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Governments are becoming increasingly aware of the important contribution that high performance, world-class universities make to global competitiveness and economic growth. There is growing recognition, in both industrial and developing countries, of the need to establish one or more world-class universities that can compete effectively with the best of the best around the world. Contextualising the drive for world-class higher education institutions and the power of international and domestic university rankings, this book outlines possible strategies and pathways for establishing globally competitive universities and explores the challenges, costs, and risks involved. Its findings will be of particular interest to policy makers, university leaders, researchers, and development practitioners.

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To stimulate economic advancement, low- and middle-income countries need well-educated and trained workforces to fill the types of skilled jobs that drive economic growth. Improving educational quality and attainment and providing better training are all rightly put forth as policy recommendations to leverage economic growth and job creation. However, new findings based on large scale surveys of adult skills from the World Bank Group's STEP (Skills toward Employment and Productivity) Skills Measurement Program suggest that many workers are overqualified for their current jobs (based on the education those jobs require). The results of this study suggest that countries may not reap as much benefit from their investments in quality education and training if weak job creation leaves workers' skills underutilized. Most of the literature on mismatch focuses on higher-income countries and rates of over-education among college graduates.

This publication uses new STEP Skills Survey data from 12 low- and middle-income countries, representing a range of economic and educational and training climates, to better understand the scope and patterns of education and skills mismatch. STEP collects information not only on workers' level of education and employment status, but also on the types, frequency, and durations of tasks they carry out at their jobs as well as some of the cognitive skills they use. The study also explores additional factors such as gender, health, career stage, and participation in the informal labor sector that may help explain the degree of mismatch rates. The study's findings indicate that over-education is common in low and middle income countries with both lower and higher rates of educational attainment. There is also evidence that over-educated tertiary workers do not use all of their skills, potentially wasting valuable human capital and educational resources. The authors suggest that job growth must go hand-in-hand with investments in education and training.

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Future growth in the countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) will increasingly depend on innovation. And innovation requires skills. This makes it important, as countries plan for recovery, to undertake reforms to reduce the skills shortages that the previous growth episode exposed. Education systems have a very important role to play in creating the right skills. But education systems in the region fall short of the demands of their economies in two major ways. The first is that despite high levels of enrollment they do not produce enough graduates with the right skills. Students graduate with diplomas, not with skills, because the quality of the education for many students is poor. In large part this is because education systems remain focused on providing an excellent education to a few at the expense of improving the quality of learning for the majority. Moreover, the systems are still making the transition from teaching the basics to inculcating higher order skills such as critical-thinking and problem solving. The second way in which education systems fall short is that outside of a few countries in the [European Union] EU there are few opportunities for adults to retrain, or acquire new skills. This book argues that generating more of the right skills requires a fundamental change of approach in the education systems in the region so that they aim for, and deliver, higher quality education for the vast majority of students ('not just diplomas but skills'). To start with, education systems need to 'turn the lights on' and take seriously the measurement of what students actually learn as opposed to measurement of the inputs into the education process on the implicit assumption that learning follows. Policy makers also need to move away from the focus on inputs and processes and increase the emphasis on incentives.

Published summary on World Bank website.

The chapters are as follows: Overview; The demand for skills in ECA; Education and the supply of skills to the ECA market; Resolving the skills shortage in the ECA region: a policy framework; Managing for results at the pre-university level of education; Managing for results in the tertiary education sector; Advanced adult learning in ECA; Extended summary: the path for education reforms in the ECA region. Show less

Yunnan is a medium-sized Chinese province that has experienced rapid economic growth rates over the last decade and is expected to maintain an annual growth rate of 10 per cent or higher. This report investigates the readiness of the province and its education and training system to meet the skills challenges of rapid economic growth, and the nature of the skills required to achieve economic and social transformation.

The report begins with a demand-side analysis, examining historical trends in demand for skills, revealing the types of skills in demand, and projecting future demand for skills driven by economic growth and policy development. It also highlights the emerging skills shortages and mismatches in Yunnan. The rest of the report focuses on the access, quality, and relevance of Yunnan's education and training system and how effective it is in supplying the skills in demand. An overview of Yunnan's formal and non-formal education and training system is presented, followed by a focus on the formal technical and vocational education and training (TVET) system, examining its governance, industry participation, curriculum reforms, quality assurance, and finances. Analysis of the formal education and training system focuses mainly on secondary and tertiary TVET. The next section of the report addresses two major training programs outside the formal education system: non-formal training for rural workers and work-based training for urban workers, both of strategic importance. Finally, drawing on lessons from the Shanghai Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, the role of schools in developing the cognitive skills of 15-year-olds is demonstrated. The report concludes with a summary of findings and a set of policy recommendations for meeting the skills challenges and improving the education and training system.

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After years of achieving high growth and impressive poverty reduction, Ghana is now facing major challenges in diversifying its economy, sustaining growth, and improving inclusivity. Most of the new jobs created in the past decade have been in low-earning, low-productivity trade services. Furthermore, macroeconomic instability, limited diversification, and growing inequities in Ghana's labor markets make it harder for the economy to create more and, particularly, better jobs.

The current fiscal and economic crisis is heightening the need for urgent reforms while limiting maneuverability and increasing the need to carefully prioritize policy actions. Going forward, Ghana will need to consider an integrated jobs strategy that addresses barriers to the business climate, deficiencies in skills, lack of competitiveness within job-creating sectors, problems with labor mobility, and the need for comprehensive labor market regulation. Ghana needs to diversify its economy through productivity gains in sectors such as agribusiness, transport, construction, energy, and information and communications technology services. Productivity gains are also needed in agriculture in order to increase the earnings potential of the many poor people who still work in that sector. Ghana's youth and women, in particular, need help connecting to jobs through skills development and by gaining access to information about job opportunities. More productive and inclusive jobs will help Ghana move to a second phase of structural transformation and develop into a modern middle-income economy.

Published abstract. Show less

Possessing a range of cognitive, socioemotional, and technical skills is important for individuals to maximize their chances of success in many aspects of life. In particular, a growing body of research highlights the effects that socioemotional skills have on a variety of outcomes, from wages and academic performance to health. Programs to help participants develop such skills continue to expand in both developed and developing countries, targeting individuals of almost all ages and life stages. However, the characteristics that make some programs more successful than others, or even what types of outcomes programs use to measure 'success', are less clear. This publication aims to fill this knowledge gap through a systematic review of programs that seek to develop socioemotional skills.

This analysis rigorously examines a diverse range of more than 80 programs, including programs for toddlers and young children before primary school, programs for students enrolled in formal education, and programs targeted at the out-of-school population. The publication develops a conceptual framework that helps to identify the program characteristics and participants' profiles associated with a range of program outcomes. The review subsumes various terminologies under the term socioemotional skills, including soft skills, noncognitive skills, character skills, personality skills, 21st century skills, and life skills. Reported outcomes are classified into four broad categories: (a) health related; (b) risk factor related; (c) academic/cognitive related; and (d) economic related. The findings highlight characteristics and impacts of successful (and less successful) programs.

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While adoption of new technologies is understood to enhance long-term growth and average per-capita incomes, its impact on lower-skilled workers is more complex and merits clarification. Concerns abound that advanced technologies developed in high-income countries would inexorably lead to job losses of lower-skilled, less well-off workers and exacerbate inequality. Conversely, there are countervailing concerns that policies intended to protect jobs from technology advancement would themselves stultify progress and depress productivity. This book squarely addresses both sets of concerns with new research showing that adoption of digital technologies offers a pathway to more inclusive growth by increasing adopting firms' outputs, with the jobs-enhancing impact of technology adoption assisted by growth-enhancing policies that foster sizable output expansion. The research reported here demonstrates with economic theory and data from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico that lower-skilled workers can benefit from adoption of productivity-enhancing technologies biased towards skilled workers, and often do.

The inclusive jobs outcomes arise when the effects of increased productivity and expanding output overcome the substitution of workers for technology. While the substitution effect replaces some lower-skilled workers with new technology and more highly-skilled labor, the output effect can lead to an increase in the total number of jobs for less-skilled workers. Critically, output can increase sufficiently to increase jobs across all tasks and skill types within adopting firms, including jobs for lower-skilled workers, as long as lower-skilled task content remains complementary to new technologies and related occupations are not completely automated and replaced by machines. It is this channel for inclusive growth that underlies the power of pro-competitive enabling policies and institutions - such as regulations encouraging firms to compete and policies supporting the development of skills that technology augments rather than replaces - to ensure that the positive impact of technology adoption on productivity and lower-skilled workers is realized. Cross-country studies highlight additional channels from digital technology adoption to inclusive growth, namely by lowering the fixed costs of exporting through online trading platforms, and by reducing the cost of information about job opportunities through Internet-enabled worker-firm job matches.

Published abstract.

A technical background paper for this regional study is available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 132.498. Show less

There is growing interest, worldwide, in the link between education systems and the production of skills that are valued in the labour market. With growth stagnating and unemployment soaring in much of the world, educators are being asked to focus more on producing skills that feed into labor productivity and support the sustainable growth of employment and incomes. This volume contributes new findings on the dynamics of education systems and labor market outcomes in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). It analyzes an important recent shift in labor market trends in LAC: the first decade of the 21st century has witnessed a marked decline in the earnings premia for university and secondary education. This, in turn, is contributing to reduced income inequality across the region. The recent trend contrasts with the sharp rise in tertiary earnings premia that was observed in the 1990s and that helped to reinforce high levels of income inequality in the region at that time. The authors recommend that, having achieved very large increases in secondary and tertiary enrolment, the region should now focus on improving the quality of its education systems and the pertinence of education curricula for the needs of the labour market. At age 15, the learning achievement of the average Latin American student still lags two years behind his or her OECD contemporary. The study opens up an agenda for future research. While the evidence presented on the trends in education earnings premia is clear, the conclusions about the causes and significance of those trends are largely based on suggestive evidence for a limited number of countries, and are not definitive because of data limitations. The findings call for further indepth analysis of the nature of skill mismatches, to inform policies that can strengthen the region's future economic growth by enhancing the productivity and earnings potential of the workforce.

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Sri Lanka has shown remarkable persistence in low female labor force participation rates - at 36 per cent in the past two years, compared with 75 per cent for same-aged men - despite overall economic growth and poverty reduction over the past decade. The trend stands in contrast to Sri Lanka's achievements in human capital development that favor women, such as high levels of female education and low total fertility rates, as well as its status as a lower-middle-income country. This study intends to better understand the puzzle of women's poor labor market outcomes in Sri Lanka. Using nationally representative secondary survey data as well as primary qualitative and quantitative research, it tests three hypotheses that would explain gender gaps in labor market outcomes: (1) household roles and responsibilities, which fall disproportionately on women, and the associated sociophysical constraints on women's mobility; (2) a human capital mismatch, whereby women are not acquiring the proper skills demanded by job markets; and (3) gender discrimination in job search, hiring, and promotion processes. Further, the analysis provides a comparison of women's experience of the labor market between the years leading up to the end of Sri Lanka's civil war (2006-09) and the years following the civil war (2010-15).

The study recommends priority areas for addressing the multiple supply- and demand-side factors to improve women's labor force participation rates and reduce other gender gaps in labor market outcomes. It also offers specific recommendations for improving women's participation in the five private sector industries covered by the primary research: commercial agriculture, garments, tourism, information and communications technology, and tea estate work. The findings are intended to influence policy makers, educators, and employment program practitioners with a stake in helping Sri Lanka achieve its vision of inclusive and sustainable job creation and economic growth. The study also aims to contribute to the work of research institutions and civil society in identifying the most effective means of engaging more women - and their untapped potential for labor, innovation, and productivity - in Sri Lanka's future.

Published abstract. Show less

A country's education system plays a pivotal role in promoting economic growth and shared prosperity. Sri Lanka has enjoyed high school attainment and enrollment rates for several decades. However, it still faces major challenges in the education sector, and these challenges undermine the country's inclusive growth goal and its ambition to become a competitive upper-middle-income country. This publication provides a review of Sri Lanka's education sector - from early childhood education through higher education. The aim is to answer three questions: How is Sri Lanka's education system performing, especially with respect to participation rates, learning outcomes, and labor market outcomes? How can the country address the challenges at each stage of the education process, taking into account both country and international experience and also best practices? Which policy actions should Sri Lanka make a priority for the short and medium term?

The authors identify the most critical constraints on performance and present strategic priorities and policy options to address them. To attain inclusive growth and become globally competitive, Sri Lanka needs to embark on integrated reforms across all levels of education. These reforms must address both short-term skill shortages and long-term productivity. As Sri Lanka moves up the development ladder, the priorities of primary, secondary, and postsecondary education must be aligned to meet the increasingly complex education and skill requirements.

Edited excerpts from publication. Show less