Think Green: education and environmental awareness

by Tracey Burns and Roxanne Kovacs
Directorate for Education and Skills

The environment is a hot topic in the press and classrooms across the world and much has been said about the need for action to protect our planet. If current trends in climate change continue, temperatures could increase between 3 and 6 degrees Celsius by 2050. Such large temperature increases would lead to water shortages for billions of people, reduce agricultural yields, increase malnutrition related deaths by millions and lead to the extinction of a large part of animal species.

Education plays a crucial role in raising awareness of environmental challenges and shaping the attitudes and behaviours that can make a difference. A recently released Trends Shaping Education Spotlight looks at the role of education in both preparing and providing our citizens with the skills needed for a sustainable and productive future.

A first step in addressing the issue is raising awareness. Many classrooms already discuss important issues like recycling or sustainable consumption. However we need to do much more – results from the last PISA test that looked specifically at environmental science show that on average across the OECD, only 19% of students performed at the highest level of proficiency. Students at this proficiency level were aware of environmental issues and understood their complexity, which suggests that they have an adequate understanding of the challenges that climate change presents.

Some countries do better than others: in Canada, Finland and Japan for example, more than 30% of students performed at the highest level of proficiency. However more must be done to improve the level of the poorest performers. On average across the OECD, 16% of students performed at the lowest proficiency level and in countries like Italy, Mexico and Turkey more than 20% of students perform at the lowest proficiency level. These students were unable to answer questions about basic environmental phenomena. They were also much more likely to be overly optimistic about environmental issues and much less aware of the dramatic consequences of inaction.

So, what can be done? The performance of students in environmental science is closely related to performance in traditional science courses (such as physics, biology and chemistry). Better science education in general can thus be combined with specialised courses in order to increase student proficiency in environmental science. The next cycle of PISA (in 2015) will again focus on science issues and will be an opportunity to verify which countries have taken the lead on the topic and which are falling behind.

The need for green skills extends beyond basic education. Vocational education programmes are important in preparing students to be flexible and adaptable to changing standards and requirements. In fact, countries already struggle to provide workers with the right skillset. For example, German and Spanish authorities have signalled a lack in skilled photovoltaic workers to install and maintain solar electrical systems. Such skill shortages are a major impediment to the growth in these green industries. They also make the move to a green economy slower and more expensive than it could be.

For basic education as well as vocational education and training, policy measures such as work-based learning and the provision of better career guidance can be powerful tools to strengthen the link between skills development and the green-growth agenda of countries.

Universities also play an important role. In 2011, 220,000 students received university degrees in “green” subjects (for example, environmental protection and physical sciences (climactic research, meteorology)) across the OECD. This constitutes a 62% increase in “green graduates” since 1998, which is comparable to growth rates in fields like mathematics and statistics.

Even though it is important that individuals have the right technical skills and scientific knowledge to go green, this alone will not be enough. In order to act effectively, individuals need to be willing to trade off immediate gains (taking the car instead of less convenient public transport, for example, or turning the air conditioning up to maximum on hot days) for long-term sustainability. Making these choices requires critical thinkers who can connect their daily decisions to long-term consequences, not just for themselves, but for society as a whole. Our schools and universities must play their part in preparing us for this challenge.

Links:
Trends Shaping Education 2013
Green at Fifteen? How 15-year-olds perform in environmental science and geoscience in PISA
PISA 2009 Results: What Students Know and Can Do: Student Performance in Reading, Mathematics and Science (Volume I)
OECD Environmental Outlook to 2050
Greener Skills and Jobs, OECD Green Growth Studies
Center for Education Research and Innovation (CERI)
Photo credit: Recycling Girl / @Shutterstock

 

Who are the all-round top students?

by Marilyn Achiron

Editor, Directorate for Education and Skills

Summer in the northern hemisphere is barely over and we’re already talking about doing well in school? Not only are we talking about doing well in school, we’re talking about doing verywell in school – and in all of the three subjects that PISA assesses: reading, mathematics and science. 

As this month’s PISA in Focus explains, all-rounders – students who attain proficiency Level 5 or 6 in all three assessment subjects – are rare: only 4.1% of 15-year-old students meet this high standard. Why do – or should – countries care about the number of all-rounders they produce? Knowing the proportion of students who excel in these three subjects helps countries to determine the depth of their future talent pool, which has significant implications for a country’s ability to compete and grow in an increasingly information-based global economy.

On average across OECD countries, 16.3% of students are top performers in at least one of the subject areas of science, mathematics or reading. But just because a student is a top performer in one subject does not necessarily mean that the student excels in all subjects. In Switzerland, for example, nearly one in four students is a top performer in mathematics, but only about one in 12 is a top performer in reading and one in ten is a top performer in science. The same is true for many Southeast Asian countries and economies, notably Hong Kong-China, Korea, Macao-China, Shanghai-China, Singapore and Chinese Taipei, where the likelihood of finding students who score at Level 5 or 6 in mathematics is considerably greater than that of finding students who score at that level in reading or science.

All-rounders are found in many countries and economies, but the proportion of these students varies considerably across school systems. For example, Shanghai-China has the largest share of all-rounders – 14.6% of 15-year-old students – followed by Singapore (12.3%); but fewer than 1% of students in Chile, Mexico, Turkey and 21 other countries and economies meet the criteria for being “all-rounders”. Yet all-rounders are found nearly equally among boys (3.8%) as among girls (4.4%).

What is somewhat surprising is that, among countries with similar mean scores in PISA, there are notable differences in the percentage of academic all-rounders. For example, Korea and Singapore score about the same in mathematics, reading and science; but while 12% of students in Singapore are all-rounders, only 7% of students in Korea are. This means that even the best-performing school systems are not equally capable of producing top performers in all subjects.

But it’s something to aspire to, even in late August.

For more information on PISA: www.oecd.org/pisa/
PISA in Focus No. 31: Who are the academic all-rounders?
Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education
OECD work on Skills
 Photo credit: Climbing team struggle to the summit of a challenging rock mountain  / @Shutterstock