Some countries have changed their immigration laws to make it easier for students to come in, and to stay on once they’ve graduated – although others such as the United States and the United Kingdom are increasingly making it harder for international students to enter the country. As a result of these changes, some of the old certainties are changing. Destinations like Germany – and even the United States – are losing popularity, while new destinations – the Russian Federation, New Zealand, Korea – are rising fast.

A changing market in a changing world
Increasingly, international students are seen as an asset both for the countries and the institutions that host them. As well as their fees and their living expenses during the period of study – Canada, for instance, estimates that foreign students are a bigger earner than aluminium or aerospace – international students can benefit the economy long term if they stay on after their education. Patterns of travel reflect  broader migration patterns as students seek countries which already have ties with home, but they also reflect the way countries and institutions are competing to attract the brightest and the best. International students are changing themselves as they get experience of life abroad – but they’re also changing the world they live in.

For more information 
On this topic, visit:
Education Indicators in Focus
On the OECD’s education indicators, visit: http://www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm
Education at a Glance 2013: OECD Indicators: www.oecd.org/edu/eag2013

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

Diverging levels of research efficiency change the global landscape of innovation

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

Recovering from the current recession and building a sustainable economy based on growth and social progress require investments in innovative research. No future is imaginable without a new wave of innovation. But innovative ideas come from creative research, in many cases produced by universities and research institutions. Over the past decades countries have generally increased their investment in R&D, leading to higher numbers of researchers, more research activities and higher research output. Thanks to more sophisticated indicators and monitoring tools, we are now able to measure progress in research and to evaluate the impact of research in the global research system.

This global research system still is a rather concentrated system, with a very strong core and a wide periphery. Despite globalization and increasing access to research findings thanks to technology, many countries still are completely absent from this global community. Of the research universities included in the top 200 of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2012, more than half are in the United States (76) or the United Kingdom (31). In research the world is becoming flat only at a very, very slow pace. This is strange, because sharing ideas and knowledge on the Internet is even easier than transferring money. And, in contrast to money, sharing knowledge enriches both parties in the communication chain.

Yet, the massive size of the research infrastructure in the core countries is partly misleading. We know a lot about many input measures, but they tell us only one side of the story. What matters more is the impact of research. Bibliometric measures such as citation and impact scores, calculated from big databases, now allow seeing where the most relevant research is located. Next to research measures, since 2010 the new methodology of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings now also include good measures of research impact, with citation indicators developed with Thomson Reuters, the global leader in research database management. These data are now mostly used to compare universities, but we also can use them to compare countries and shifts in the global research system over time.

The United States still are world leaders when it comes to investments in research. The output of their universities in terms of size and impact puts the country among a select few in the world. Based on the average of their 76 universities in the 2012 ranking, the US score 85.21 points on the citations indicator. But the average score of French (83.40), Irish (81.50) and Swiss (81.20) universities in the top 200 follow closely. The strange thing is that the citations score does seem to have almost no relationship with the research score, which basically is a measure of input. Comparing individual universities on both measures, there is an extreme variation between the two scores. High investments do not at all generate automatically high outputs in terms of citations and impact. On a country level we even see a negative correlation between the research input score and the citations score of -.53. This is mainly due to Asian countries such as China, Chinese Taipei, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, and Singapore, who make huge investments in research but still fail to generate impact. The average research input score of all these Asian countries is higher than the average score for US universities, while their average citations score is much lower. These countries learn that it doesn’t suffice to create an excellent research infrastructure, but that it takes time and probably specific policies to generate research which finds its way into the heart of the global knowledge system.

Dividing citations scores by research scores gives a proxy for research efficiency in a country, at least among the universities who can compete with the very best in the world. Countries with the best level of research efficiency are France, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, and Switzerland, and all of them do better than the US or the UK. Adding a time dimension makes the picture even more contrasting: these five countries are all improving their research efficiency over a period of two years with comparable data (2010-12), while China, Chinese Taipei, Korea, and Singapore, together with Australia and Austria are below average and decreasing in research efficiency (see graph above).

The global research system definitely is diversifying beyond the two traditional core countries with world-class universities, but the countries in the immediate periphery, mainly in Europe, are the ones who benefit from that. They are not as massively investing as for example Asian countries, but they do it much more effectively, probably by targeting their knowledge strategies better. Ultimately, it will be the research that matters which will find its way into innovation. Smart and targeted policies are probably much more effective than ambitious, but very broad investment policies.

Links:
OECD finds greater efficiency outside the elite: Times Higher Education
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI)
Chart source: OECD

“I’ve been driven by goals”

Ellen MacArthur, Founder of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, was in Paris this week to speak on entrepreneurship and skills at the OECD Forum. She was interviewed by Marilyn Achiron, Editor of the Education Department.

In 2001, a 24-year-old Ellen MacArthur fulfilled a 20-year dream and sailed, single-handedly non-stop around the world in the Vendée Globe. Not only did she achieve her goal, she also came in second in one of the hardest races in sailing. Three years later, she broke the speed record for circumnavigating the globe, alone, on a trimaran.

Today, MacArthur has set herself another challenge: to change, fundamentally, how we think about and use the world’s resources. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, established in 2010, links education and business in a drive towards a circular economy. The idea of the circular economy is based on “systems thinking”, the acknowledgement that nothing occurs in a vacuum; that context matters. And the context we’re all living in right now is that of finite natural resources.

When asked, MacArthur says she is driven by goals; but that seems only half the story: the other half is passion. You hear it when she speaks of her first sailing experience, as a 4-year-old, with her “auntie”: “It was the greatest feeling of freedom I could ever imagine. That boat could have taken us anywhere in the world.” And you hear it when she speaks of her work now: “The ‘big click’ happened when I first started to understand the circular economy. It’s a whole different system. Suddenly I had the same feeling I had as a 4-year-old.”

In her 20s, the context of MacArthur’s life was the confines of impossibly small vessels. “You realise what ‘finite’ means; how you behave when you have limited resources.” Now, the context may seem far larger, but the constraints are no less challenging: “We don’t have enough resources to sustain our economy. You can re-start your boat at the end of a race, but you can’t do that with finite resources.”

In addition to making the case for a circular economy among business leaders her Foundation is piloting, testing and producing materials for secondary school teachers based on systems thinking and “restorative” recycling that can be built into the design of nearly everything we use, from washing machines through cars and carpets to packaging. “When people learn about recycling, they learn that they should be doing less. And everything they’re learning is, at best, just buying time. It doesn’t inspire creativity and innovation. In the circular economy, there’s an extraordinary message about what you can do, not what you can’tdo. And that message comes through in the classroom and in the boardroom.”

MacArthur recounts how, in front of a class of teachers, she takes what looks like a plastic bag, stuffs it into a glass of hot water, watches the bag dissolve and then drinks the nutrient-filled contents of the glass: a show-and-tell of how design for a circular economy can feed (in this case, literally) the future. The teachers, she says, “are not used to seeing that; they’re not used to the idea of a circular economy. It’s an exciting way to teach.” And what they’re learning, at the same time, is a notion that is central to a circular economy: that consumers pay for performance, not for the material product. “You look at how you can design something so that you can re-sell and re-manufacture it.

“The idea of the circular economy is an enabler for young people—and for businesses,” says MacArthur. “The more creative they are, the better. That’s what it’s all about.”

Links:

EllenMacArthur Foundation

OECD Forum 2012

OECD Economic Outlook

OECD Skills Strategy

OECD Work on Green Growth

Photo credit: Nautilus shell / Shutterstock

Knowledge and skills are infinite – oil is not

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

As the bible notes, Moses arduously led the Jews for 40 years through the desert – just to bring them to the only country in the Middle East that had no oil. But Moses may have gotten it right, after all. Today, Israel has an innovative economy and its population enjoys a standard of living most of its oil-rich neighbours don't offer. More generally, countries with greater total rents from natural resources tend to be economically and socially less developed, as exports of national resources tend to appreciate the currency, making imports cheap and the development of an industrial base more difficult. And as governments in resource-rich countries are under less pressure to tax their citizens they are more prone to autocratic leadership.

But there is more to this: OECD’s PISA study shows that there is also a significant negative relationship between the money countries extract from national resources and the knowledge and skills of their school population (see figure): Israel is not alone in outperforming its oil-rich neighbors by a large margin when it comes to learning outcomes at school, this is a global pattern that generally across 65 countries that took part in the latest PISA assessment. Exceptions such as Canada, Australia and Norway, that are rich of natural resources but still score well on PISA, have all established deliberate policies of saving these resource rents, and not just consuming them. Today’s learning outcomes at school, in turn, are a powerful predictor for the wealth and social outcomes that countries will reap in the long run.

One interpretation is that in countries with little in the way of natural resources - other examples are Finland, Singapore or Japan - education has strong outcomes and a high status at least in part because the public at large has understood that the country must live by its knowledge and skills and that these depend on the quality of education. So the value that a country places on education seems to depend at least in part on a country’s view of how knowledge and skills fit into the way it makes its living. Placing a high value on education may be an underlying condition for building a world-class education system and a world class economy, and it may be that most countries that have not had to live by their wits in the past will not succeed economically and socially unless their political leaders explain why, though they might not have had to live by their wits in the past, they must do so now.

The most troubling implications of these data relate to the developing world. Many of the countries with below-average GDP succeeded to convert their national resources into physical capital and consumption today, but failed to convert these into the human capital that can generate the economic and social outcomes to sustain their future.

But there is an important message for the industrialised world too. Particularly in these times of economic difficulties, it is tempting to resource our standard of living today through incurring even greater financial liabilities for the future. But in the long term, there is no way to stimulate our way out or to print money our way out. The only sustainable way is to grow our way out, and that requires giving more people the skills to compete, collaborate and connect in ways that drive our economies forward. Without sufficient investment in skills people languish on the margins of society, technological progress does not translate into productivity growth, and countries can no longer compete in an increasingly knowledge-based global economy.

In short, knowledge and skills have become the global currency of 21st century economies. But there is no central bank that prints this currency, you cannot inherit this currency and you cannot produce it through speculation, you can only develop it through sustained effort and investment by people and for people.

Moreover, this new ‘currency’ depreciates as skill requirements of labor-markets evolve and individuals lose the skills they do not use. The toxic coexistence of high unemployment and skill shortages in many countries today illustrates that producing more of the same graduates is not the answer. To succeed with converting knowledge and skills into jobs, growth and social outcomes which nations require, we need to develop a better understanding of those skills that drive strong and sustainable economic and social outcomes; we need to ensure that the right mix of skills is being taught and learned over the lifecycle of people; we need to develop effective labor-markets that use their skill potential; and we need better governance arrangements with sustainable approaches to who should pay for what, when and where. OECD’s new Skills Strategy is now providing a framework to support countries with building, maintaining and using their human capital to boost employment and growth and promote social inclusion.
Links:
Figure: The negative relationship between national resources and skills
OECD Skills Strategy
Presentation: Skills matter: Developing an OECD Skills Strategy
PISA: www.pisa.oecd.org
Follow Andreas Schleicher on twitter @SchleicherEDU
Photo credit: © diez artwork / Shutterstock

All that money can’t buy

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Directorate for Education 
                                                    

We can now add something else to the growing list of things money alone can’t buy: love, happiness–and strong performance in PISA. Results from PISA 2009 show that there is a threshold beyond which a country’s wealth is unrelated to its overall score in PISA.

Among moderately wealthy economies whose per capita GDP is up to around USD 20 000 (Estonia, Hungary, the Slovak Republic and the partner country Croatia, for example), the greater the country’s wealth, the higher its mean score on the PISA reading test. But PISA results indicate that above this threshold of USD 20 000 in per capita GDP, national wealth is no longer a good predictor of a country’s mean performance in PISA. And the amount these high-income countries devote to education also appears to have little relation to their overall performance in PISA. PISA looked at cumulative expenditure on education–the total dollar amount spent on educating a student from the age of 6 to the age of 15–and found that, after a threshold of about USD 35 000 per student, expenditure is unrelated to performance. For example, countries that spend more than USD 100 000 per student from the age of 6 to 15, such as Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland and the United States, show similar levels of performance as countries that spend less than half that amount per student, such as Estonia, Hungary and Poland. Meanwhile, New Zealand, a top performer in PISA, spends a lower-than-average amount per student from the age of 6 to 15.

So what is it that makes a country a strong performer in PISA? Its decisions on how it spends the money that it does invest in education. PISA results show that the strongest performers among high-income countries and economies tend to invest more in teachers. For example, lower secondary teachers in Korea and the partner economy of Hong Kong-China, two high-performing systems in the PISA reading tests, earn more than twice the per capita GDP in their respective countries. The countries that perform well in PISA tend to attract the best students into the teaching profession by offering them higher salaries and greater professional status. They also tend to prioritise investment in teachers over smaller classes.

Successful PISA countries also invest something else in their education systems: high expectations for all of their students. Schools and teachers in these systems do not allow struggling students to fail; they do not make them repeat a grade, they do not transfer them to other schools, nor do they group students into different classes based on ability. Regardless of a country’s or economy’s wealth, school systems that commit themselves, both in resources and in policies, to ensuring that all students succeed perform better in PISA than systems that tend to separate out poor performers or students with behavioural problems or special needs.

So when it comes to money and education, the question isn’t how much? but rather for what?

For more information:
on PISA: www.pisa.oecd.org
PISA in Focus N°13: Does money buy strong performance in PISA?
Full set of PISA in Focus: www.oecd.org/pisa/infocus
Video Series: Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education

Video: Singapore: Building a strong and effective teaching force
From the series of videos on Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education, produced jointly by the OECD and the Pearson Foundation