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by Dirk Van Damme Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education and Skills Fields of education are ranked in descending order of the share of men who studied in this specific field. Although we’ve observed for a long time that young men and women tend to choose different fields of study – young men are more apt than young women to pursue a degree in engineering while more women than men opt for a teaching career, for example – until recently, we have had no reliable data to support this perception. Nor could we measure the impact of these choices on employment and earnings. But recent data collections, such as the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), finally offer some quantitative evidence on these crucial issues. The latest Education Indicators in Focus brief summarises the available evidence from the Survey of Adult Skills on gender differences across fields of study. The data are mind-blowing. As shown in the figure above, across the countries and su...

by Andreas Schleicher Director, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills It’s (almost) that time again: in just a few short weeks we’ll be hearing a lot more about how well our education systems are doing compared with others around the world. On 6 December, the latest results from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment , better known as PISA, will be made public. If you aren’t yet sure about what PISA is or how it works, check out this new video. And watch this space: there will be more PISA-related information posted here in the coming weeks to help you understand what everyone will be talking about when the results from the 2015 assessment are released. Links: PISA The Alliance for Excellent Education and OECD webinar :  PISA 2015: A Sneak Preview  Tuesday 25 October 2016 9:30 am – 10:30 am ET Bob Wise, president of the Alliance and former governor of West Virginia and Andreas Schleicher, OECD Director for Education and Skills share sample questions from P...

by Andreas Schleicher Director, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills When we think back on schools in the 20th century, we imagine rows of students facing the front of the classroom and listening to the teacher lecture. Even though more and more education policies over the past 20 years are encouraging teachers to give students the chance to actively participate in their learning, in 2012, only one in four students across OECD countries reported that their teacher asks them to break out into small groups to work out a problem on their own. Of course, teachers want students to enjoy the learning process but they also want students to focus on the topic at hand, keeping disorder in the classroom to a minimum. OECD’s newest report, Ten Questions for Mathematics Teachers… and how PISA can help answer them , based on PISA 2012 data, delves into diverse teaching and learning methods and what works for different types of classrooms around the world. When it comes to learning mathematics,...

by Fabian Barrera-Pedemonte UCL Institute of Education and Thomas J. Alexander Fellow Today marks World Teacher’s Day , which aims to address the challenge of mobilising a roadmap for teachers towards 2030. UNESCO acknowledges that a considerable intensification of effort is needed to provide sufficiently qualified, motivated and supported teachers. To underline the task ahead according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, countries will need to recruit a total of 12.6 million primary teachers by 2020. However, the question remains for policy makers is how can they provide for the demand and development of teachers while maintaining quality education? Teacher policies are complex and interdependent, and well-performing countries do not necessarily converge in this regard. A new OECD working paper “High-Quality Teacher Professional Development and Classroom Teaching Practices: Evidence from TALIS 2013” advocates for more sensitive measures to capture the actual support experien...