Australia's education system in the mirror of other OECD systems

Seeing your education system in the mirror of OECD systems
Canberra, 13-14 May 2010

Is the sky the limit?
1.There is nowhere to hide
The yardstick for educational success is no longer improvement by national standards but the best performing systems internationally
2.Where we are – and where we can be
Where Australia and other countries stand
What the best performing countries show can be achieved
3.How we can get there
Some policy levers that emerge from international comparisons

Domain 1
Individual learner
LevelA
LevelB
Instructional settings
LevelC
Schools, other institutions
Country or system
LevelD
Dimensions for international benchmarking
Domain 3
Domain 2
Antecedentscontextualise or constrain ed policy
Policy Leversshape educational outcomes
Outputs and Outcomesimpact of learning
Quality and distribution of knowledge & skills
Individ attitudes, engagement and behaviour
Socio-economic background of learners
Student learning, teacher working conditions
Quality of instructional delivery
Teaching, learning practices and classroom climate
The learning environment at school
Community and school characteristics
Output and performance of institutions
National educ, social and economic context
Social & economic outcomes of education
Structures, resource alloc and policies

There is nowhere to hide
The yardstick for success is no longer improvement by national standards but the best practice internationally

A world of change – highereducation
Expenditure per student at tertiary level (USD)
Cost per student
Graduate supply
Tertiary-type A graduation rate

United States
Cost per student
Finland
Japan
Graduate supply

Australia
Finland
United Kingdom

What about international students?
United States
Australia
A
A
United Kingdom
Finland
A

Moving targetsFuture supply of college graduates

Components of the private net present value for a male with higher education
27K$
56K$
170K$
105K$
35K$
26K$
367K$
Net present value in USD equivalent

Public cost and benefits for a male obtaining
post-secondary education
Public costs
Public benefits
Net present value, USD equivalent
(numbers in orange shownegative values)
USD equivalent

How the demand for skills has changedEconomy-wide measures of routine and non-routine task input (US)
Mean task input as percentiles of the 1960 task distribution
The dilemma of schools:
The skills that are easiest to teach and test are also the ones that are easiest to digitise, automate and outsource
(Levy and Murnane)

OECD’s PISA assessment of the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds
Coverage of world economy
83%
77%
81%
85%
86%
87%

Strengths and weaknesses in math
The real world
The mathematical World
Making the problem amenable to mathematical treatment
A mathematical model
A model of reality
Understanding, structuring and simplifying the situation
Using relevant mathematical content to solve the problem
A real situation
Validating the results
Mathematical results
Real results
Interpreting the mathematical results

High science performance
Average performanceof 15-year-olds in science – extrapolate and apply
… 18 countries perform below this line
Low science performance

Modelling the impact
Programmes to improve cognitive skills through schools take time to implement and to have their impact on students.
Assume that it will take 20 years to implement reform
The impact of improved skills will not be realised until the students with greater skills move into the labour force
Assume that improved PISA performance will result in improved skill-based of 2.5% of the labour-force each year
The economy will respond over time as new technologies are developed and implemented, making use of the new higher skills
Estimate the total gains over the lifetime of the generation born this year .

Relationship between test performance and economic outcomesAnnual improved GDP from raising performance by 25 PISA points
Percent addition to GDP

Increase average performance by 25 PISA points (Total 115 trillion $)
bn$

Catching up with Finland (total 260 trillion $)
bn$

Catching up with Finland(in percent of GDP)
% currrent GDP

Increased likelihood of postsec. particip. at age 19/21 associated with PISA reading proficiency at age 15 (Canada)after accounting for school engagement, gender, mother tongue, place of residence, parental, education and family income (reference group PISA Level 1)
Odds ratioCollege entry
School marks at age 15
PISA performance at age 15

Interest science
Indicate curiosity in science and science-related issues and endeavours
Demonstrate willingness to acquire additional scientific knowledge and skills, using variety of resources and methods
Demonstrate willingness to seek information and have an interest in science, including consideration of science-related careers
Support for science
Acknowledge the importance of considering different scientific perspectives and arguments
Support the use of factual information and rational explanation
Logical and careful processes in drawing conclusions
Knowledge of science
Physical systems (structure of matter, properties of matter, chemical changes of matter, motions and forces, energy and its transformations, energy and matter)
Living systems (cells, humans, populations, ecosystems, biosphere)
Earth and space (structures of the earth system, energy in the earth system, change in the earth system, earth’s history, space)
Technology systems (Concepts and principles, science and technology)
Knowledge about science
Scientific enquiry (purpose, experiments, data, measurement, characteristics of results)
Scientific explanations (types, rules, outcomes)
Identifying
Recognising issues that can be investigated scientifically
Identifying keywords in a scientific investigation
Recognising the key features of a scientific investigation
Explaining
Applying knowledge of science in a situation
Describing or interpreting phenomena scientifically or predicting change
Using evidence
Interpreting scientific evidence and drawing conclusions
Identifying the assumptions, evidence and reasoning behind conclusions
Context
- Personal
Social/public
Global
Competencies
Identify scientific issues
Explain phenomena scientifically
Use scientific evidence
Knowledge
Knowledge of science
Knowledge about science
Attitudes
-Interest in science
-Support for scientific enquiry
-Responsibility

Strengths and weaknesses of countries in science relative to their overall performanceFrance
Science competencies
Science knowledge
OECD (2007), PISA 2006 – Science Competencies for Tomorrow’s World, Figure 2.13

Strengths and weaknesses of countries in science relative to their overall performanceCzech Republic
Scientific competencies
Scientific knowledge

Strengths and weaknesses of countries in science relative to their overall performanceAustralia
Scientific competencies
Scientific knowledge

Average performanceof 15-year-olds in science – extrapolate and apply
High average performance
Large socio-economic disparities
High social equity
Strong socio-economic impact on student performance
Socially equitable distribution of learning opportunities
Low average performance
High social equity

Durchschnittliche Schülerleistungen im Bereich Mathematik
High social equity
High social equity

Student performance
PISA Index of socio-economic background
Advantage
Disadvantage
School performance and socio-economic background Germany
Student performance and students’ socio-economic background withinschools
School performance and schools’ socio-economic background
Schools proportional to size

Student performance
Advantage
Disadvantage
Universal policies
Increasing educational performance of all children through reforms applied equally across the school system, e.g.
Altering content or pace of curriculum
Improving instructional techniques
Changing the learning environment in schools and classrooms
Standards and accountability
Teacher professional development

Student performance
Advantage
Disadvantage
Compensatory policies
Providing additional economic resources to students from disadvantaged backgrounds
Different to socio-economically targeted policies, efforts are directed to ameliorating economic circumstances, rather than providing specialised curriculum or additional educational resources

Student performance
Advantage
Disadvantage
Socio-economically targeted policies
Providing a specialised curriculum or additional educational resources to students from disadvantaged backgrounds
Students are often also identified through other risk factors, e.g. immigration, ethnicity, low-income community

Student performance
Advantage
Disadvantage
Performance targeted policies
Providing additional economic resources to students based on their academic performance
Early intervention programmes
Remedial and recovery programmes
Performance-based tracking or streaming

Student performance
Advantage
Disadvantage
School performance and socio-economic background United States
Student performance and students’ socio-economic background within schools

Student performance
Advantage
Disadvantage
School performance and socio-economic background Finland
Student performance and students’ socio-economic background within schools

How to get there
Some policy levers that emerge from international comparisons

Money matters - but other things do too

Spending choices on secondary schoolsContribution of various factors to upper secondary teacher compensation costsper student as a percentage of GDP per capita (2004)
Percentage points

High ambitionsand universal standards
Rigor, focus and coherence
Great systemsattractgreatteachers and provideaccesstobestpractice and quality professional development

Challenge and support
Strong support
Poor performance
Improvements idiosyncratic
Strong performance
Systemic improvement
Lowchallenge
Highchallenge
Poor performance
Stagnation
Conflict
Demoralisation
Weak support

International Best Practice
The past
Principals who are trained, empowered, accountable and provide instructional leadership
Principals who manage ‘a building’, who have little training and preparation and are accountable but not empowered
Attracting, recruiting and providing excellent training for prospective teachers from the top third of the graduate distribution
Attracting and recruiting teachers from the bottom third of the graduate distribution and offering training which does not relate to real classrooms
Incentives, rules and funding encourage a fair distribution of teaching talent
The best teachers are in the most advantaged communities
Human capital

International Best Practice
The past
Expectations of teachers are clear; consistent quality, strong professional ethic and excellent professional development focused on classroom practice
Seniority and tenure matter more than performance; patchy professional development; wide variation in quality
Teachers and the system expect every child to succeed and intervene preventatively to ensure this
Wide achievement gaps, just beginning to narrow but systemic and professional barriers to transformation remain in place
Human capital (cont…)

Some teachers lose much more time than othersPercentiles of time on spent on task
Figure 4.10
Source: OECD, TALIS Database.

Relatively few teachers participate in the kinds of professional development which they find has the largest impact on their work Comparison of teachers participating in professional development activities and teachers reporting moderate or high level impact by types of activity
Figure 3.15

The teachers who paid most also did most professional development
Figure 3.10

High ambitions
Devolvedresponsibility,theschoolasthecentreofaction
Accountabilityandintervention in inverse proportiontosuccess
Access to best practice and quality professional development

Local responsibility and national prescription
Towards system-wide sustainable reform
National prescription
Schools today
The industrial model, detailed prescription of what schools do
Schools tomorrow?
Building capacity
Finland today
Every school an effective school
Schools leading reform

Pooled international dataset, effects of selected school/system factors on science performance after accounting for all other factors in the model
School principal’s positive evaluation of quality of educational materials(gross only)
Schools with more competing schools(gross only)
Schools with greater autonomy (resources)(gross and net)
School activities to promote science learning(gross and net)
One additional hour of self-study or homework (gross and net)
One additional hour of science learning at school (gross and net)
School results posted publicly (gross and net)
Academically selective schools (gross and net) but no system-wide effect
Schools practicing ability grouping (gross and net)
One additional hour of out-of-school lessons (gross and net)
20
Each additional 10% of public funding(gross only)
School principal’s perception that lack of qualified teachers hinders instruction(gross only)
Effect after accounting for the socio-economic background of students, schools and countries
Measured effect
OECD (2007), PISA 2006 – Science Competencies from Tomorrow’s World, Table 6.1a

Does appraisal and feedback make a difference for the job?
Figure 5.5

Strong ambitions
Devolvedresponsibility,the school as the centre of action
Integrated educational opportunities
From prescribed forms of teaching and assessment towards personalised learning
Accountability
Access to best practice and quality professional development

Durchschnittliche Schülerleistungen im Bereich Mathematik
High social equity
Early selection and institutional differentiation
High degree of stratification
Low degree of stratification
High social equity
6

Assist countries in improving economic and social outcomes through better skills and their effective utilisation
Responsiveness
Ensuring that education/training providers can adapt efficiently to changing demand
Quality and efficiency in learning provision
Ensuring that the right skills are acquired at the right time, right place and in the most effective mode
Flexibility in provision
Allowing people to study/train what they want, when they want and how they want
Transferability of skills
Such that skills gained are documented in a commonly accepted and understandable form
Ease of access
Reducing barriers to entry such as institutional rigidities, up-front fees and age restrictions, existence of a variety of entry and re-entry pathways
Low costs of early exit
Recognition for components of learning, modular provision, credit accumulation and credit transfer systems exist .

OECD Skills Strategy
How do we identify and assess essential skills for strong, sustainable and balanced growth and what are the factors driving the evolution of skill demand?
Is the right mix of skills being taught and learned and can employers find workers with the skills they need?
Pillar 2(ELS)
Pillar 1 (EDU and ELS)
How can governments build strong coalitions with the business sector and social investors and find sustainable approaches to who should pay for what, when, where and how much?
Pillar 3(EDU)
Pillar 4(EDU and LEED)
Are skills developed in effective, equitable, efficient and sustainable ways?

Pillar 1: Drivers for skill demand
A work programme with four pillars
Issues
Changing skill demands within jobs – often driven by technology
Increased demand for certain occupations affecting the composition of aggregate skills demand
New types of jobs, driven by innovation – in products and in services
Greater need for transferable skills, in part driven by greater labour mobility .
Work proposals
Balancing occupation-specific and generic skills [ELS]
Skill demands in technology-rich environments [PIAAC]
Skill demands of innovative firms [CERI]
Skill demands in health and green jobs [ELS]
Economic and social outcomes of skills [PIAAC, CERI] .
Pillar 2(ELS)
Pillar 3(EDU)

Pillar 2: Right mix of skills learned and taught?
Issues
Increasingly complex and dynamic labour-markets combined with depreciation of domain-specific knowledge require individuals to upgrade their skills more regularly leading to changing patterns of work and learning
Individual and aggregate skill mismatches can be associated with ineffective signalling of labour market demands to education providers and individuals but can also be the consequence of a lack of responsiveness on the part of education and training providers
Age training gaps, gender gaps
Work proposals
Prevalence and consequences of skills mismatch [EDU/ELS]
Improving the utilisation of human capital [ELS]
Preventing skill obsolesence among displaced workers [ELS]
Understanding the impact of age on skills [ELS] .
Pillar 2(ELS)
Pillar 3(EDU)

Pillar 3: Are skills developed in effective, equitable and sustainable ways
Issues
Establishing efficient and fair ways of lifelong and lifewide learning, and ensuring responsiveness, quality and flexibility in provision
Incentive systems and support structures to enhancing skills through the formal educational system, in the work-place or through incentives addressed at the general population and training
Establishing an appropriate mix of academic and vocational learning in ways that reflect student preferences and employers’ needs, with vocational training providing immediate employability, but also basic transferable skills to support occupational mobility
Work proposals
New learning organisations [CERI]
Vocational education and training [EDU]
Equity in access and educational mobility [PIAAC, PISA]
Utilising the skill potential of immigrants [ELS]
Developing innovation oriented skills [CERI] .
Pillar 2(ELS)
Pillar 3(EDU)

Pillar 4: Who should pay for what, when, where and how much?
Issues
Building new relationships, networks and coalitions between learners, providers, governments, businesses, social investors and innovators that bring together the legitimacy, innovation, and resources that are needed to make lifelong learning a reality for all
Finding ways to encourage both employers and students to participate in workplace training, and ensuring that such training is of good quality, with effective quality assurance and contractual frameworks for apprentices
Mobilising time and money
Work proposals
Joining up local skill strategies .
Pillar 2(ELS)
Pillar 3(EDU)

PIAAC will…
in each country interview 5000 adults aged 16-65 in their homes and test their skills
collect information on the antecedents, outcomes and contexts of skill development and use
… in order to…
provide a comprehensive assessment of the human capital stock
For high performers, show to what extent they are able to apply their skills to solve challenging problems requiring mastery of technology
For those with low literacy, show to what extent their problem is with performing basic reading functions or with understanding and application
show to what extent skills held by individuals are actually used at work and identify the role skills play in improving labour market prospects of at-risk populations
improve understanding of the labour market and social returns to education and training
help governments better understand how education and training systems can nurture these skills .

High potential policy impact
x
Description of the population with low skills, or special population groups such as immigrants, and interrelationships with labour-market outcomes.
What is the role of skills in explaining differences in labour-market outcomes between immigrant and native-born workers? Do skill differences depend on where human capital was acquired? Do immigrants receive different returns to these skills than observationally similar native-born workers?
To what extent can and do skills play a role in levelling the playing field, both in terms of providing high quality education to all and giving access to higher education to those who are able and motivated to continue their schooling, irrespective of their social background?
Further analysis on intergenerational mobility will also be possible with the JRA measurement of what people do in their jobs
The competitive advantages of OECD countries in the global competition for jobs
Quick wins
Must haves
Where does initial education leave us in terms of skill supply with their different forms of organisation of the education and training system?
Has the rapid growth in educational attainment translated into better foundation skills?
How do the results compare to those observed in earlier schooling (PISA)? How do people gain and lose skills as they grow older?
How will changes in the age structure of populations and aspects such as educational attainment feed through to the future talent pool?
Labour force skills and the price of these skills are crucial to understand in the perspective of increasing global competition for jobs higher up in the skill hierarchy. PIAAC can tell us more about which cognitive and non-cognitive skills are important in particular.
PIAAC can provide systematic insights into the risks and rewards for skills in the labour market, for individuals and economies, as well as for specific subgroups such as immigrants
Adult competencies and their as well as economic and social outcomes
aggregate
individual
What can we learn about the impact of age on skills and skill utilisation, how has this changed over recent decades and the policy levers associated with this (separating biological effects of aging from differences in the experiences of cohorts over time)?
How well do education and training systems deliver in generating the required competencies
Is education or skills mismatch mostly confined to youth early on in their professional careers and subsequently diminishes? Is mismatch important and does it translate into large earnings penalties? Have education and training systems in OECD countries shown sufficient adaptability in the face of changing skill demands or are skills mismatches endemic? How do task-based learning (JRA) and job-related training relate to the length of the working life? (but keep in mind that labour-market outcomes and training are snapshots in time whereas the measured skills are accumulated over the lifespan)
Improving the labour-market prospects of those at risk
How well can adults solve problems in technology-rich environments? How does this relate to the incidence and intensity of using information technology in and outside work
Low feasibility/costly
High feasibility
Equity and intergenerational mobility
Ageing and skills
Capitalising on technology-rich environments
What levels of skills do individuals and countries demonstrate, and how do these relate to educational attainment?
Money pits
Low-hanging fruits
…
Reasonable potential for policy
(Skip examples)

Outcomes
A Skills Strategy for OECD countries
An integrated work programme on skills across the entire organisation
A regularly published OECD Skills Outlook that, with a combination of comparative analysis and country studies, will:
Trace the development of skills, through their utilisation in labour markets, how they feed into better jobs, higher productivity, and ultimately better economic and social outcomes
Customise policy insights from comparative analysis and peer learning so that they are useful in national policy contexts
Provide a catalyst for policy discourse on national skill strategies
Contribute to building strategic partnerships for successful policy implementation .

State of play
PIAAC is now at a critical juncture of moving from an international strategy towards national implementation
Where we are…
PIAAC strategy agreed among countries
International project consortium in place
Agreement on the scope of the initial report and a discussion on further analytic work
Full pilot in all countries, majority of countries now in the field (1400 respondents, 2010),
… and what remains ahead
Review of field trial results and development of main data collection instruments
Main data collection (2011/2012)
Public release of results (2013) .

State of play

The qualifications we acquired don’t tell us everything about the skills we have
Mean problem solving1,2 scores on a scale with range 0-500 points, by level of educational attainment, populations aged 16-65, 2003
1 – less than upper secondary
2 – upper secondary
3 – post-secondary/non-tertiary
4 – tertiary education
Source: International Adult Literacy and Life Skills Study (ALLS)

Skill make a difference for labourmarket outcomes
The probabilities of unemployed adults aged 16 to 65 to exit unemployment over a 52 week period, by low (Levels 1 and 2) and medium to high (Levels 3 and 4/5) skills, document scale, 2003
High skills(Levels 3, 4 and 5)
Low skills(Levels 1 and 2)
Source: International Adult Literacy and Life Skills Study (ALLS)

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Australia's education system in the mirror of other OECD systems

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Australia’s education system in the mirror of other OECD systems Presentation Transcript