Where diversity doesn’t mean disadvantage

by Marilyn Achiron 
Editor, Directorate for Education and Skills

OECD publications and international media regularly discuss the impact of immigrants on host-country societies. This month’s PISA in Focus looks at the issue from a different perspective: how effectively do the education systems of host countries integrate their immigrant students?

Between 2000 and 2009, across OECD countries the proportion of 15-year-olds with an immigrant background increased from 8% to 10%. In Ireland, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, the Russian Federation, Spain and the United States, the proportion of immigrant students increased by five percentage points or more during that time, and these students now represent from 8% to 30% of these countries’ student population. Education systems play a critical role in the process of integration: they give immigrants and their children opportunities to acquire the skills needed for them to join the labour market.

Results from PISA 2009 show that immigrant students of similar socio-economic status who come from the same country perform very differently, depending on their destination country. For example, immigrant students from the Russian Federation living in Finland, Germany and Israel perform around the OECD average in reading while those in the Czech Republic score about 30 points below the OECD average – the equivalent of a full year of school. Similarly, immigrant students from the Former Yugoslavia living in Denmark score about 40 points below the OECD average while those in Luxembourg score more than 80 points below average. 

The same pattern is observed among students from OECD countries who have immigrated to other countries. For example, on average, German students in Austria and Luxembourg perform at least 10 score points below the OECD average in reading, while those in the Netherlands and Switzerland score more than 30 points above average. On average, French students going to school in Belgium, Israel and Luxembourg perform around the OECD average, while those in Switzerland score 35 points above average.

While immigration policies, similarities between the immigrants’ and the host cultures, and other social policies also explain some of these differences in performance, some education systems appear to be able to facilitate the integration of immigrant students better than others. Immigrant students tend to perform better in school systems that have relatively large populations of immigrant students and where immigrant students are as diverse in their socio-economic status as other students. For example, between one in four and one in five students in Australia, Canada, Israel and the United States have an immigrant background. In these four countries, all students with similar socio-economic status perform equally well, regardless of whether or not they are immigrants. By contrast, in countries where immigrant students represent only a small proportion of the overall student population, and this group is more socio-economically diverse than the overall student population, performance differences between immigrant and non-immigrant students are relatively large, even after taking socio-economic status into account.

PISA results show that immigrant students tend to do better in countries and economies that rise to the challenge of diversity and whose school system is flexible enough to adapt to students with different strengths and needs. Countries that are just beginning to receive increasing numbers of immigrant students from diverse backgrounds can learn from the experience of those systems that have been confronted with this challenge for longer and have succeeded in integrating these students into their school systems.

Links:
For more information on PISA: www.oecd.org/pisa/
PISA in Focus No.33: What do immigrant students tell us about the quality of education systems?
Related PISA in Focus issues:
How are school systems adapting to increasing numbers of immigrants students?
How do immigrant students fare in disadvantaged schools?
Do immigrant students' reading skills depend on how long they've been in their new country?
Photo credit: road made with flags from around the world/@ Shutterstock

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) 

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

For immigrant students, early arrival is best

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Directorate for Education and Skills

Arriving in a new country, in a new school as an immigrant student is never easy. But the transition can be a little less damaging if the student has already spent a few of his or her earliest years in his new home country. This month’s PISA in Focus examines the “late-arrival” penalty in student performance among immigrant students who arrived in their new country at the age of 12 or older.

An analysis of PISA data shows that there are no marked differences in reading proficiency between immigrant students who arrived in their new country before they were five and those who arrived between the ages of six and 11. In contrast, in most OECD countries, immigrant students who arrived at the age of 12 or older – and have spent at most four years in their new country – lag farther behind students in the same grade in reading proficiency than immigrants who arrived at younger ages. 

Countries and economies vary markedly in the magnitude of this “late-arrival penalty” for immigrant students. Differences tend to reflect the composition of the immigrant populations. Australia, for instance, has a large proportion of immigrants from the United Kingdom who already speak the same language as non-immigrant Australians. As a result, the average late-arrival penalty for immigrants in Australia is smaller than that in Germany, for example, where the largest groups of students who were born abroad come from the former USSR, the former Yugoslavia and Turkey.

An examination of age-at-arrival profiles for the major immigrant groups in selected countries confirms the importance of language barriers. In Luxembourg, French children do not suffer a late-arrival penalty; and age-at-arrival seems to make no difference to the reading performance among German students who immigrated to Switzerland. In contrast, 15-year-old students from the former Yugoslavia or Portugal who arrived in Switzerland or Luxembourg within the previous few years fare much worse in reading than immigrant students from the same countries who had spent all their school years in their new country.

But language may not be the only factor involved. Differences in educational and living standards between the origin and destination countries may also be relevant. Overall, an analysis of PISA data finds that immigrant students are particularly at risk of suffering a late-arrival penalty if they arrived at lower secondary-school age from less-developed countries where the home language is not the same as their new language of instruction. These students have to quickly acquire language skills and catch up with the higher levels of attainment achieved by their peers – while simultaneously coping with the difficulties of adjusting to a new school and social environment.

These findings can be used to inform immigration policy: Where late arrival is the result of migration policies that delay family reunification, the intended benefits of these policies should be carefully weighed against the costs of remedial assistance. More immediately, though, targeted help with language skills for those foreign-born students who arrive when they’re in their teens can limit the need for future assistance;and flexible arrangements to defer tracking can help to ensure that students perform at their full potential when decisions are taken about further education. Both measures will have a direct impact on these students’ employment prospects later on.

Links:   
For more information on PISA: www.oecd.org/pisa/

PISA in Focus No. 29: Do immigrant students’ reading skills depend on how longthey have been in their new country?

Photo credit: Children in school, from kindergarten, preschool, elementary / Shutterstock

Breaking down the barriers to immigrant students’ success at school

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Directorate for Education 

Education is one of the best ways of integrating immigrant children and their families into their new home countries. But most immigrant students have to overcome multiple barriers in order to succeed at school. The latest edition of PISA in Focus shows that of all the obstacles to success these students must surmount, the concentration of socio-economic disadvantage at school is among the most strongly related to poor performance.

Disadvantage and immigrant status are closely linked. Most immigrants leave their home countries in search of better economic prospects. Once immigrants arrive in a host country, they often settle in communities where there are other immigrants who share their culture, their language and often their socio-economic status. Their children often attend the same schools – and those schools frequently have large proportions of immigrant students. As a result, immigrant students tend to be concentrated in certain schools. In most cases, these schools are generally more socio-economically deprived than other schools.

PISA finds that countries vary markedly in how immigrant students are accommodated in schools. In New Zealand, for example, 50% of immigrant students – well below the OECD average of 68% – attend a school that has a large proportion of immigrant students. In addition, the concentration of immigrant students in socio-economically disadvantaged schools is also relatively low in New Zealand: only one in four immigrant students – compared with the OECD average of 36% – attends a school that has a large proportion of students whose mothers have low levels of education. (Having a low-educated mother, that is, a mother who has not attained an upper secondary education, is a measure of socio-economic disadvantage among immigrant populations.) In Germany, the concentration of immigrant students in schools is around the OECD average, while the concentration of immigrant students in disadvantaged schools is higher than the OECD average. In the United Kingdom, high concentrations of immigrant students in schools are coupled with high concentrations of immigrant students in the most disadvantaged schools.

When analysing student performance through this prism, poor student performance, particularly among immigrant students, is most strongly related to the proportion of students in a school whose mothers have low levels of education. This finding indicates that immigrant students – indeed all students – face a major obstacle to success at school when they are concentrated in schools attended by students who face similar socio-economic disadvantage.

In contrast, the results suggest that it is not the proportion of immigrant students or the proportion of those who speak a different language that is most strongly associated with poor performance. In other words, being in a school with students from different countries or who speak multiple languages does not hinder learning as much as being in a school that has a high concentration of disadvantaged students does. In fact, there are many high-achieving schools that have large proportions of immigrant students. Many schools in the Canadian province of Alberta, for example, have just this kind of profile. Often, that high performance is the result of specific national or regional education policies designed to accommodate – and make the most of – heterogeneous student populations.

What these results tell us is that reducing the concentration of disadvantage in individual schools is a good first step towards helping immigrant students integrate successfully into school and, ultimately, society.

Links:

For more information on PISA: www.oecd.org/pisa/

PISA in Focus No. 22:How do immigrant students fare in disadvantaged schools? 

Photo credit:  Colour figures / Shutterstock

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
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Second chances in education

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Directorate for Education

We all know how important the first years of formal education are; but what if the education provided during those years isn’t the best it can be? Are students forever penalised? A study in Canada that followed the 15-year-old students who had participated in PISA in 2000 and re-assessed their reading skills 9 years later shows that where education and training opportunities are readily available, deficits in initial education do not doom individuals to poor reading proficiency for the rest of their lives. In fact, on average, the young people surveyed gained 57 score points on the PISA reading scale between the ages of 15 and 24 – the equivalent of more than one year of school.

As this month’s PISA in Focus relates, those students who had performed poorly when they were 15 improved the most during the 9-year period; yet, for the most part, they were not able to fully catch up with their peers. For example, in 2000, when students who participated in PISA were 15, girls outscored boys in reading by an average of 32 points; by 2009, that gap had narrowed to 18 points. Similarly in PISA 2000, socio-economically advantaged students outscored their disadvantaged peers by more than 65 points; by 2009 that gap had narrowed to 50 points.

But one group of students did close the gap entirely: students born outside of Canada. At the age of 15, those born in Canada outperformed those born outside of the country by more than 20 score points – 545 to 524 score points, respectively. By the age of 24, young people with an immigrant background scored on a par with those who had been born in the country – around 600 score points, on average. This significant finding reflects the effectiveness of Canada’s education and integration policies.

The Canadian study identifies several ways that initial disadvantage in education can be overcome. Improvements in reading proficiency are strongly related to time spent in the education system, regardless of the educational pathways individuals follow. For instance, the improvement in reading skills among young adults who had spent 4 or more years in school after age 15 was about the same, whether they had actually completed a degree or not by age 24. Those who never completed a programme above high school, but who studied for 4 or more years after high school, improved their reading skills by 70 score points. Those who did complete a university degree improved their reading skills by 60 score points.

There is no doubt that greater proficiency at early ages is an advantage for further education and creates opportunities for additional studies that may not be as readily available to low-achievers. While taking the most common path – through secondary and then directly on to university-level education – appears to maximise improvements in reading proficiency, not everyone takes that route. The evidence in this unique study shows that learning does not end with compulsory education. Second-chance programmes and flexibility in education systems can help young people who have not had the advantages of supportive learning environments early in their lives to improve their reading proficiency later on.


Links:

For more information on PISA: www.oecd.org/pisa/

PISA in Focus No. 19: Is there really such a thing as a second chance in education? 

Photo credit:  Stack of books / Shutterstock

How can education help tackle rising income inequality?

By Ji Eun Chung
Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education

See instructions below for how to read the chart

The gap between the rich and poor has widened in OECD countries over the past 30 years. As the latest issue of the OECD’s new brief series Education Indicators in Focus describes, the average income of the richest 10% of people in OECD countries was about nine times greater than the income of the poorest 10% before the onset of the global economic crisis. This ratio was 5 to 1 in the 1980s.

What’s more, existing income inequality may also limit the income prospects of future generations in some countries. In countries with higher income inequality – such as Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States – a child’s future earnings are likely to be similar to his or her father’s, suggesting that socio-economic background plays a large role in the development of children’s skills and abilities. Meanwhile, in countries with lower income inequality – like Denmark, Finland, and Norway – a child’s future income is not as strongly related to his or her family’s income status. In these countries, the development of children’s skills and abilities has a weaker link with socio-economic factors.

The implications for education policy are clear. Education policies focusing on equity in education may be a particularly useful way for countries to increase earnings mobility between generations and reduce income inequality over time. Countries can work towards this goal by giving equal opportunities to both disadvantaged and advantaged students to achieve strong academic outcomes – laying a pathway for them to continue on to higher levels of education and eventually secure good jobs.

Four top performers on the 2009 PISA reading assessment show the potential of this approach. Canada, Finland, Japan, and Korea all have education systems that put a strong focus on equity – and all have yielded promising results. In each of these countries, relatively few students performed at lower proficiency levels on the PISA reading assessment, and high proportions of students performed better than would be expected, given their socio-economic background.

Yet while each of these countries focuses on equity, they’ve pursued it in different ways. In Japan and Korea, for example, teachers and principals are often reassigned to different schools, fostering more equal distribution of the most capable teachers and school leaders. Finnish schools assign specially-trained teachers to support struggling students who are at risk of dropping out. The teaching profession is a highly selective occupation in Finland, with highly-skilled, well-trained teachers spread throughout the country. In Canada, equal or greater educational resources – such as supplementary classes – are provided to immigrant students, compared to non-immigrant students. This is believed to have boosted immigrant students’ performance.

Income inequality is a challenging issue that demands a wide range of solutions. In a world of growing inequality, focusing on equity in education may be an effective approach to tackle it over the long run.

For more information
On this topic, visit:
Education Indicators in Focus: www.oecd.org/education/indicators
Equity and Quality in Education - Supporting Disadvantaged Students and Schools
On the OECD’s education indicators, visit:
Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators: www.oecd.org/edu/eag2011
Divided we stand: Why inequality keeps rising: www.oecd.org/els/social/inequality
On the OECD’s Indicators of Education Systems (INES) programme, visit:
INES Programme overview brochure

Chart source: Source: D'Addio (2012, forthcoming), “Social Mobility in OECD countries: Evidence and Policy Implications”; OECD (2008), Growing Unequal?, www.oecd.org/els/social/inequality/GU; OECD Income distribution database.


How to read the chart: This chart shows the relationship between earnings mobility between generations of a family, and the prevalence of income inequality in different countries. Overall, countries with higher levels of income inequality tend to have lower earnings mobility between generations, while countries with lower levels of income inequality tend to have higher earnings mobility.

Helping immigrant students to succeed

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

Whether in flight from conflict, with the hope of building a better life, or to seize a social or economic opportunity, people have been crossing borders for as long as there have been borders to cross. Modern means of transportation and communication, the globalisation of the labour market, and the ageing of populations in OECD countries will drive migration well into the next decades. Education is key to helping immigrants and their families integrate into their adopted countries. How are education systems adapting?

Results from PISA 2009 show that although native students generally outperform students with immigrant backgrounds, some countries have been able to narrow the performance gap between the two groups considerably—even as the proportion of immigrant students has grown.

The latest issue of PISA in Focus notes that the percentage of 15-year-old students with an immigrant background grew by two percentage points, on average, between 2000 and 2009 among OECD countries  with comparable data. Immigrant students now constitute more than 5% of the 15-year-old student populations in 13 OECD and partner countries and economies. In Ireland, New Zealand, Spain, the United States, and the partner countries Liechtenstein and the Russian Federation, the percentage of students with an immigrant background increased by five percentage points or more over the past decade, and these students now represent from 8% to 30% of these countries’ student populations.

During the same time period, a few countries narrowed the performance gap between native and immigrant students. In Belgium and Switzerland, for example, the performance gap shrank by nearly 40 score points, even though native students still outperform students with an immigrant background by 68 score points in Belgium and by 48 score points in Switzerland. And Switzerland was able to reduce the performance gap despite the fact that the percentage of students with an immigrant background rose during the period. Germany, New Zealand and the partner country Liechtenstein also show a narrowing of the performance gap between these two groups of students.

What these trends tell us is that there are ways that governments and schools can help students from immigrant backgrounds to overcome some of the disadvantages associated with that background. Often, students with an immigrant background are socio-economically disadvantaged. On average across OECD countries, the performance gap is reduced from 43 to 27 score points when comparing students of similar socio-economic status, regardless of whether they are from immigrant backgrounds or are native to the country in which they were tested.

But the fact that a 27-point performance gap–equivalent to well over half a school year–persists, even after accounting for socio-economic status, implies that other factors also have an impact on student performance. These may be related to whether the students were born in the country in which they were tested or elsewhere, or whether, when they’re at home, they speak the same language as that used in the PISA test. Yet given that the performance gap varies so widely across countries, even taking into account these other characteristics, and given that in some countries the performance gap has changed markedly over time, it is clear that public policy can make a difference to these students’ progress in school.

For more information:
on PISA: www.pisa.oecd.org
Full set of PISA in Focus: www.oecd.org/pisa/infocus
PISA 2009 Results: Overcoming Social Background
PISA 2009 Results: Learning Trends

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All immigration is local: How Regional Factors Shape Global Migration