Learning in rural China: The challenges for teachers

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

Mr. Huang became principal of Qiao Tou Lian He school at the age of 25, not because he was specifically trained for the post, but because he had been the only educated person in his village. He’s a dynamic leader who is squarely focused on supporting, developing and evaluating his teachers, of whom only a handful have a high school degree and more than basic teacher training.

The teaching conditions in the rural Qiao Tou Lian He school, 3,000 kilometres southwest of Shanghai, are tough and teachers are struggling. In Shanghai, teachers not only have smaller classes, but they can also rely on much better initial preparation and more extensive training opportunities at the school, district and municipal levels. They spend 70% of their time teaching and 30% of their time learning, often in collaboration with teachers from other schools. In many countries, we see learning outcomes severely impeded if a quarter or more of the students come from disadvantaged educational backgrounds. Here every child does. The Qiao Tou Lian He school is mainly on its own; but the teachers I met there showed an amazing commitment, and I was struck by the positive learning atmosphere – rigorous, highly disciplined, yet joyful – in every classroom I visited.

Over lunch in his office, Mr. Huang explained how he works with individual teachers to become aware of any weaknesses in their practices – and that often means not just creating awareness of what they do but also changing their underlying mindset. He helps them understand best practices by seeing how they are applied by other teachers in other classrooms. And he motivates his teachers with his high expectations, a shared sense of purpose, and with the belief that they can all make a difference to every child. He keeps close track of teacher performance, looking at both student achievement and classroom management in order to help teachers strengthen their practice. Over time, he also hopes to bring parents along, offering workshops for them not just on how to support their children’s education, but also simply on how to be good parents.

This is a country where everyone is willing to learn: students are learning for a better life; teachers are learning to improve their teaching; schools compare themselves eagerly with other schools; and, perhaps most important, the system as a whole is willing and able to learn. Whether China is interested in designing a better sewer system, retirement system or school system, it sends key people from the relevant sector to visit the world’s best performers in those areas with instructions to find out how it’s done and to put together a design for China that is superior to anything seen anywhere else.

Seven years ago, Andrea Pasinetti came to the area as a college student to brush up his Chinese. He saw both the enormous challenges facing the country’s schools, and also the opportunities afforded by China’s openness to learning. He dropped his studies and founded Teach for China. His organisation is now supporting over 80 schools; it doesn’t provide a high volume of resources, but it offers what is most critically missing in this area: teaching capacity to build teaching capacity. He is enlisting promising future leaders from across academic disciplines and careers to teach at least two years in those rural schools and become lifelong promoters of educational quality and equity.

I met two of these teachers, Xianming Xu and Madeline Christensen and was inspired by their enthusiasm, commitment and professionalism. Critics of organisations like Teach for China maintain that there is no alternative to the traditional route of undergraduate studies, teacher training and then a career in the classroom. But they underestimate the potential that this combination of talent, passion and entrepreneurship represents. In fact, the administration in China understands this better than many other countries and is embracing their work. Zhenhua Mi, another enthusiastic leader of this organisation explains to me that Teach for China is now so attractive that it can recruit the most promising candidates, even where the general status of the teaching profession is in decline. The programme also provides intensive initial training, ongoing support, and a work environment in which teachers work together to create good practice. What impressed me most is the vision of social transformation behind all this work – extending from teacher leadership through school leadership, policy and political leadership, up to community organisation.

By strengthening teaching capacity, these people are making a difference towards helping rural China build an education system that shifts from reproducing educational content for school towards strengthening competencies for life; from education to serve the state towards education for citizenship in the local and global community; from education for competition in exam hell towards strengthening relevant skills; and from education for situational values (I will do anything the situation allows me to do) to sustainable values. That will help the next generation to better reconcile resilience – managing in an imbalanced world – with greater sustainability – putting the world back into balance – that China needs so badly too.

Links:
Video series: Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education - Shanghai, China
Related blog posts by Andreas Schleicher
Learning in rural China: The challenges for students
China – what will remain when the dust around economic expansion has settled?
Implementing educational reform in China
Chinese lessons

Photo credit: @ Schleicher OECD

Earmarking Justice

by Justine Doody
Freelance Journalist and Editor, SGI News

In his State of the Union address on 12 February 2013, US President Barack Obama proposed a new initiative to improve access to high-quality early childhood education. The action is much needed: according to OECD figures from 2010, only 51 per cent of US children were enrolled in pre-primary education at age three, rising to 69 per cent at age four.

By comparison, in New Zealand, which became in 1986 the second country in the world to have its ministry of education take responsibility for early childhood education, 95 per cent of children in 2012 had been through an early childhood education programme before starting school at five years old.

Early childhood education is linked to improved prospects for future learning and employment. And, as the new Intergenerational Justice Index (IJI) study from the Bertelsmann Foundation's Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) project shows, it can help to level the playing field in terms of allocating resources fairly between older and younger generations.

As demographic changes lead to ageing populations in many OECD countries, the increased weight of older people in voting systems means they have more power than ever before to direct policy preferences. So, more than ever, it is important that countries take steps to ensure their policies provide future generations with at least the same chances that their parents and grandparents had.

Estonia Ranks Top, the United States Bottom

To find out which countries best provide for younger and future generations, SGI's Intergenerational Justice Index (IJI) measured OECD countries on several indicators: ecological footprint, child poverty, public debt per child and spending bias towards older generations.

The best performing country, SGI found, was Estonia, while New Zealand achieved a creditable fourth place. The United States ranked bottom of all the 29 countries studied, followed by Japan and Italy. If these countries do not change their current policy directions, their young people will grow up facing burdens of injustice, in terms of public debt, ecological degradation, and social immobility, that will be difficult, if not impossible, to overcome.

IJI offers policy recommendations that could help to shift the balance and help countries to improve their levels of intergenerational justice. The study suggests intergenerational earmarking as a way to rebalance public spending towards the young. Revenues raised in addressing one form of intergenerational justice, for example, environmental taxes, could be used to mitigate other areas of injustice, for instance by offering child tax credits or family allowances.

Proxy Votes for Children Could Foster Intergenerational Justice

Another interesting, albeit potentially controversial, recommendation is the introduction of proxy voting for children. Parents would be given the right to vote on behalf of their children, with a child's vote equalling one-half of an adult vote. In this way, children would be given a voice in politics, and parents would be rewarded for their societal contribution.

High-quality early childhood education is especially important. Research has found that children who participate in early childhood programmes are more likely to graduate from high school, hold down jobs, and earn more money. They are less likely to find themselves on state welfare or to go to prison.

The experience of high-quality early childhood education particularly benefits children from disadvantaged backgrounds, which means that providing early childhood programmes could work as a corrective social justice measure as well as an intergenerational rebalancing.

In New Zealand, beginning in 2007, three-year-olds were offered two free years of pre-school. Children attend programmes for 20 hours a week, 48 weeks of the year. The government hopes that by 2016, 98 per cent of children will receive early childhood education.

But despite this excellent record, there are concerns about the programme's future. Education unions complain that funding cuts are affecting the quality of early childhood education. Recently, the word 'free' was removed from the government strategy; now, almost half of early childhood education providers, hit by increasing costs and lower subsidies, are asking for extra fees from parents. Shifting costs onto parents could limit the availability of high-quality education for disadvantaged families.

Prospects for the US Seem Bleak

The US government says that in the United States, only 3 in 10 four-year-olds have access to high-quality early childhood education programmes. Socio-economically disadvantaged children are least likely to be in early childhood education programmes: just 59 per cent of the poorest US children are in pre-kindergarten, as compared to 90 per cent of children from wealthier homes. The president's programme is to implement free access to high-quality pre-school for all four-year-olds from families at or below 200 per cent of the poverty line.

To receive federal funding, states would have to meet strict requirements. All teachers must have a bachelor’s degree and be given access to on-going professional development. Teachers’ salaries should be comparable to those for teachers in higher levels of the education system. Class sizes should remain small and activities should cover the entire school day. Curricula should measure up to state standards and programmes must be continuously evaluated. As it stands, few states would be able to meet these strict standards and qualify for federal money.

However, it is unclear how the US programme would be financed. The president’s 2014 budget proposal includes a plan to pay for universal preschool by increasing taxes on cigarettes, which could have positive public health outcomes as well as providing a revenue stream for the programme. But even if the tax succeeded in getting past the vested interests that would oppose it, such “sin taxes” have diminishing returns over time, raising questions about future funding.

Any new federal funding is supposed to be matched by state funding. But because of budget constraints, many states have already cut funding for their existing early childhood education programmes, casting doubt on their willingness to provide more dollars for a new federal initiative.

And the larger, on-going struggle between those who wish to cut government spending in the name of austerity and those who favour Keynesian expansion seems to be resolving itself in favour of the budget-cutters.

So, even in the face of the overwhelming evidence that early childhood education has economic benefits that go beyond the moral claims of social and intergenerational justice, the future of the US initiative is uncertain. Absent new will to act from both sides of the US political divide, the prospects for the United States improving its dismal rating on intergenerational justice seem bleak.

Links
Find out more on OECD work on Early Childhood Education and Care
Education at a Glance 2012
Starting Strong; Starting Strong II; Starting Strong III
Doing Better for Families
Photo credit: Bulb idea with human hand / Shutterstock

Evolving attitudes towards early childhood education

by Barbara Ischinger
Director for Education and Skills

I was in Berlin recently to launch the German edition of Starting Strong III at an international conference on early childhood education and care and was struck by the difference in attitudes I found there compared to even a decade ago. Given the effects of the economic crisis and the ageing of European populations, more governments are realising that it is becoming unsustainable to continue to expect – and encourage – young mothers to stay at home with their children until the age of five or six, when primary school begins. Eight or nine years ago, Germany, to name just one country, hadn’t yet come to grips with the broader role that young mothers could play in society. The German Lander have come to agree with the federal government that as of August 1, 2013 all parents should have the right to enroll their children at the age of one.

Of course, early childhood education is not just about encouraging half of the adult population to enter the labour market; it’s about giving children a better chance to succeed later on. Results from PISA show that 15-year-old students who attended pre-primary education for more than one year score higher in the PISA reading test than their peers who did not attend. In Germany, for example, the difference between the two groups in reading performance in the 2009 assessment was the equivalent of one year of schooling, even after taking students’ socio-economic backgrounds into account.

That is, perhaps, the greatest benefit of high-quality pre-primary education: in theory, it gives all children equal opportunities to begin to develop their literacy, numeracy and social skills, regardless of their family’s income. If conceived with some imagination, these programmes can make an enormous difference in the lives of disadvantaged families. For example, New Zealand developed early education programmes, targeted to families with low levels of education, that include an adult-education component. In regions where these programmes are offered, enrolment of disadvantaged children – who benefit the most from these kinds of activities – has grown considerably.

Yet while participation rates in pre-primary education are rising, there are some worrying trends in how these programmes are financed and delivered. In OECD countries, more than 18% of total spending on pre-primary education (and more than 25% in Germany) comes from private sources – a far higher rate than for other levels of education. Since most of that money comes from households, it isn’t surprising that many people are concerned that access to early childhood education isn’t as equitable as it could and should be. And as any young parent trying to find a place for their child in one of these programmes knows, all programmes are not equal when it comes to quality. This is where Starting Strong III can help. It provides a toolkit for countries to use to improve the quality of their early childhood education programmes.

Over the next couple of years, the OECD will be working to define how to measure and assess the quality of the education provided in these programmes, which will be the first step towards ensuring that high-quality pre-primary education is available to all. In the meantime, I’m encouraged to see so many governments not only acknowledging the importance of early childhood education but making it a top priority on their agendas. It has taken a while, but I think we all now realise that high-quality pre-primary education is a public good that demands our critical attention and unstinting support.

Find out more on: OECD work on Early Childhood Education and Care
Photo credit: Small and colourful table and chairs for little kids / Shutterstock

Does it matter which school a student attends?

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Directorate for Education and Skills 

Successful education systems guarantee that all students succeed at high levels. As this month’s PISA in Focus notes, some school systems not only do well on international assessments, like PISA, they also manage to minimise the difference between the best- and poorest-performing students.

In some education systems, most students have similar levels of proficiency; in others, student performance varies far more widely. Analyses of PISA results show that countries and economies can achieve high average performance without having wide disparities in student performance. In 10 out of the 17 countries and economies that have above-average performance in reading, variations in student performance are smaller than the average variation observed across OECD countries.

PISA finds that 40% of the variation in student performance is found between schools within an education system. What accounts for that variation?  A variety of factors. In Germany, large differences in the expected performance of students who attend different schools are related to the education systems’ policies of selecting students for different pathways through education, usually vocational or academic, based on students’ marks. In Italy, these variations are often related to differences in the profiles of the communities the schools serve, such as the socio-economic differences between students who attend urban schools and those who attend rural schools, and/or differences between the policies of federal and regional education systems. Variations can also be linked to characteristics of school systems that are more difficult to quantify, such as differences in the quality or the effectiveness of the instruction provided. Among high-performing countries, considerable between-school variation is found in only three countries: Belgium, Japan and the Netherlands. Between-school differences account for as little as 8% of the variation in student performance in Finland, 10% in Norway, and less than 20% in Estonia, Iceland and Poland.

PISA also tracks how variations in student performance have evolved over time. Across OECD countries, the average variation in student reading performance narrowed by 3% between 2000 and 2009, because most of the countries that improved their performance during that period did so by improving the performance of low-achieving students. Of the countries that saw improvements in performance during that period, only Poland recorded a marked decrease in between-school variation, while Sweden recorded a large increase.

We all know that students have different abilities, talents, interests and potentials (and vive la difference!). But the most successful and highest-performing school systems know how to elicit the best from every one of their students.

Links:
For more information on PISA: www.oecd.org/pisa/
PISA in Focus No. 27: Does it matter which school a student attends?
Photo credit: School coat rack / Shutterstock

Getting the best start

Miho Taguma
Senior Analyst, Early Childhood and Schools Division, Directorate for Education and Skills

Given the current background of fiscal constraint, is public funding of early childhood education and care programmes a sound investment?

As more and more women have been entering the labour force since the 1970s, access to pre-school services has improved across OECD countries. Although in the 1970s and 1980s, early childhood education and care policy was put into place to facilitate women’s entry into the labour force, in recent years it has become more child-centred, focusing instead on the child’s development and improving educational outcomes. As inequalities, which are often present well before children begin primary school, are likely to increase over time, early childhood policies can be a component of anti-poverty and educational equity measures as well.

As the latest issue of the OECD’s brief series Education Indicators in Focus shows, countries vary widely on all aspects of early childhood education and care, from their policies and systems to their quality. In most countries, the proportion of children enrolled in pres-school programmes has significantly grown in recent decades. Although on average across the OECD, 79% of 4-year-olds are enrolled in such programmes, it ranges from more than 95% in Belgium, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom, to between 30% and 60% in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Greece, Poland and Switzerland, and to less than 30% in Indonesia and Turkey.

But what are the benefits of early childhood programmes? PISA scores have shown how important access to these programmes can be for improving children’s outcomes in later stages of life. Data also shows that pre-school can improve children’s cognitive abilities and have a positive impact on reading performance at age 15. It also helps children, especially those from disadvantaged or immigrant backgrounds, to build a strong foundation for life skills. But what is more important, quantity or quality?

There are also vast differences among countries on all of the quality indicators: from the number of children per staff – which ranges from more than 20 pupils per teacher in China, France, Israel, Mexico and Turkey, to fewer than 10 in Chile, Iceland, New Zealand, Slovenia and Sweden – to the length of the programmes – with the majority of countries offering at least one year of  for free, including the Netherlands (for 4  and 5 year olds); England and Scotland (for 3  and 4 year olds); and France, Israel, Mexico, Portugal and Sweden (for all 3 6-year-olds).

Countries’ expenditure on ECE as a percentage of GDP also varies significantly – ranging from 0.1% or less in Australia, India, Indonesia, Ireland and South Africa to 0.8% or more in Denmark, Iceland, Israel, the Russian Federation and Spain.

The bottom line is that even in these times of fiscal consolidation and crisis, sufficient public funding should continue to be dedicated to early childhood programmes. This would help not only to improve children’s outcomes, social mobility from generation to generation and long-term efficiency gains for society, but also reduce poverty and protect the most vulnerable.

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: OECD.  Argentian and Indonesia: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (World Indicators Programme).  Table C2.1.  See Annex 3 for notes (www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012)

What you get out of schooling is often what you put in

by Marilyn Achiron
Editor, Directorate for Education 

Does having a positive attitude towards school make it more likely that a student will get good marks? Or does getting good marks make it more likely that a student will have a positive attitude towards school? The latest edition of PISA in Focus reports that the answer to both of those questions is yes: positive feelings about school are often linked in a virtuous circle with high performance. According to results from PISA 2009, across OECD countries, nearly nine out of ten students think that school has taught them things that could be useful in a job, and around three-quarters of students think that school has prepared them for adult life and has helped to give them confidence to make decisions. In most countries, students who think school is useful are more likely to have high PISA test scores in reading; and students who have high scores in reading tend to report that they think school is useful. In 48 countries and economies, those students who performed well in reading tended to report more positive attitudes towards school than those who had lower scores.

In all participating countries and economies, students’ positive attitudes towards schooling are related to positive attitudes towards their teachers and to their perceptions that the classroom environment is conducive to learning. In fact, these associations are mutually reinforcing: Students who have good relations with their teachers and who study in classes that are conducive to learning tend to think that school is useful – and their positive attitudes make the climate for learning at school even better.

Perhaps surprisingly, PISA also found that a student’s background or the type of school he or she attends is only weakly related to his or her attitudes towards schooling. In 21 participating countries and economies, socio-economically advantaged students tended to report more positive attitudes towards school, but the opposite was noted in nine countries and economies. And students attending private schools don’t necessarily have better attitudes towards school than public-school students: students in private schools tended to report more positive attitudes towards school than students in public schools in only nine of 49 countries and economies with comparable data.

In many countries, the one student characteristic that is associated with positive attitudes towards school is gender. In 28 of 65 participating countries and economies, girls tended to report more favourable attitudes towards school than boys (when the questions involved classroom atmosphere and various student and school characteristics were considered together). Only in Australia, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom did boys tend to report more positive attitudes towards school than girls.

While it’s a little difficult to pin down exactly what influences students’ attitudes towards school, results from PISA clearly show a link between positive attitudes towards school and good performance in reading, and between positive attitudes and an atmosphere in the classroom that is conducive to learning. This implies that, to a greater or lesser extent, students’ own attitudes towards school can shape the quality of their learning experiences.

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:  Student showing thumbs up / Shutterstock

Building the knowledge economy

by Justine Doody
Freelance Journalist and Editor, SGI News

Across the world, countries and citizens are taking steps to build and participate in the growing knowledge economy. As low skilled jobs disappear, replaced with smart systems or outsourced to less developed economies, governments are realising that the best way to ensure economic growth and higher employment is to invest in human capital. This means creating education opportunities for as many people as possible.

The OECD has found that throughout the global economic downturn, education level has been a predictor of job security. Between 2008 and 2010, unemployment in OECD countries rose from 8.8 per cent to 12.5 per cent for people with no upper secondary education, and from 4.9 per cent to 7.8 per cent for people with an upper secondary education. For those with tertiary education, unemployment increased from 3.3 per cent to only 4.7 per cent. Even in a time of economic crisis, OECD countries still needed highly skilled employees.

The Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) 2011 study of the Bertelsmann Foundation measured education in OECD countries. The top performing countries were Finland, Canada and New Zealand, while among the lowest were Mexico, Turkey and Slovakia. In Finland, SGI found, between 60 and 70 per cent of each annual cohort enter third level education. Canada has the highest proportion in the OECD of population aged 20 to 64 that has completed post-secondary education. Reforms in New Zealand have led to a sharp increase in tertiary education participation, among majority and minority groups. OECD figures from 2012 also show that New Zealand invests the highest percentage of public expenditure of all OECD countries in tertiary education.

In Mexico, according to SGI, things are improving, but slowly. University education is increasing, but it is still open to only a few; OECD data shows that just 17 per cent of 25 to 64 year olds have achieved a tertiary education. Turkey has serious problems in terms of access to and quality of education, and only 29 per cent of 25 to 64 year olds have a secondary education. Slovakia sees regional differences in access to third level, and has the lowest enrolment rate in third level in the OECD.

Education, health, social inclusion: it’s all connected

Not surprisingly, the top countries in education scored highly in most of the indicators measured by SGI, while the bottom countries scored low on many indicators. One of the indicators with a close correlation to education performance was social inclusion. Finland, Canada and New Zealand ranked highly on this indicator, while Mexico, Turkey and Slovakia were among the countries with the worst levels of poverty, inequality and social exclusion.

Completing more years of education has been linked to economic success, better health outcomes and greater social inclusion. Within the European Union, research shows that 24 per cent of families with a low-educated head are in poverty, compared to 13 per cent of families whose head has a secondary education, and 6 per cent of families whose head has completed third level education.

However, across the OECD, young people from families with limited education are far more likely to leave the education system before attaining a third level qualification. So, low rates of social inclusion and poor education participation feed off each other. Failing to educate people equitably and effectively exacerbates inequality, while failing to improve social inclusion means less advantaged people are less likely to obtain higher levels of education.

Early childhood education is important

Higher education is key to achieving higher income and economic security. But to ensure access to higher education, it is essential to intervene early in the student’s academic career. Children from disadvantaged social groups tend to perform better in schools that include students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. But too often, different social groups are separated, or are not provided with the same opportunities.

In Slovakia, for instance, SGI data shows that the Roma population has particularly low rates of participation in formal education. In Mexico, a private system that exists alongside the public system makes sure that those with higher incomes have access to better quality education. And in Turkey, a lack of social security benefits for parents means that girls from low-income families tend to leave education around the fifth grade. Even in the better performing countries, disparities persist. New Zealand’s Maori and Pacific Islander populations still face difficulties in accessing education, as do Canada’s Aboriginal groups.

Best in class: Finland

Finland has successfully implemented one route to ensuring students stay in education, helping to keep up its rates of students entering third level. It offers special interventions for students who are having difficulties: about 40 per cent of students in Finnish secondary education are given some form of extra attention. Each school has a “special teacher”, who can identify struggling students and provide educational support. As a result, just 1 per cent of Finnish 15-year-olds do not have basic reading skills, as compared to an OECD average of 7 per cent.

Finland is helped in its efforts to ensure equitable education by its homogenous society and healthy economy. Even so, countries with more diverse socioeconomic compositions could still benefit from following its example of early and intensive intervention. As countries work to create competitive advantage by building skilled workforces, making early investments in students could be an excellent investment in countries’ future potential for economic success.
Photo credit: Body of Knowledge sculpture, Frankfurt /Shutterstock

How does class size vary around the world?

Elisabeth Villoutreix
Communications Officer, Directorate for Education

Class size is a hotly-debated topic and continues to be at the forefront of the educational and political agenda in many countries. Smaller classes are favored by parents and teachers alike. But they come at a price, countries can spend their money only once and money spent on smaller classes can’t be spent on better teacher salaries, more instruction time, better opportunities for the professional development of teachers...

So what's the magic formula? What is the  ideal class size? Is smaller necessarily better?

The latest issue of Education Indicators in Focus shows that at the lower secondary level  among all OECD countries with comparable data, the average class size varies from 20 students or fewer in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Switzerland (public institutions) and the United Kingdom, to more than 34 students in Korea. The contrast is even more striking in other G20 countries; in China, for example, the number of students per class reaches the 50 students mark.

Class size, together with students’ instruction time, teachers’ teaching time and teachers’ salaries, is one of the key variables that policy makers use to control spending on education. Between 2000 and 2009, many countries invested additional resources to decrease class size; however, student performance has improved in only a few of them.

Apart from optimising public resources, reducing class size to increase student achievement is an approach that has been tried, debated, and analysed for several decades. Some countries like Finland favour smaller class sizes (20 students of fewer) and are among the most successful countries in the PISA study. However, other countries like Korea have much bigger classes (34 students and over) but also feature at the top of the PISA ranking. What other variables than class size may explain the success of countries like Korea?

Findings from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) suggest that systems prioritising higher teacher salaries over smaller classes tend to perform better, which confirms research showing that raising teacher quality is a more effective measure to improve student outcomes.

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, Indicator D2 (www.oecd/edu/eag2012)

Women leaders can break the mould

Indira Samarasekera, President of the University of Alberta  in Canada, was one of the keynote speakers at this year’s Institutional Management in Higher Education (IMHE) Conference, held at OECD headquarters in Paris this past September. Marilyn Achiron, Editor at the OECD’s Education Directorate, spoke with her about a variety of subjects:

Marilyn Achiron: What unique talents do women have as school leaders, and how can we achieve gender equality in school leadership positions?
Indira Samarasekera: At the risk of overgeneralising, women tend to network more, and perhaps listen more, to a variety of stakeholders. Men have tended to have to follow the mould of someone before them; but women can break the mould. That’s the advantage of women leaders.
Gender equality in school leadership has often been difficult to achieve because of the challenges of women having children. The question is: How do you support that? It requires that people in the university be thoughtful and mindful. There were leaders in my university who sought me out and put me in leadership positions, heads of committees who helped to put me where I am today. They went out of their way to find people like me—I was only an assistant professor, for goodness sake. I think gender equality can be achieved without overnight social change, but you need thoughtful men and women leaders.

MA: The latest edition of Education at a Glance highlights the fact that young women are now more likely than young men to graduate from upper secondary school. What is your reaction to that finding?
IS:  I worry about it. For the longest time we worried about the fact that there weren’t enough women; now we’re worried that we’re losing young men. The potential social consequences of that are huge. In a society where innovation and higher education provide access to high-wage jobs, we have huge numbers of young men who will be left behind. We need gender parity for all those who need education. Young men develop later; as a result, they are not as prepared to compete on university entrance exams as young women are. But they catch up quickly later. We have to consider high school grades with a pinch of salt. We have to find a way, without diluting the quality of education, to transfer young men to university, maybe after two years in a community college. Community colleges can be a kind of bridge between high school and higher education. Two years can make a big difference.

MA: In your keynote address, you spoke passionately against university rankings.
IS:  Rankings are absolutely detrimental, and it’s very questionable what value they add to society. They don’t recognise teaching, they foster homogenisation, there are no assessments of publications and the effect of research on society, they completely discount valuable research. In fact, these rankings promote the “caste culture” in science. They want everyone to be Harvard, but even Harvard is having trouble being Harvard because they can’t afford it anymore. To their credit, though, rankings have focused the spotlight on high-quality universities. But those who are doing the rankings are not accountable to anyone; they’re there to make money.

Links:
General Conference 2012: "Attaining and Sustaining Mass Higher Education"
OECD Skills Strategy
Education at a Glance: www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012
Visit our interactive portal on skills: http://skills.oecd.org
See related blog post: Welcome to my world. Won’t you come on in? by Valérie Lafon
Photo credit: ©OECD

A Window into the classroom

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

An excellent teacher is what makes students learn and succeed in school. Everything else – standards, curricula, assessments, resources, school leadership – come second. Yet, what do we actually know about what teachers are doing?

Classrooms seem to be the ‘black boxes’ of the education system. There is not an awful lot of research on classroom teaching practices, but TALIS 2008 provides some self-reported data on teaching practices and professional activities including participation in collaborative learning with colleagues. The main TALIS report, published in 2009, compared the relative preference for three different teaching practices – structuring, student oriented and enhanced activities – across the 23 different countries that participated in the survey. The report showed differences between countries regarding the extent to which teachers are favouring directive and teacher-directed practices over more activating and learner-centred ones. These TALIS results were received as rather disappointing signals, suggesting that the teaching profession was relatively resistant to change in many countries.

In collaboration with the TALIS programme and as part of its Innovative Teaching for Effective Learning project the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) has just released a research report which delves deeper in the TALIS data on teaching practices in classrooms and schools. Based on some advanced analytical tools (multilevel latent profile analysis), this new book called Teaching Practices and Pedagogical Innovations: Evidence from TALIS  identifies underlying profiles in teachers’ classroom practices. A large set of variables about teachers, such as gender, training, subjects taught, but also their pedagogical beliefs, the degree of professional development, the amount of feedback and appraisal received, etc., were brought together and in each country different profiles of teachers were distinguished.

The scientific and policy implications of this research are huge. Many learning researchers and education policy makers strongly – and rightly so – believe in the benefits of more student-oriented, self-regulating approaches to teaching and learning. This suggests that a particular form of teaching is outdated and should be replaced by a more innovative one. Consequently, this report now suggests that we should not look at the quality of what happens in classrooms in an ‘either-or’ way. While it is true that the best teachers differ from their colleagues in their relative use of activating, student-oriented ways of teaching, they also use more structuring, teacher-driven forms of classroom practice. Teaching quality is a matter of diversity of practices, not of one set of practices against the other. Excellent teachers are those teachers who master a large repertoire of teaching practices, which they can deploy according to learners’ needs and varying classroom conditions. Those teachers are also the ones who actively advance their own professional competence by professional development and who feel more satisfied and effective about their own work.

A final important finding is that there is also a clear difference between these teacher profiles in the degree of co-operation with other colleagues and engagement in collaborative learning communities in and outside schools. Excellent teachers view teaching as a collective responsibility within the profession, not as an individualised thing happening behind closed doors. They open the doors of their classrooms, inviting colleagues to engage in what they are doing but also disclosing what happens in classrooms to the outside world. It is that kind of teachers we need to work with our kids.

Links:
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) Activities
OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS)
Teaching in Focus Briefs

Photo credit: © By happy via

Welcome to my world. Won’t you come on in?

by Valérie Lafon
Analyst - Institutional Management in Higher Education

As a young mother, in relation to my children’s age, and being the ripe old age of 40, I am discovering the daily ritual of education.

Education, we believe, will make our children’s dreams real, open the door to knowledge and experiences, help them grow, and ultimately give them the tools to live a happy, well-rounded life with a fulfilling career.

Filled with goodwill, well-informed thanks to working at the OECD and steeped in the notion that higher education will provide my children with the best and most appropriate skills, I found myself, like many other parents, lost in this new environment.

Looking at all of these issues, different worlds having different rules with goals at times at odds with each other and difficult to reconcile. Five separate worlds…

The world of learning

A plethora of various stakeholders are saturating the media and students are fighting to be heard. Perhaps so many different players makes it difficult to figure out who wants what.

• How do these students see their future? What do they expect? What do they want?
• How to bring their aspirations into the debate?

The world of knowledge 

Mass higher education affects all countries and academic systems. Participation, role, impact, and responsability of higher education institutions have taken on greater significance and will continue to do so.

• How can institutions maintain and improve quality despite limited resources?
• Which institutional strategies are more effective to improve students’ learning experience and keep them engaged and motivated?
• How to help students, parents and governments make informed choices based on information that has been certified, verified and accepted internationally?

The world of public goods

Developed economies rely on skilled labour to drive productivity and economic growth as well as to support social cohesion. Besides, the economic benefit of higher education is good for individuals as well as society.

• How can governments, or should governments, steer higher education?
• How to hold on to the public good while faced with the commodification of higher education?
• How to reconcile individual aspirations, the public good and the economic reality?

The world of economics

As skills are a country’s future, each and every government should be thinking about how to manage these skills strategically. Erasing the “bright red dividing line” between education and work will require, among many other things, greater collaboration between education systems and industry.

• How to recreate the link between higher education and the job market?
• What skills does the knowledge economy need most and how to strike the balance between specific skills and generic skills?

Planet Earth

Lastly comes globalisation, the planet, English as the dominant language, the internet, facebook, twitter, McDonalds, the financial crisis and, within the higher education market, we can add rankings and student mobility. To be free to make the right choices, we need to understand the balance of power, and then the landscape becomes even more complex!

Sometimes at night, after the children have gone to bed, I think about the different colours of all these different worlds. How do we bring these worlds together and build bridges rather than remain in silos? The OECD is organising a conference in Paris from 17 to 19 September that will examine the issues around mass higher education. Governments, universities, students and the private sector will discuss the present and the future of higher education

I will be wearing two hats: that of a parent, and that of an OECD analyst. Will you join me?

Follow the Conference live on twitter @OECD_Edu and @OECDLive (#OECDIMHE)

Links:
General Conference 2012: "Attaining and Sustaining Mass Higher Education"
OECD Skills Strategy
Education at a Glance: www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012
Visit our interactive portal on skills: http://skills.oecd.org
Photo credit: World globes / 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

Are Teachers Getting the Recognition They Deserve?

by Kristen Weatherby

Senior Analyst, Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS)

More and more countries are having discussions about how to evaluate the quality of their teaching workforce and, subsequently, how to reward teachers for their work. The OECD’s newest series of briefs, Teaching in Focus, launches this month with a discussion of the appraisal and feedback teachers receive and the impact of both on their teaching.

Teaching is often thought to be an isolating profession, with teachers receiving little or no feedback that enables them to improve their teaching practice. Data from the  Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS)  supports this claim in many countries, indicating that more than one in five of all teachers in the 24 countries surveyed report never received a formal appraisal of their teaching practice. Indeed even those teachers who are receiving formal appraisals may not ever learn the results of those appraisals. In several countries, teachers reported never receiving any feedback on their work regardless of whether they had received a formal appraisal.

Yet teachers are eager for information that will help them improve their teaching. The vast majority of teachers (79%) feel that the appraisal and feedback they have received are helpful in the development of their work. Those teachers who do receive appraisal and feedback report changes in their teaching practice as a result of this information, especially in the areas of improving student test scores, student discipline and classroom management. Furthermore, teachers in nearly half of TALIS countries find that being publicly recognised for their work is closely connected to their own feelings of self-efficacy.

The message seems pretty clear: If countries want to improve the quality of their teachers, they need to provide teachers with feedback on their teaching that helps them make changes to their practice.

To learn more about this topic, check out this month’s Teaching in Focus brief. Look for further Teaching in Focus briefs on topics relevant to the experience of teachers in the coming months.

Follow TALIS and Kristen Weatherby @Kristen_Talis
Photo credit: Blue stage with falling stars / Shutterstock

Hong Kong’s success in PISA – One system, many actors

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

Hong Kong is perhaps the PISA top-performer about which I knew the least. So, on the invitation of the authorities, I took a few days of annual leave to learn more about this system. It turned out to be a very rewarding experience. What interested me most was to find out how Hong Kong, with its market-driven approach in virtually every field of public service, had been able to combine high levels of student performance with a high degree of social equity in the distribution of educational opportunities.

With the majority of schools run by private entities, the government has few levers for direct intervention and parents have a powerful influence on schools, both through their choice of schools (though still banded) and through local control. They sit on school management committees, parent-teacher associations and on home-school co-operation committees. Permanent Secretary Cherry Tse concluded that parents have more influence on what happens on the ground than the Education Bureau. The vibrant cyber-community has added to the tremendous pressures on schools to maintain a high quality of education.

Most leading newspapers have education pages that deal on a daily basis with policy debates as well as disputes in schools. Ruth Lee, an inspiring principal from Ying Wa Girls’ School, one of Hong Kong’s elite schools that I visited, explained how principals and teachers face a daily struggle to balance administrative accountability, client accountability and professional accountability while keeping their focus firmly on nurturing well-rounded children and helping parents see beyond their children’s entry to university (the backdrop for this is that schooling in Hong Kong used to be the domain of philanthropy and it was only when the economy gathered strengths in the 1960s that the government began to chip in with subsidising education).

Education as a cross-government priority
All that does not mean that education isn’t a government priority. On the contrary, at 23%, Hong Kong devotes more of its public budget to education than any OECD country, realising that it is talent that transforms the lives of its citizens and drives its economy. What struck me even more was that education isn’t just the domain of the Education bureau, but that it features high on the agenda of virtually every other government agency too. For example, Robin Ip, Deputy Head of Hong Kong’s Central Policy Unit explained how important the development and deployment of talent features as a cross-government priority. His unit provides the eyes and ears of the Chief Executive across the different government departments and builds advice on how Hong Kong can maintain its competitive edge in areas such as financing, trade and shipping, nurturing emerging industries (education included), and deepen economic co-operation with mainland China. And when I visited the Ministry of Finance, Salina Yan, Deputy Secretary for Financial Services underlined the deep commitment of her sector to both nurturing local talent in the financial domain as well as attracting the most highly skilled from abroad. Also Ho Wai Chi, Assistant Director of the Independent Commission Against Corruption and his team explained how that agency deploys almost a fifth of its staff to education and community relations throughout the territory, with the aim of moving the agenda from fighting corruption to preventing it, and building a climate of trust in the rule of law and the institutions protecting it. That includes work on a secondary school curriculum that builds confidence in the rule of law, deals with ethical dilemmas and seeks to change the agency’s image from sending people to jail to sustaining the system. Hong Kong’s move up to rank 12 on Transparency International’s index of perceived corruption, and perhaps even more so, the fact that over 70% of corruption-related complaints are now posted non-anonymously, illustrate how far along the way Hong Kong has come - compared to the 1960s when corruption and a climate of fear and violence had been endemic in virtually every aspect of life. On the plane leaving Hong Kong for Shanghai I saw the front page article of the South China Morning Post quoting the chief prosecutor as demanding that not even the Chief Executive should be immune from prosecution.

Educational reform
I had interesting sharing sessions with Permanent Secretary Tse, Under Secretary Chen and his Deputy and Assistant Secretaries, the head of the Assessment Authority as well as leading academics from the major universities on key educational reform challenges in Hong Kong and the world around it. Hong Kong aims high in its educational ambitions, both as a systemic goal and to meet individual aspirations. It is always difficult to say which of the factors observed are due to cultural assets and which are due to policy interventions and practices. They are intertwined. But it is intriguing to see how Hong Kong has drawn together educational experience from the Eastern and Western world to design a world class education system. You see that in everyday life too, they treat their guests with the hospitality of the Chinese way but queue on the bus the British way.

2012 is a year of particular importance for Hong Kong’s education system; it is the first year in which the generation that has gone through the new integrated education system will graduate. Results from PISA suggest that Hong Kong is on the right track, showing high performance standards as well as important improvements in students’ metacognitive skills and confidence as learner. But the test of truth will come in August when the new Diploma of Secondary education will be handed out, a day that school leaders, teachers, parents (and not least the administration) are anxiously awaiting. The learner-centred reforms underlying this new system have been far-reaching, paralleling similar developments in other high performing education system. They involved significant expansion of educational opportunity as well as a shift in emphasis from teaching to learning, from fact memorisation to development of learning capacities, and from economic needs to individual needs. The broadened and more flexible curriculum seeks a better balance between intellectual, social, moral, physical and aesthetical aspects, with much greater emphasis on transversal skills including foundation skills, career-related competencies, thinking skills, people skills as well as values and attitudes. The reforms have also included more funding flexibility in support of schools. All of this has pushed schools and teachers to take a professional stand and exercise professional autonomy within a collaborative culture.

And yet, it is clearly visible that education in Hong Kong faces serious tensions. It is the tension between what is desirable for the long-term and what is needed in the short-term; between the global and local; between the academic, personal, social and economic goals of the curriculum; between competition and co-operation; between specialisation and attention to the whole person; between knowledge transmission and knowledge creation and between the aspiration of a new innovative curriculum and a powerful private tutoring industry narrowly focused on exam preparation; between uniformity and diversity and between assessment for selection and assessment for development.

The system is now also more subject to the political economy than what used to be the case: Since reunification with China, policies are no longer determined by technocrats, but by politicians with an eye on re-election. With teachers and school leaders a large and vocal part of the electorate, maintaining the high quality examination and assessment regime is already proving a struggle. So far, policy makers have also shied away from any consolidation of the school system which seems inevitable in light of the demographic shifts with rapidly declining student numbers - if Hong Kong wants to avoid a downward spiral of rising costs associated with shrinking school and class sizes that drive out needed investments for attracting and developing teachers and the establishment of a 21st century learning environment.

An amazing environment
Another surprise for me has been Hong Kong’s beautiful landscape. What I knew from Hong Kong was the sprawling urban environment that looks like built by SimCity (with the disaster function turned off for a long time). But it took just an hour with the Government Flying Service to turn that impression upside down. Soon after the helicopter had left the Government complex the landscape was dominated by forests, natural parks and wetlands known by birdwatchers that cover 70% of the territory. As Robin Ip and his staff from the Central Policy Unit explained, maintaining a balance between the immense pressure to expand urban development in order to provide affordable housing, on the one hand, and preserving Hong Kong’s natural and cultural heritage, on the other, will be an ever-tougher challenge. The incoming administration will no doubt be tempted to hand out sweets by developing new housing, but the resistance this will meet at local levels from town planning board and environmental activists should not be underestimated. This is Hong Kong. You will see some demonstration almost every day and you have to make your way to the HBSC headquarters through the tents of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Right across the boundary I could see the endless city of Shenzhen of China’s Guangdong province covered in smog, which does not seem to weigh such tradeoffs between economic development and the environment, and which has now absorbed virtually all of Hong Kong’s manufacturing industry. Close to a quarter of a million people pass the massive crossing points of Lok Ma Chou and Man Kam To each day, illustrating the rapid integration of Hong Kong’s economy with that of mainland China.

One-China, Two Systems
Can the ‘One-China Two-Systems’ policy be sustained in these circumstances or will Hong Kong simply be submerged? Different from twenty years ago, the distinction between the two systems can no longer be discerned from a helicopter, it is no longer visible in the infrastructure and hardware. When it comes to the ‘software’ though, the institutions and rule of law, Hong Kong’s autonomy seems yet unchallenged. At a meeting in the Department of Justice Paul Tsang, in charge of treaties and law, explained that, so far, there had just been three cases with questions about the interpretation of Hong Kong’s basic law – and all initiated by Hong Kong. Moreover, agreement has now also been reached on the mutual enforcement of law, such that cases can be heard in Hong Kong’s independent judicial system and then be enforced in mainland China. I also met with Daniel Cheng, Deputy Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs and his colleagues, who oversee the implementation of the One-China Two-Systems policy and who are the guardians of Hong Kong’s democratic institutions and independent judicial system, to learn more about the implementation of this policy. This was another instructive briefing session and what struck me most was how much mutual benefit both Hong Kong and mainland China derive from this. There are some obvious areas, such as the growing trade and the division of labour that serve both parts well, or the “firewalled” currency policies which Hong Kong offers for mainland China through the emerging offshore trading of the RMB. But it seems Hong Kong provides a testing ground for mainland China in many other areas too, and mainland China seems to learn fast from the ways in which Hong Kong does things and how its institutions operate. Paul Tsang recounted how Hong Kong’s assistance to the regions affected by the great earthquake in Szechuan had fundamentally changed the ways in which companies and the authorities in the area establish business relationships and contracts. So the return on the 80m Euro assistance which Hong Kong had provided for disaster relief will no doubt be high – and for both sides. Both sides are keen to consolidate what has been achieved and the complementarities and synergies between the two systems are now enshrined in China’s five-year development plan.

But not everybody is so confident that this will work out in the long term. At the Legislative Council, Hong Kong’s parliament, I met Representative Alan Leoung, who was deeply suspicious about the viability of the One-China Two-Systems policies, fearing that Hong Kong will end up with elections Chinese style (where everyone can vote but some opaque nomination committee will hold the gateway as to who can stand for election). He was already much concerned about the functioning of the political system today, where the functional constituencies guarantee vested interests a firm base in parliament, and where the 4m Hong Kong dollar in funds raised by the opposition parties compare against over 70m Hong Kong dollar raised by the parties supporting the government.

Perhaps it is the financial sector that will provide the most reliable barometer for the successful implementation of the One-China Two-Systems policy. Judged by that standard, Hong Kong has so far moved from strengths to strengths since reunification. Salina Yan’s office is located right next to the Chief Executive’s Building, and that is not just by coincidence. This is a country in which the Secretaries for Finance and Justice rank higher than any other government minister. Salina Yan portrayed an impressive trajectory for how Hong Kong had evolved into the international banking and asset management centre and open insurance market that it is today, with a market capitalisation that ranks 6th in the World and 2nd in Asia. Over a quarter of Hong Kong’s GDP now comes from trade and logistics, another 15% from financial services and 13% from professional services. Well over a third of the employment is in the financial services.
It is only logical that Hong Kong is a staunch supporter of the multilateral trading system including its principles of non-discrimination, with no tariffs on imports, no subsidies for exports and a level playing field for foreign and local enterprises. Rigorous international benchmarking and peer-learning are omnipresent.

But the financial sector too is facing challenges too. While Hong Kong had a strategic first-mover advantage in the financing sector of the region, other global cities are waking up. And there are important challenges on the expenditure side too. To maintain its competitive edge, the law requires Hong Kong to keep public spending below 20% (with a three-year window to smoothen out cyclical effects). So while the income side is fixed, Hong Kong’s rapidly ageing population, growing income inequalities and other social factors are putting immense pressure on the expenditure side. The government is acutely aware of these challenges and trade-offs, not least, as Cindy Kwan from the Central Policy Unit explained, through their weekly survey of opinions and attitudes among Hong Kong’s population. Like most other countries, however, it is struggling with finding convincing answers to these challenges and, like other democracies too, it needs to weight the long-term interests of the territory against the short-term demands from its citizens.

Links:
OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
Video Series: Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education 
OECD Department for Education
Photo credit: School warning sign /Shutterstock