A skilful approach to employment

by Barbara Ischinger
Director for Education and Skills

July brought some good news and some bad news. The good news is that vocational and technical skills are flourishing and I watched young people with those skills competing to find who’s best in the world at the WorldSkills Competition held in Leipzig, Germany, earlier in the month. Over a thousand young people, representing 65 countries and regions across the world, were demonstrating their skills in everything from welding to web design. Korea topped the medal table (including gold for confectionery/pastry making with chocolate sculptures too impressive to eat) with Switzerland in second place. The level of technical expertise on show was astounding, but what impressed me more than anything was the poise and self-confidence along with the commitment to excellence and professionalism of all the competitors. And it wasn’t just for the competitors — it was a big festival of vocational skills for the general public. Anyone could try their hand at a new skill at a workbench or computer while young people could also seek advice on their choice of job and planning their career.

Now the bad news: OECD announced last week that unemployment in OECD countries is expected to  remain high throughout 2014, with young people and the low-skilled hit hardest . Unemployment can have long-lasting repercussions on young people.  Even when they do eventually get a job, they are likely to face an ongoing penalty in the labour market, earning significantly reduced wages over the course of their lifetime. And the psychological impacts can also be long lasting, as young people become discouraged, de-motivated and worried about their prospects for attaining economic independence in the future. And yet…in many OECD countries, there are thousands of jobs that remain unfilled, often requiring technical and vocational skills or providing the opportunity to learn them.

What these observations imply is that we have to do more to connect employers and prospective employees together. One way to do that is through vocational education and training (VET). Germany , Austria  and Switzerland have a strong VET tradition. But many OECD countries have not developed their VET systems as extensively as they might or their VET system is not responding effectively to the needs of employers. Indeed, employer representatives’ top priority for vet reform is to encourage closer partnership with employers . Another key obstacle to overcome is that many people see VET as only a second-best option for those who are not suited to academic education, so more able students are reluctant to pursue this path towards a career or they may even be actively dissuaded from doing so.

This must change. One way we can promote such a change is by communicating to students and parents alike that a high-quality VET education can be the ticket into the labour market and a good career path, even during an economic downturn. As this year’s Education at a Glance shows, across the OECD, individuals with a vocationally-oriented secondary education are more likely to be employed (76%) than those with a general upper secondary education (70%); they are also less likely to be unemployed.  Another way to encourage students to consider vocational training is by making the pathways between general and vocational education more flexible, so that at any point a student in vocational education can transfer to an academic programme and vice versa, without finding all their options closed off.  And of course, all VET programmes need to focus providing quality skills that are relevant in the labour market – equipping young people not just for their first job but for their longer-term employability. 

On 8 October, the OECD will release the first results from the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) . The first-of-its-kind survey will give us a direct assessment of the literacy, numeracy and problem solving skills people have, together with information on the skills they use at home, in the workplace and in their communities and a great deal of background information, including their education pathways, qualifications and labour market experience. The survey results will provide countries with new evidence about the actual skill level and distribution of their 16-65 year olds as well as insights into where mismatches between skills supply and demand lie. These results will provide OECD and countries with new evidence we can use formulate better policies to help people to develop their skills, offer them to the labour market, and ultimately use them productively.

Yes, it’s going to be another tough year for a lot of people in OECD countries, particularly young people; but we must all work together – using our own unique set of skills – to turn the bad news into an opportunity to create something much better.

Links:
OECD work on skills
OECD Skills Strategy
OECD work on Vocational Education and Training
Skills Beyond School Report: United States
View Dr Barbara Ischinger’s keynote speech on Better Skills, Better Lives at the International Skills Standards Organisation conference “Tackling the Global Talent Gap”
Photo credit: WorldSkills Leipzig 2013

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

Education: The best protection against an economic crisis

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

The insight that education is valuable both to individuals and to countries is not new. Using continuously improving data and statistical tools, we have come to understand and appreciate the magnitude of education’s impact on employment, income, health and life opportunities in general. From a purely economic point of view, private returns on investment are well beyond 10% per year, and public returns are only slightly below that figure. Fears that increasing participation and greater numbers of graduates – resulting in ever-increasing numbers of highly qualified people in the work force – would result in some kind of inflation, in diminishing returns and burgeoning graduate unemployment could not be confirmed by the data.

When the financial crisis erupted in 2007-08, rapidly turning into a global economic recession and a fiscal crisis in the Euro-zone and other countries, it was very difficult to predict its impact on education. Data for the years 2008 and 2009 showed that in the first years of the crisis, the impact on education remained limited and was confined to countries in severe crisis, such as Ireland, Iceland and Greece. Education is generally protected from shocks to the economic system because of its intrinsic slow pace of change. Individuals and families did not drastically alter their patterns of participation in education; and in the first years of the crisis, governments used stimulus packages and deficit spending to try to soften the blow, leaving education budgets more or less untouched. But we know that things started to change dramatically from 2010 onwards, when unemployment – especially among youth – climbed steeply and governments turned into austerity mode.

Education at a Glance 2013, the OECD’s reference on education indicators and statistics, for the first time provides a comprehensive set of data covering the years 2010 and 2011. The data convey a consistent, but also somewhat surprising picture. A great deal of the economic and social hardship caused by the crisis fell chiefly on less-educated individuals. The unemployment gap between well-educated young people and those who left school early widened during the crisis. On average across OECD countries, 5% of those with a tertiary education were unemployed, against 13% of those without an upper secondary education. Between 2008 and 2011 the unemployment rate for the latter group increased by 4%, while it rose by only 1.5% among the highly educated. The earnings gap widened as well: the average difference in earnings between highly educated and low-educated individuals grew from 75 percentage points to 90 percentage points between 2008 and 2011.

The message is clear: it is a person’s education that determines whether he or she will be extremely or only moderately exposed to the economic and social risks in times of crisis. Those without a minimal level of education, and certainly those of them without a stable job, find themselves without any shelter from the storm. Meanwhile, the relative returns on higher education increase. Some might argue that this is largely due to structural changes in the labour market: highly educated people taking the jobs of the middle-educated individuals, who, in turn, drive low-educated workers into unemployment. The earnings data do not seem to confirm this hypothesis: if tertiary-educated individuals were to take medium-skilled jobs en masse, their relative wage premium would not have increased as much as it did. In addition, the wage premium increases with age, which suggests that the higher level of skills among tertiary-educated workers is compensated in their salaries. In times of crisis and tough competition in the labour market, employers would certainly not be willing to value skills as much as they seem to do if there was no good reason to.

In short, the value of education increases during an economic crisis. Those who lack education, stand to lose a lot; those who have invested in it, can still reap its benefits.

Links:
For more information, and to download a copy of the book, visit the Education at a Glance website at: www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm

Browse and share the book

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

What makes a NEET?

by Karinne Logez
Statistician, Directorate for Education and Skills

NEETS - young people aged between 15 and 29 years old who are not in employment, education or training - are a potential problem both for society and for themselves. The proportion of young people neither working nor studying offers an insight into how well economies manage the transition between school and work – better than youth unemployment rates, which do not take into account the numbers in education. It's especially illuminating when the figures are broken down into those who are still looking for work ("unemployed") and those who have dropped out of the labour market altogether ("inactive"). Particularly worrying are those in the very youngest age bracket – aged 15 to 19 – who may not have completed their secondary education and are disproportionately likely not even to be seeking work. There’s a risk they may never catch up with their better educated peers.

So what makes a NEET? And what can governments do to make sure young people successfully make the transition from education into work? The latest edition of Education Indicators in Focus suggests that there are several intertwined factors.

Is it the educational system?
As well as increasing their education participation rates, making the educational system more relevant to the labour market may help reduce NEET rates. Countries with widespread work-experience programmes, offering recognised vocational qualifications, see higher levels of young people in employment and lower NEET rates, although the effect has been more muted in this current economic crisis.

Is it the state of the economy?
NEET rates and employment-to-population ratios tend to mirror the economic cycle. When times are tough it’s harder to find a job or keep the one you have if you’re competing with more experienced workers. Fortunately, many young people react by staying on longer in education instead, so when the economy picks up, they’ve got a head start finding work. As young people are the main source of new skills in the labour force, increasing education participation rates are an encouraging trend.

Is it a cultural thing?
On average, young women are more likely to be NEET across the OECD than young men. In some countries – such as Turkey and Mexico – this effect is particularly marked. It may reflect expectations that women will be concentrating on starting a family than forging a career, particularly where young women are disproportionately inactive rather than unemployed and seeking work.

Is it an age thing?
Generally, the demographics are on the young people’s side – as the population in OECD countries age, and the proportion of young people in the population fall, both employment rates and education participation rates should increase. At the moment, economic stagnation has counteracted the effect of demographics, but once the economy picks up, young people should be well placed to forge ahead.

It’s all of these
Clearly the problem of young people dropping out of education and the labour market is a complex one with no single determining cause. However, the consequences for both individuals and society mean that it’s important to prevent young people becoming NEETs – and help reintegrate them back into work or education if they do.

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 2012: OECD Indicators: www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012
OECD's Actin Plan for Youth
OECD Forum 2013: Give youth a chance
OECD Skills Strategy Spotlight: Apprenticeships and Workplace Learning
OECD Skills Strategy

Chart source: OECD Education at a Glance 2013:  Indicator C5 (www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm) to be released 25 June, 2013

Getting our youth back to work

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

If there’s one lesson we’ve learned over the past few years, it’s that we cannot simply bail ourselves out of a crisis, we cannot solely stimulate ourselves out of a crisis and we cannot just print money our way out of a crisis. But we can become much better in equipping more people with better skills to collaborate, compete and connect in ways that drive our economies forward.

There is no group for whom this is more important than today’s young people. Between 2008 and 2011, the gap in unemployment rates between higher- and less-educated youth widened dramatically. While young people with advanced skills have weathered the crisis reasonably well, those without foundation skills have suffered. Unemployment among young people without a high school education soared 20% in Estonia and Ireland and 15% in Greece and Spain. The short-term impact on individuals, families and communities beg for urgent policy responses; the longer-term impact, in terms of skills loss, scarring effects and de-motivation, will affect countries’ potential for recovery. Without the right skills, people will languish on the margins of society, technological progress will not translate into economic growth, and countries can’t compete in the global economy.

What’s often overlooked amid the grim statistics is that a few countries, like Austria, Chile, Germany and Korea saw a sizeable drop in unemployment rates among their low-skilled youth. What this tells us is that, with the right policies and economic environment, we can do something about this and it seems to boil down to three actions: build the skills that foster employability; give young people the opportunity to make their skills available to the labour market; and ensure that those skills are used effectively at work.

To begin, we need to be able to anticipate the evolution of the labour market: we need to know what skills will be needed to reignite our economies. The coexistence of unemployed graduates on the street, while employers say they cannot find the people with the skills they need, shows clearly that more education alone does not automatically translate into better jobs and better lives.

We need to put a premium on skills-oriented learning throughout life instead of on qualifications-focused education that ends when the working life begins. We need to tackle unacceptable rates of school dropout by offering more relevant education and second-chance opportunities, and by offering work experience to young people before they leave education.

OECD’s Learning for Jobs analysis shows that skills development is far more effective if the world of learning and the world of work are integrated. It’s not difficult to understand why. Skills that aren’t used can atrophy. And, compared to purely government-designed curricula taught exclusively in schools, learning in the workplace allows young people to develop “hard” skills on modern equipment and “soft” skills, such as teamwork, communication and negotiation, through real-world experience. Hands-on workplace training can also help to motivate disengaged youth to stay in or re-engage with the education system.

But building skills is the relatively easy part of the plan; far tougher is providing opportunities for young people to use their skills. Employers might need to offer greater flexibility in the workplace. Labour unions may need to reconsider their stance on rebalancing employment protection for permanent and temporary workers. Enterprises need reasonably long trial periods to enable employers giving those youth who lack work experience a chance to prove themselves and facilitate a transition to regular employment. And some countries may need to review the minimum wage for younger workers to make it easier for low-skilled young people to get their first job and discourage early school leaving by lowering the opportunity cost of staying on at school.

Last but not least, if all of this is about more than getting young people temporarily off the street, we need to ensure that talent is used effectively. Skills mismatch is a very real phenomenon that is mirrored in people’s earnings prospects and in their productivity. Knowing which skills are needed in the labour market and which educational pathways will get young people to where they want to be is essential. High-quality career guidance services, complemented with up-to-date information about labour-market prospects, can help young people make sound career choices.

We also need to maintain and expand the most effective active labour-market measures, such as counselling, job-search assistance and temporary hiring subsidies for low-skilled youth; and we need to link income support for young people to their active search for work and their engagement in measures to improve their employability.

But none of this is going to work unless everyone is involved: governments, which can design financial incentives and favourable tax policies; education systems, which can foster entrepreneurship as well as offer vocational training; employers, who can invest in learning; labour unions, which can ensure that investments in training are reflected in better-quality jobs and higher salaries; and individuals, who can take better advantage of learning opportunities and shoulder more of the financial burden. This week OECD will launch an Action Plan for Youth to be presented at the Organisation’s annual Ministerial Meeting in Paris in order to step up government’s efforts to tackle high youth unemployment and strengthen their education systems to better prepare young people for the world of work. It’s time for all of us to take the lessons we learned through the crisis and turn them into a sustainable plan to get our young people back on the path to prosperity.

Links:
OECD Forum 2013: Give youth a chance
skills.oecd: Working with youth
OECD Skills Strategy Spotlight: Apprenticeships and Workplace Learning
OECD Skills Strategy
OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC)
Photo credit: Young adult looking for work / Shutterstock

Skills for the digital economy

by Simone Stelten
Consultant, Skills Beyond Schools Division, Directorate for Education and Skills

Digital economies are powered by skills. People with the high-end skills needed to invent and apply new technologies are in high demand the world over. At the same time, the portfolio of basic skills needed to navigate technology-rich environments and function effectively in our connected societies has expanded.

How severe is the shortage of ICT skills? And what needs to be done to fill the gaps?

Today, 6% of total employment in OECD countries consists of ICT-specialists and ICT-intensive occupations account for more than 20% of all employment. OECD data on Key ICT Indicators shows that countries differ considerably in the share of ICT-intensive employment, ranging from high levels such as 35% in Luxembourg or 28% in the UK to 15% in Portugal and Greece or 11% in Turkey (data for 2010). Growing skills shortages have become a global concern. The Manpower Talent Shortage Survey 2012 puts IT positions at number 5 on the global list of top 10 jobs that employers are having difficulty filling. Only three years ago, IT professionals did not even feature on this list.

Across the OECD the supply of higher education graduates from ICT-related study fields has stagnated or even declined. The share of all STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduates declined from 22.7% in 2000 to 20.4% in 2010, indicating a long-term stagnation of the supply from highly demanded science and technology oriented fields. The share of computer science graduates among all graduates has stagnated at around 3% since 2000 (OECD data). Even in the United States, the homeland of computers, the share of computing graduates declined from 4.3% in 2005 to 3.1% in 2010. Similar declines in recent years can be observed in many other countries, including the UK and Germany, pointing towards a risk of ICT skills shortages in many OECD countries.

So what can employers do to fill the skills gap? The study “Building Competitiveness and Business Performance with ICT” from the business school INSEAD shows that firms, which operate in the ICT sector, need to combine the right ICT investments with strong technical talent to be competitively agile. Through the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs employers have developed EU-wide initiatives, such as an online learning platform for ICT practitioners or open online ICT courses for secondary school teachers. Companies such as SAP set up study-programs, Microsoft will increase the number of apprenticeships and internships by 50% over 3 years, and Hewlett-Packard plans to train 500,000 IT-professionals globally by 2015. Clearly, government policy makers could do more to engage employers in meeting the skills challenges facing high value-added sectors.

What about ‘everyday ICT skills’? Survival in a digital economy now demands higher-level cognitive skills for understanding, interpreting, analysing and communicating complex information. The results of the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), to be published on 8 October 2013, will provide unique comparative data on the basic skills of adults in literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments. How to foster those skills effectively is the subject of another recent OECD report on Connected Minds: Technology and Today's Learners.

Tackling the ICT skills challenge will require new thinking and efforts to reach beyond ministerial silos and build partnerships with businesses, entrepreneurs and teachers. With its ‘whole-of-government’ approach to developing more effective national skills strategies, the OECD Skills Strategy offers a concrete roadmap for the future.

Links:
OECD Skills Strategy
OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC)
OECD data on Key ICT Indicators
Connected Minds: Technology and Today's Learner
Photo credit: Future technology / Shutterstock

What do students expect to do after finishing upper secondary school?

by Guillermo Montt
Analyst, Directorate for Education

The expansion of the knowledge-based economy and technological progress has created a large market of highly paid jobs for individuals who are highly skilled. Moreover, in much of the industrialised world, the demand for highly-skilled individuals is rising faster than supply, as mirrored in rising wage premia on university-level qualifications. Leveraging the talent of all individuals, whatever their social background, must therefore be an important goal for educators and policy makers alike.

The latest edition of PISA in Focus summarises findings from the PISA Report Grade Expectations: How Marks and Education Policies Shape Students’ Ambitions. PISA reveals that the range of educational expectations that students hold in different countries striking: In Korea, four out of five 15-year-olds expect to graduate from university, while in Latvia it is one out of four. Despite the major changes in skill requirements that most labour-markets experienced in the past decades, and the rapidly rising number of university graduates, the educational expectations of students in school have remained surprisingly stable.

In all countries and economies, the students who expect to complete university education perform significantly better in math and reading than students who do not expect to complete that level of education.  However, while performance on PISA tends to be associated with educational expectations, the data also show that not all 15-year-olds with advanced knowledge and skills aspire to high levels of further education and not all 15-year-olds who aspire to a university degree possess the knowledge and skills needed to pursue such pathways successfully.

The percentage of low-performing students who expect to complete a university degree is relatively high in Australia, Ireland, Korea, Mexico, Serbia, Singapore and Trinidad and Tobago. These school systems therefore need to capitalise on their students’ desire to continue their education by encouraging greater engagement with school and offering better opportunities to learn so that low-achieving, but ambitious, students can improve their performance and have a better chance of succeeding. The proportion of high-performing students who do not expect to continue on to post-secondary education is relatively large – more than 10% – in Austria, Hong Kong-China, Iceland and Italy. These school systems should aim to raise their students’ expectations by, among other measures, enhancing engagement with school and ensuring that placement in academic or vocational programmes is based on merit, not on students’ background. Mismatches between expectations and actual abilities can result not just in personal disappointments but also incur important economic and social costs.

Students who hold ambitious – yet realistic – expectations about their educational prospects are more likely to put effort into their learning and make better use of the educational opportunities available to them to achieve their goals. Therefore educational expectations, in part, become self-fulfilling prophecies. Education systems need to strike a careful balance between promoting ambitious expectations among students – because the labour-market demand for high-level skills is surging and will probably continue to grow in the future – promoting skill acquisition so that more students are able to fulfil those expectations but also not neglecting those students who expect to complete their studies upon graduation from secondary school. Although most school systems are committed to expanding access to tertiary education, around 25% of students expect to finish their formal education at the end of upper secondary school. Education systems must provide these students with the skills needed for a smooth transition into the labour market and adulthood.


Links:

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

PISA in Focus No. 23: What do students expect to do after finishing upper secondary school?

Photo credit:  Graduate wordcloud / Shutterstock

Skills on Show

by Joanne Caddy
Senior Analyst, Skills Beyond Schools Division, Directorate for Education

Upon entering the vast hall, I was first struck by the quiet concentration etched on the contestants’ faces amidst the hustle and bustle. Here gathered Britain’s best young professionals – each one determined to prove their skill as tile-layers, electricians, plumbers, make-up artists, web designers, IT technicians, mobile robotics designers and landscape gardeners. Each one going for gold at the UK Skills Show, held annually as part of WorldSkills International  to celebrate skilled young people and recognise the ‘skills stars’ of today and tomorrow.

Earlier that day, in a far smaller room, another group of people had been equally intent in exploring the other side of the skills equation.

In his opening address to the UKCES-OECD international workshop on “Employer Ownership: Strengthening Partnerships to Enhance Skills Investment”, the UK Minister for Skills, Matthew Hancock MP underscored the urgent need to upgrade Britain’s skills against the backdrop of the global race to develop and deploy the talent needed in an innovation-driven economy. In launching the second round of the Employer Ownership of Skills Pilot, he called upon businesses to form partnerships and put forward ambitious and transformative proposals which use public funds to leverage private investment and deliver training more attuned to the needs of both businesses and people. For Minister Hancock this investment of £250 million is worth every penny, because “skills bring a better job for the individual and a job done better for the employer – but also for society.” Having kicked off the workshop, he then headed off to tour the Skills Show himself and try his hand at one of the many “Have a Go” sessions.

Meanwhile, back at the workshop a great line-up of speakers shared their tips on how to build solid skills partnernships in practice. Jaguar Land Rover took about two years to build a network of universities to deliver targeted courses for their staff as part of their Technical Accreditation Scheme – an effort which was described as: “even harder than building great cars”. Credit Suisse now offers 750 apprentices in banking and IT systems, adopting a “just-in-time” learning concept where: “you learn what you need in practice, and then you practice what you learned at your workplace.” In The Netherlands, the newly established Foundation for Cooperation between Vocational Education, Training and the Labour Market (SBB) brings together employers, government and vocational education and training (VET) institutions to jointly develop VET qualifications, work placements and career guidance.

The OECD Skills Strategy provided a useful framework for the lively small group discussions which followed. They delivered concrete priorities for action, such as: changing the funding system to drive behaviour; strong leadership among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to ensure their skill needs are met; and building a sustainable skills system through strong partnerships between business, government and other stakeholders. As our team leading the OECD Skills Beyond Schools country reviews could confirm, few, if any, of the issues raised during the workshop are unique to the UK, but are to be found in many other OECD countries.

Strengthening national skills systems may take sustained efforts, but much is at stake. Judging by the young contestants at work in that huge hall last week, our future is in very skilled hands indeed.

Links:
OECD Skills Strategy
skills.oecd.org
OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC)
OECD Skills Beyond Schools
Slideshare presentations on skills
Photo credit: Make-up artist/Shutterstock

What the D in OECD stands for

by Barbara Ischinger
Director for Education

Did you know that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development helped to lay the groundwork for the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals? Even though Development is part of our name, there are many people who don’t realise just how much of our resources are devoted to developing economies and not only to the development of the OECD’s 34 member countries.

The focus of this year’s International Economic Forum on Africa, held at the OECD’s Paris headquarters in early October, was youth employment, but this issue cannot be separated from another one just as important:  education. The African Economic Outlook 2012 notes that in Egypt, for example, about 1.5 million young people are unemployed at the same time that private-sector firms cannot fill 600 000 vacancies. And in South Africa, there are 3 million young people who are neither in education nor employed and 600 000 unemployed university graduates, yet 800 000 jobs are vacant. At the Forum itself, I heard many participants ask themselves whether they were equipping their students with the skills their economies needed.

This is exactly where the OECD’s expertise in collecting and analysing data can help. Already, many of the countries and economies that participate in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) are in the developing world; but we think all countries would benefit from even greater participation by developing countries. By participating in PISA, countries can see whether the skills they are teaching their 15-year-olds are relevant to “real life”. They can also learn from other countries’ experiences how to improve their own education systems, and can benchmark their progress over time. The assessment, itself, benefits by gaining a deeper understanding of student performance in a broader range of countries and cultural contexts.

We have completed a review of Egypt’s system of higher education and have also reviewed the education systems of South Africa, Gabon and Mauritius. These in-depth analyses – conducted in close collaboration with local actors, regional organisations and other international partners – can guide countries in reforming their education policies so that students leave school with the skills needed to participate productively in the economy. We also stand ready to work with our partners – in Africa and elsewhere – to build stronger links between labour markets and education systems. That would help to avoid the situation, seen in so many countries, where universities train students to become civil servants when what the country or region really needs are engineers and health workers – and also people with the mid-level trade, technical and professional skills that can be acquired through well-designed vocational programmes. At the moment, vocational education accounts for only 5% of training among African youth.

As the 2015 target date for achieving the Millennium Development Goals approaches, the international community has begun to consider a framework for goals beyond 2015. For the first set of goals, progress in education is measured by access; I hope that future goals will complement such measures by looking at learning outcomes. Again, this is one of the OECD’s specialties, and we’re keen to offer our work and expertise to an even larger number of countries. I thought you’d want to know.

Links:
OECD Development home page
The OECD and the Millennium Development Goals
OECD Strategy on Development
The OECD Strategy on Development: Giving fresh impetus to a core mission
2012 International Economic Forum on Africa
OECD Skills Strategy
Photo credit: Orphan students in Swaziland / Shutterstock

Are countries educating to protect against unemployment?

by Dirk Van Damme
Division Head, Innovation and Measuring Progress (IMEP) and Head of Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI)

More people than ever before now reach a level of educational attainment equivalent to upper secondary education. The available evidence is very conclusive: this level of education can be considered a minimum level to ensure a job and a living wage. As the latest issue of the OECD’s Education Indicators in Focus details, the difference in unemployment risks in OECD countries between individuals with and without an upper secondary qualification is significant. In 2010, across OECD countries, 19.1% of 25-34 year-olds without an upper secondary qualification were unemployed, compared with 9.8% of young adults of the same age who had an upper secondary qualification. And without an upper secondary qualification, the risk of poverty is looming: some 27% of people without an upper secondary education earn less than half the median income – around 10 percentage points more than the proportion of people who do have that level of education.

The negative effects of lacking an upper secondary qualification are excacerbated during the crucial phase of transition from education to work. Among NEETs  (not employed nor in education and training) in 2010, there were 8 percentage points more 20-24 year-olds without an upper secondary education than 20-24 year-olds with that level of education. In 2010, in Estonia, France, Ireland, the Slovak Republic and Spain, at least 25% of the 20-24 year‑olds who had not attained an upper secondary education were neither in school nor employed.

So, countries have very good reasons to ensure that as many young people as possible graduate from upper secondary education. Over the past decades almost all OECD countries have seen dramatic increases in educational attainment from one generation to the next. The average difference between the 25-34 and 55‑64 year‑old generations in OECD countries was 20 percentage points, but in Chile, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Portugal and Spain the difference was 30 percentage points or more.

Most OECD countries – especially European ones – have increased their upper secondary graduation rates over the past ten years. As the graph above indicates, this trend coincided with declining numbers of 20-24 year-olds who were neither in education nor employed. But the start of the economic crisis in 2008 was a turning point: the size of the NEET population started to swell again. The wage gap between people with an upper secondary qualification and individuals with a tertiary level qualification increased. The evidence suggests that the crisis has accelerated job polarisation based on skills levels. People without an upper secondary qualification are highly vulnerable to unemployment, while those who have an upper secondary education are working for less money. In today’s unstable economy, an  upper secondary qualification no longer provides sufficient insurance against unemployment and low income.

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 2012: OECD Indicators: www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012 
On the OECD’s Indicators of Education Systems (INES) programme, visit:
INES Programme overview brochure
Chart source: Education at a Glance 2012: OECD Indicators, Indicators A1 (www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012).

Making the right connections

by Barbara Ischinger
Director for Education

It’s becoming clear to me that the crisis in youth unemployment around the world is not just one of the aftershocks of the global economic downturn, but may also have roots in education systems that are not adequately preparing students for 21st-century economies. I took that message to a regional conference on Promoting Youth Employment in North Africa,  held in Tunis in mid-July, where I presented not only the OECD Skills Strategy but also discussed the importance of improving the quality of education and of teachers, and of making quality education accessible to all.

Some 41% of 15-24 year-olds in Tunisia are unemployed – a statistic that is devastating in the present and potentially catastrophic for the future of the country and the region. In more than half of OECD countries, the rate of unemployment among young people approaches or exceeds 20%; and many of the underlying conditions are the same as those found in Tunisia. These include not only weak or stagnant economic growth, but education systems that cling to outdated policies and practices and are divorced from the labour market.

Today, education systems are expected to provide graduates not only with foundation skills and knowledge in given disciplines, but also with the skills needed to adapt to changing employment circumstances and to transfer what they have learned to different environments – what are known as generic skills. To do this effectively, there has to be more co-operation between education systems and industry. Without dialogue, education systems will not know which skills are in demand in the labour market, while prospective employers will not know whether graduates are leaving education with the skills they are looking for. Employers, too, have to be willing to invest in further training for their employees; and policy makers need to provide fiscal incentives to make it attractive for employers to do so.

But equally important, education systems need to adopt more innovative, project-focused teaching methods, particularly in science, to spark students’ curiosity and involvement. I’m encouraged to see this already happening in many places: from France’s La Main à la Pâte programme, developed by the French Academy of Sciences, which aims to reinvigorate a hands-on approach to the teaching of science in elementary schools, to the Agastya International Foundation, which dispatches mobile science labs throughout rural India, to the science education company  founded by Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, who died last month, whose aim is to develop and support young girls’ and boys’ interest in science, math and technology.

There are – and will be – many more of these kinds of initiatives. Their value is not only that they help to make science more meaningful to students, but they can also help to make the important connection between what students learn in school and how that knowledge and those skills can be used effectively in the wider world. And if we can also make more connections between education systems and employers, then we may be able to help more young people fulfil their potential – and help more societies prosper – by creating a better match between young people’s skills and the jobs that propel economies.

Links
OECD Skills Strategy
Related blog posts:
“Creativity” is spelled with a “why”
Understanding youth, unemployment and skills in Africa
Photo credit: Stack of pebbles / Shutterstock

Understanding youth, unemployment and skills in Africa

by Denielle Sachs
McKinsey Social Sector Office

For those working on employment issues, one thing is clear: the tense imbalance between the demands of the labor market and the supply of appropriately skilled workers is reaching its breaking point. Last week, the McKinsey Global Institute launched, The world at work: jobs and skills for 3.5 billion people. The report found that by 2020 there could be as many as 40 million too few high-skill workers and up to 95 million too many low-skill workers out in the job market.
Avoiding such massive imbalances will require a radical approach to accelerate education and skills building, and to boost job creation for less-skilled workers. Anything less and we will see a growing shortage of high-skill workers, persistent joblessness for many low- and middle-skill workers, rising income inequality, and distressingly high rates of youth unemployment. The numbers are clear: by 2030, the world will have as many as 1 billion workers without even secondary education, and most of them will be living in India, South Asia and Africa.

A lot of institutions are looking at these issues , including OECD and their recently launched Skills Strategy. As part of our ongoing research on youth unemployment and the skills-jobs mismatch, we asked a few experts what a solution might look like for young people in Africa where the under 25 represent three-fifths of sub-Saharan Africa’s unemployed population, and 72 percent of the youth population lives on less than $2 a day.

First, we have to understand who we mean when we talk about the young and out-of-work in Africa. Fred Swaniker, Founder and CEO of the African Leadership Academy, tells us that, on average, she is an 18-year-old girl, living in a rural area, literate but not attending school. To his mind, entrepreneurship – both the technical skills and the mindset — is the answer. It should be an integral part of every child’s education whether that schooling be formal or informal.

 For the Chief Economist for the World Bank’s Africa Region Shantayanan Devarajan, the answer lies in productivity. “The challenge of youth employment in Africa is not just to create more wage and salary jobs but to increase the productivity, and hence earnings, of the majority of young people.” This can only happen by “first, increasing their basic skills, which they can take with them when they move to new enterprises; and second, creating jobs in the formal sector by improving the economy’s competitiveness, so that this sector can absorb more qualified workers into a productive workforce.”

In South Africa, a very specific socio-political context post-apartheid, Thero Setiloane, CEO of the Business Leadership South Africa, explains that access to education and the quality of that education (“Only 35 percent of the children in third grade are able to pass the literacy and numeracy tests.”) are major stumbling blocks. His preference is for a joint government-business solution. “Business must work with government to adapt the school curriculum… so that young people leave school ready for work. Training programs must be tailored to demand…We also need to build in incentives for businesses to address the social-capital deficit in poor communities.”

Moataz Al Alfi, CEO of the Egypt Kuwait Holding Company could not agree more. Coming from the Middle East where the “paradox of the labour markets”, as he calls it, is perhaps at its worst, he calls for “a solution that requires a strong partnership between business, with its urgent need for skilled workers, and government, which is charged with educating young people.” The region currently has the highest youth unemployment rate in the world, at 25 percent. And, on the heels of the Arab Spring, and in the midst of the lingering economic crisis, it is only expected to rise.  He too returns to the issue of a failing education system that does not prepare young people for the jobs that the market desperately needs to fill.

Links:
Join the debate and register for our online panel event on June 26th at 8am EDT //2pm CEST , featuring experts from the OECD and IFC
See also: OECD Skills Strategy

Visit our interactive portal on skills: http://skills.oecd.org
OECD Development Centre

Photo credit: African youth / Shutterstock

The role of unions in developing a skilled workforce

by Randi Weingarten
President, American Federation of Teachers

As we slowly recover from the worst economic recession since the 1920s, labour markets around the world remain turbulent. We are facing more social and economic inequality with wages stagnating and many people dropping out of the workforce entirely.

How can the American Federation of Teachers and other trade unions around the world help?

First, unions should be viewed as part of the solution, not as something to overcome. Labour-management collaboration is essential to developing skilled workers and, in turn, to creating better jobs and higher salaries. Workers need to be represented at the bargaining table and—regardless of the trade or profession—unions can be an important partner. That is the key to developing a flexible, smart workforce ready and equipped to be full partners with management.

If our workforce is going to thrive in the 21st century, we need to begin by changing much about our approach to education—from inside the classroom and larger school environment, to how we care for children, to how labour and management work together across the world.

In every country, a flourishing economy requires a strong education foundation as well as the ability to innovate and to communicate. It also requires teachers who are prepared and supported on every level and who are invested in helping students succeed in school and in life.

In Singapore, for example, where I spent time with teachers and students earlier this year, schools are focused on growth and achievement. However, as I observed numerous diverse groups of children deeply engaged in learning, I saw nothing that could be construed as “teaching to the test”—something that educators in the United States continue to contend with. In Singapore and in other countries with high-performing education systems, schools have listened to their teachers and collaborated with them to ensure the best education practices are implemented.

Additionally, the OECD can work with education unions to collaborate on important skills-developing issues, including:

• Global teaching standards—These include guidelines to ensure high-functioning, well-prepared, continuously improving teachers in every classroom. However, teachers cannot do this alone. They should be given the continuous support and respect they deserve –which, in large part, means treating education as a shared responsibility.
• Educational  equality—We can address issues of educational inequality worldwide through expanding and enhancing the successful efforts of countries in which every child receives a good education regardless of economic status. We also need to level the playing field for poor children by ensuring the availability of early childhood education and wrap-around services. We can address these issues before they become significant obstacles to learning.
• Curriculum—Ensuring a well-rounded, robust curriculum that prepares students for the future is essential to advancing workforce preparation. A child’s studies should focus on accessing and sorting information to solve complex problems and develop higher-level thinking skills, as opposed to finding answers to simple questions learned by rote. Businesses can help prepare students through mentoring and internships, while at school we can offer more project-based learning to ensure the mastery of skills sets.
• Models of collaboration—The OECD and unions can disseminate examples of labour and management working together to solve problems. Sharing best practices and successful partnerships can help lead to greater and more effective co-operation.

Education by itself will not address the jobs crisis, nor can education by itself address inequality. But without education, the fight for jobs and fair societies cannot be won. We’re excited to take part in the process.

Links:
Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC)
American Federation of Teachers
See also: OECD Skills Strategy

Visit our interactive portal on skills: http://skills.oecd.org

More blogs with Randi Weingarten:
‘An obligation to systematise success’
‘Internationalist, not isolationist’
Photo credit: Child hands on top of each other / Shutterstock

Erasing the “bright red dividing line” between education and work

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Directorate for Education

Central to the OECD Skills Strategy, which was released last week, is the idea that developing people’s skills and ensuring that those skills are used effectively on the job is everybody’s business—governments, employers, employees, trade unions and students. So who better to discuss the business of skills development than a business leader? Phil O’Reilly, Chief Executive of Business NZ, New Zealand’s largest business advocacy group, was in Paris this week to attend the OECD Forum. Calling the Strategy “an immaculate document” that “points out the complexity of what we’re dealing with”, O’Reilly makes a strong case for the importance of developing “soft” skills in today’s global labour market. “We all obsess about mathematics and science skills,” he says, “but cultural skills do matter.”

What do today’s employers look for in prospective employees? According to O’Reilly, businesses want good citizens working for them. “People who can read and add and think critically—and who can also act accordingly, like by voting; or getting up to give a seat to an older woman: that shows courtesy and the ability to think of others. Even showing up at a demonstration: that shows passion.”

These “soft” skills, defined as emotional intelligence, the ability to work in a team, and to communicate effectively, are largely taught by parents and by communities. While O’Reilly calls “hard” skills—literacy, numeracy, skills in using information and communication technologies, and what are called STEM skills (those in science, technology, engineering and mathematics)—the “ticket to ride” for today’s employees, “those skills will only be considered as good as the ability of someone to use them effectively in a particular place at a particular time,” he says. “Employees with both hard and soft skills are highly valued.”

For many people right now—young people just starting out in the labour market, or older workers who, for one reason or another, have not participated in the workforce for a while—just getting that first—or new—job is a struggle. O’Reilly suggests that these transitions can be eased dramatically if employers, governments and education systems work together to “break down the bright red dividing line between compulsory education and work.“ That can be accomplished, he says, by creating “pathways” between the two worlds, in the form of internships and apprenticeships. “We need to get students and employers to rub up against each other intellectually,” he says. “We need to narrow the gap between the end of compulsory education and the next experience”, whether that is work or continuing education or training, “because skills will deteriorate if we don’t.”

Information is crucial. The idea is not to tell students what to do, but to “give them and their parents information about what they need to do to get to where they want to be,” whether that is becoming an architect or a plumber. “We need to make sure students have enough information so that they can make an informed choice.”

In short, he says, “policy makers and businesses need to be talking about skills needs so that employers and workers are at the centre of the system, rather than being victims of the system.”

Links: 

OECD Skills Strategy

Visit our interactive portal on skills: http://skills.oecd.org

OECD Forum 2012

More blogs on skills:
Taking stock of education and skills: the youth perspective
Skills revolution will come from the grassroots
“I’ve been driven by goals”
Better skills and better policies lead to better lives for women
Discussing education and skills with the 2012 OECD Global Youth Competition winners
Business in-a-box: a global skills solution
Everybody into the talent pool
It all starts with building the right skills
What should students learn in the 21st century?

Photo credit: Office corridor /Shutterstock

What will the global talent pool look like in 2020?

by Pedro Garcia de León, Corinne Heckmann, and Gara Rojas González 
Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education

The “global talent pool” can be described in a lot of different ways.  But in an era in which having a higher (tertiary) education is increasingly a minimum requirement for successful entry into the labour force, one way to quantify it is to look at the number of people around the world who are obtaining a higher education degree.

As the latest issue of the OECD’s series Education Indicators in Focus details, by that measure, the global talent pool is exploding across OECD and G20 countries. What’s more, it’s likely to grow far larger by the year 2020.

In the last decade alone, the number of younger adults with higher education degrees has grown at a remarkably fast clip. This is particularly true for non-OECD G20 countries like Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, where the number of 25-34 year-olds with a higher education degree increased from 39 million in 2000 to an estimated 64 million in 2010. By contrast, the number of younger adults with higher education degrees in OECD countries increased from 51 million to an estimated 66 million during the same period.

In addition, the rapid expansion of higher education in non-OECD G20 countries has significantly altered the distribution of the talent pool among countries. A decade ago, one in six 25-34 year-olds with a higher education degree was from the United States, and a similar proportion was from China. Twelve percent came from the Russian Federation, and about 10% each were from Japan and India. But by 2010, China was at the head of the pack, according to OECD estimates, accounting for 18% of 25-34 year-olds with a tertiary education.  The United States followed with 14%, the Russian Federation and India each had 11%, and Japan had 7%. 

These trends are likely to intensify further in the years ahead. According to OECD projections, there will be more than 200 million 25-34 year-olds with higher education degrees across all OECD and G20 countries by the year 2020 – and 40% of them will be from China and India alone. By contrast, the United States and the European Union countries are expected to account for just over a quarter of young people with tertiary degrees in OECD and G20 countries. 

In fact, these figures may underestimate the future growth of the global talent pool, because a number of countries – notably China, the European Union countries, and the U.S. – are pursuing initiatives to increase higher education attainment rates even further. 

The explosive growth of the  talent pool raises a key question: With all of these highly-educated people emerging around the world, will the global labour market be able to absorb the increased supply?  
Evidence from science and technology occupations – key “knowledge economy” jobs – suggests that it can. Between 1998 and 2008, employment in science and technology occupations increased at a faster rate than total employment in all OECD and G20 countries with available data. The average annual growth rate was uniformly positive, ranging from 0.3% in China to 5.9% in Iceland. 

This consistently upward trend signals that the demand for employees in this knowledge economy sector hasn’t reached its ceiling. Applied to the overall labour market, the implication is that individuals from increasingly better-educated populations will continue to have good employment outcomes, as long as national economies continue to become more knowledge-based.  

As such, countries may be well-advised to pursue efforts to build their knowledge economies, in order to avoid skills mismatches and lower returns on education among their higher-educated populations in the future.

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 2011: OECD Indicators: www.oecd.org/edu/eag2011 
On the OECD’s Indicators of Education Systems (INES) programme, visit:
INES Programme overview brochure (link)
See also: IMHE General Conference 2012 "Attaining and Sustaining Mass Higher Education", Paris, 17-19 September 2012
Chart source: OECD Database, UNESCO and National Statistics websites for Argentina,
China, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.