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by Johanna Boersch-Supan Director, Vodafone Germany Foundation – think tank  Digitisation is expected to profoundly change the way we learn and work – at a faster pace than previous major drivers of transformation. Many children entering school today are likely to end up working in jobs that do not yet exist. Preparing students for these unchartered territories means that we not only have to make sure that they have the right technical capabilities but that we have to strengthen their emotional and social skills . Resilience, the individual capacity to overcome adverse circumstances and use them as sources for personal development, lies at the core of being able to successfully adapt to change and thus actively engage with our digital world. A special PISA analysis conducted by the OECD in collaboration with the Vodafone Germany Foundation shows that several countries were able to increase the share of academically resilient students with disadvantaged backgrounds over the last de...

by Kirsty Williams AM Cabinet Secretary for Education, Welsh Government It’s an exciting time for education in Wales. This was noted by the OECD earlier this year, when it recognised that government and sector are working closely together with a commitment to improvements that are “visible at all levels of the education system”. This week, as Wales’s Education Secretary, I published our new action plan for the next four years. Entitled ‘ Education in Wales: Our national mission ’, it builds on the strong foundations already in place in our system. But we are setting the bar even higher, ambitious as we are in our expectations for our young people, for our teaching profession and for our nation. As a relatively small country and a still-young democracy, we have too often seen these as challenges rather than opportunities. Through the OECD, we have had the opportunity to learn more about other systems and their reform journeys. It is true that no two countries or systems are the same. Ho...

by Rose Bolognini Communications and Publications Co-ordinator, Directorate for Education and Skills Disadvantaged students don’t have as many resources at home as their advantaged peers so ideally schools would need to compensate by providing more support. However, often schools reinforce social disparities rather than moderate them. The latest PISA in Focus brief  reveals that students in socio-economically disadvantaged schools are less exposed to learning environments and educational resources that matter most for science performance. In fact, the latest round of PISA is telling. In 50 of the 72 countries and economies that participated, advantaged schools have more access to educational resources specific to science classes. And PISA finds that students perform better in science when schools have qualified science teachers, and high-quality laboratory and other materials for hands-on activities in science classes. What's more, disadvantaged students benefit more from being e...