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Interview with  Matthew D’Ancona, political columnist for the Guardian and the New York Times by Marilyn Achiron,  Editor, Directorate for Education and Skills “Learning how to navigate the web with discernment is the most pressing cultural mission of our age.” So asserts Matthew D’Ancona , political columnist for the Guardian and the New York Times, in his timely and passionately argued new book, Post-Truth: The War on Truth and How to Fight Back . D’Ancona writes that he sees his book as an exploration of “the declining value of truth as society’s reserve currency” and asks: “So what happens when lies not only proliferate but also seem to matter less – or even not at all?” We met with D’Ancona in June, when he spoke at the OECD Forum  in Paris. Marilyn Achiron: How can schools help educate young people to be able to tell fact from fiction when they’re using the Internet? Matthew D’Ancona: It’s a bit like be given a car without being taught to drive, isn’t it?...

by Marc Fuster Consultant, Directorate for Education and Skills In August 2015, a newspaper published a story about Sam Cookney’s commute to work. Pretty boring, one would think, as long commutes are nothing new for most of us. However, Sam’s story is not so common. He works in London and commutes, several times per month, from Barcelona! International human mobility is on the rise. Increasing numbers of people are regularly coming and going across borders, and societies are growing increasingly diverse as a result. This raises some important questions. How can we ensure public services are accessible to a more diverse population? How can we ensure that respectful communication across languages and cultures is supported in society? A new Trends Shaping Education Spotlight discusses how education can be harnessed to tackle these questions and other implications of increasing mobility and diversity. We know that students thrive in learning environments that are supportive of their needs...

by Mario Piacentini Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills The latest PISA in Focus tells some basic facts about bullying. First, bullying is widespread. Second, all types of students – boys and girls, rich and poor – face some risk of being bullied. Third, bullying is strongly associated with low performance and psychological distress. Fourth, the quality of the school climate is related to the incidence of bullying at school. Reports of bullying are alarmingly high in almost every country. Some 4% of students across OECD countries reported that they are hit or pushed around by other students at least a few times per month. Another 8% of students reported they are hit or pushed a few times per year. Around 8% of students reported that they are frequently the object of nasty rumours in school. Physical bullying is less common among girls, but girls are more often victims of more subtle forms of harassment, such as nasty rumours, that can be just as harmful as more visible type...

by Dirk Van Damme Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education and Skills  Teachers enter the profession for a variety of reasons. Intrinsic motivations that have to do with the nature of the job and the intangible rewards associated with being an effective teacher play an important role. Yet when comparing a teaching career with similarly rewarding professions, the primary and secondary working conditions and material benefits probably come into play as well. To improve the quality of the candidates for teacher-training programmes and to keep them motivated to enter – and stay – in the profession, it is essential to offer competitive pay. For many years Education at a Glance has been tracking and monitoring the salaries of teachers, comparing them across countries and over time. A new Education Indicators in Focus brief has brought together the available data in order to chart the evolution of teachers’ salaries over the past ten years....

by Dirk Van Damme Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education and Skills  There is now a widespread consensus that high-quality early childhood education is critically important for children. Research continues to find that early childhood education can compensate for a lack of learning opportunities at home, and can help children begin to develop the social and emotional skills needed for success later in life. Few policy makers would now question the benefits of high-quality early childhood education. As a result, early childhood education systems have expanded. As documented in Education at a Glance 2016 , on average across OECD countries enrolment in pre-primary education among 3-year-olds rose from 54% in 2005 to 69% in 2014, and among 4-year-olds from 73% to 85%. Expansion policies include the extension of compulsory education to younger children, free or universal early childhood education, and the creation of programmes that integr...

by Deborah Nusche Senior Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills Back in 2013, when we launched the OECD's first international review of school resource policies, we may not have been fully prepared for the detective-type work we were getting into. The OECD Review of School Resources covers 18 school systems and aims to shed light on a part of education policy that has been surprisingly left in the dark. Today, we publish our first thematic report on the funding of school education. The research conducted for this study involved intensive field visits to 10 countries, which made tangible the challenges of reviewing school funding policies. In several systems, information on the formulas used to calculate funding levels for schools was not readily available. In a range of countries, including Denmark, Iceland and Sweden, school funding policies are a local responsibility and there may be as many different funding formulas as there are local authorities. But even in more cent...

by Andreas Schleicher  Director, Directorate for Education and Skills Small in size but not in its ambitions, Slovenia has a bold vision for a society in which people learn for and through life, are innovative, trust one another, enjoy a high quality of life and embrace their unique identity and culture. So how does a country of 2 million people, with an export-oriented economy still recovering from the financial crisis, realise such ambitious goals? People’s skills – what they know and can do with what they know – are at the heart of all countries’ prosperity. Technological change, globalisation and population ageing all magnify the importance of people’s skills. Recognising this, Slovenia embarked on a journey involving nine government ministries and offices and over 100 stakeholders to map Slovenia’s main skills challenges. A series of interactive workshops in Ljubljana in 2016 provided a unique forum in which educators, employers, students, employee representatives, government ...