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A common argument in developed countries is that economic success is dependent on the creation of a high-skilled workforce. This publication provides a comparative study of national routes to a 'high skill' economy and discusses whether the optimism over a future high skills economy is justified. The book is based on the High Skills project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), which examined the assumptions underlying the rhetoric of 'high skills'. The project involved a comparative study of high skills strategies in Britain, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Germany and the US. The chapters in the book reflect the key issues addressed by the project: (1) the extent to which the dominant theory used to explain skills formation and guide skill formation policy is adequate; (2) whether countries require a similar kind of skill profile to be economically competitive; (3) national systems of skill diffusion and their effectiveness and barriers excluding groups from acquiring new skills; (4) the impact of globalisation on national systems of skill formation and diffusion; and (5) factors driving nations to develop a high skills economy and society and the extent to which this aim is feasible in any of the nations studied.

The project investigated the extent to which high skills strategies achieve politicians' aspirations for a high skills society as a general issue underlying the other five. In examining these issues, the project addresses current debates about the nature of competitiveness, the impact of education and training systems and labour markets on skill formation and diffusion, the role of multinational companies in transferring skills, and the methodological question of how best to compare the skill formation strategies of nations with dramatically different histories and cultures. A general conclusion is that, in each of the countries studied, the aim of achieving a high skills economy is at a point where the future will reveal whether current decisions will propel them closer to or further away from the ideal of a high skills society. The chapters are: Skill formation in the twenty-first century / Phillip Brown; Models of high skills in national competition strategies / Andy Green, with Akiko Sakamoto; Innovation, skill diffusion, and social exclusion / Hugh Lauder; Globalization, multinationals, and the labour market / Hugh Lauder, with Yadollah Mehralizadeh; Globalization and the political economy of high skills / Phillip Brown. Show less

Early school leaving (ESL) as defined by the [European Union] EU refers to young people aged between 18 and 24 who have attained no higher than lower secondary education and who are not currently receiving any education or training. The [Reducing Early School Leaving in Europe] RESL.eu project aims to provide insights into the mechanisms and processes influencing a pupil's leaving school or training early. In addition, RESL.eu intends to identify and analyze the intervention and compensation measures that succeed in keeping pupils in education or training, in spite of their high risk of ESL, and ultimately, to disclose these insights and good practices to various audiences.

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This study extends the comparative model of country groups to analyse the cross-national trends in the higher education expansion and opportunities. [The authors] use descriptive data on characteristics and outcomes of higher education systems in different countries groups, including the liberal market countries, the social democratic countries, the Mediterranean countries, the German-speaking countries, the Northern states, and the East Asian societies. At the theoretical level, [the authors] assess the validity of the maximally maintained inequality (MMI) theory in the cross-national contexts. [The authors] confirm the MMI theory in general patterns of the expansion of higher education opportunities; however, [they] argue that it is not sufficient to provide accounts on specific country differences in the strength of the relationship between participation rates and inequality of opportunities. Therefore, [the authors] explain the divergences from the general pattern of higher participation being associated with lower inequality.

[The authors] propose three main contenders including the private contribution to higher education, less hierarchical higher education systems, and the participation in the dual higher education system and greater public support and entitlements. [They] use a series of indicators on the trends of participation in higher education and different types of universities, the private contribution to higher education, and the trends of public support and entitlements to assess the three contenders. Thus, [the authors] argue that there are different patterns of the trade-offs between expansion and equalising opportunities. Most rapid expansion is observed in countries with high private contributions to higher education and little government support for students mainly because governments can then afford more places but equalisation of opportunities from the expansion in these systems is limited because of financial barriers to access to less well-off groups. Most egalitarian systems seem to have somewhat lower participation rates with lower fees and strong government support such as the social democratic and the German-speaking countries.

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Promoting social cohesion through education has re-emerged as an important policy objective in many countries during the past decade. But there is little clarity in policy discussions about what social cohesion means and how education may affect it. In this article we distinguish between social capital and societal cohesion and argue that education acts in differential ways on each. Using comparative, cross-country analysis, we develop a ‘distributional model’ which shows the relationship between equality of educational outcomes and various measures of social cohesion. In the final part of the article we discuss theories explaining the cross-country trends and variations in educational inequality and social inheritance in education, and argue that education system characteristics, such as degrees of ‘comprehensiveness’ in secondary schooling, may be an important factor in both. We conclude by arguing that policies to increase social cohesion through education must pay more attention to the reduction of educational equality than they currently do.

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This article analyses the contribution of post-compulsory education and training systems to the development of literacy and numeracy skills across OECD countries. While there is extensive cross-country comparative research on the effects of primary and lower secondary education systems on aggregate skills levels, there has been little comparative analysis of system effects after the end of lower secondary education. This article uses a quasi‐cohort analysis of the tested literacy and numeracy skills of 15-year-olds in [Programme for International Student Assessment] PISA 2000 and 27-year-olds in the 2011 OECD Survey of Adult Skills (SAS) to estimate the gains in different countries in mean levels of competence in literacy and numeracy. We found that Nordic countries (Norway and Sweden) with comprehensive upper secondary education and training systems and German-speaking countries (Austria and Germany) with dual systems of apprenticeship were particular[ly] effective, whilst countries with mixed systems (England, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Spain) showed a relative decline in both literacy and numeracy. The education system characteristics that account for these differences are (a) the inclusiveness - as proxied by high rates of participation at 17/18 and low social gradients of level 3 completion; (b) the esteem of vocational programmes; and (c) curriculum standardisation with regard to the study of maths and the national language.

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This report provides a detailed description of the assessment procedures and qualifications offered in France, Germany, Singapore and United States of America (USA) in comparison with the United Kingdom (UK). The work described in this technical report and the accompanying special report 'Into the twenty first century: an assessment of British skill profiles and prospects', was commissioned by the Department for Education and Science as part of the British Government's Skills Audit. The purpose was to develop methods of benchmarking the skill levels of four countries (France, Germany, Singapore and the USA) against those of the UK, to describe assessment and qualifications, gather data on stocks and flows of skills over time, and to discuss the supply of and demand for different levels of skill. The report is divided into four sections, each providing an assessment of that country's qualifications and comparing it with the relevant UK qualifications. Each section provides contextual information, a bibliography and references pertinent to that country. A summary of the findings on stocks of qualifications for the populations of the five countries is contained in 'Into the twenty first century'.

'Into the twenty first century: an assessment of British skill profiles and prospects' is indexed at TD/TNC 63.282. Show less

This article examines cross-country variations in adult skills inequality and asks why skills in Anglophone countries are so unequal. Drawing on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's [OECD's] recent Survey of Adult Skills and other surveys, it investigates the differences across countries and country groups in inequality in both skills opportunities and outcomes and uses pseudo-cohort analysis to establish trends over time and during the life course. The analysis shows that adults' skills in Anglophone countries, and particularly in the United States and England, tend to be more unequal than in other countries on a wide range of measures. This cannot be explained by intercohort differences, skills distributions among adult migrants, or levels and distributions of adult learning, but inequality in education levels provides a strong predictor of skills inequality among adults. Whereas research suggests that early selection drives skills inequality in compulsory schooling, certain forms of tracking, such as bifurcation into academic or apprenticeship/vocational education in upper secondary education, can have a mitigating effect.

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The 'Nordic model of lifelong learning', which gained international recognition towards the end of the last Millennium, had three distinguishing characteristics: universalistic provision of pre-school education; a comprehensive and relatively egalitarian secondary school system; and high levels of participation in adult learning. With strong provision for each stage of the life course, Nordic countries came to be regarded as leading exponents of lifelong learning when this concept was gaining international traction. International survey data on education system characteristics and outcomes largely confirmed the narrative about the exceptionalism of the Nordic systems. Participation in Scandinavian countries in pre-school and adult learning was higher than in other countries and skills outcomes in Nordic countries tended to be more equal than in other regions, except possibly East Asia, on most measures: with narrow distributions of skills; low impacts of social origins on achievement, and remarkably little variation between schools in social intakes and performance.

During the last two decades much has changed, with the rise of the neo-liberal paradigm in international education policy, and Nordic countries have responded in different ways to the new demands on education. This paper surveys the latest comparative research on education system types and characteristics, and their effects on skills - including from [Programme for International Student Assessment] PISA and the OECD Survey of Adult Skills - to assess how the distinctive characteristics of the Nordic model have fared. It finds that basic schooling (until age 15) in Nordic countries is less distinctively egalitarian than it once was but still more egalitarian than in most countries. On the other hand, pre-school and adult education remain exceptionally universalistic.

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In 1995, the then UK Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) and The Cabinet Office commissioned the first skills audit research to compare qualification levels in the UK, France, Germany, the USA and Singapore (report indexed at TD/TNC 63.282). This report updates the figures for these countries. Its aim is to enable UK policy makers to make accurate observations about how stocks of qualifications in the UK population compare with other countries. The study found that: significant improvements have been made in the UK’s qualification levels with the UK now closing the gap with other countries; the UK had the highest growth rate of all countries for qualifications at level two and above; the UK still has the lowest proportion at Level 2+ compared to the other countries studied; and the increase in qualification levels in the UK has been mainly in general, rather than vocational qualifications. The contents are: The UK in 2003 compared with the other countries in the audit (France, Germany, Singapore, US); General and vocational qualifications at Level 2 and above and Level 3 and above; Qualifications at NQF equivalent levels 4 and 5; Average annual growth rates of proportions of the population with qualifications at Levels 2 and 3 and above 1994-2003; Narrowing the gap between the UK and France, Germany, Singapore and the US; Qualification levels of women, 2002/3 at Level 2 and above; Employed and total populations: employment ratios by qualification level; Main conclusions. Show less

The OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills (SAS) recently revealed that, on average, literacy and numeracy skills in England are comparatively low among the 22 nations surveyed. Just as important, however, skills in England are very unequal. This paper investigates why numeracy and literacy skills in England's adult population are especially widely dispersed. [The authors found] that: (a) in England there is a larger gap in literacy and numeracy scores between the highest and lowest achievers than in most other countries; (b) the high ranking on skills inequality is especially marked among those aged 25 to 29; for this group England's high inequality is matched only by that of the United States; (c) countries with high levels of educational inequality tend to have high levels of skills inequality; moreover, taking 10-year age groups from 25 up, [the authors] find that for each group educational inequality is among the highest in England, for example, among 45-54 year olds, only Spain and Northern Ireland are more unequal; and (d) the relationship between parental background and adult literacy and numeracy among those aged 16 to 24 is stronger in England than in all other countries except the Slovak Republic; England's extreme position holds, even after [the authors] control for different levels of educational achievement.

[The authors] conclude that educational inequality over several decades has underpinned England's persistent skills inequality, and that the impact of social background may be leading to high levels of skills inequality both through processes external to the education system and through those which are internal to it. [The authors] also investigate and find no support for three possible additional explanations for England's high skills inequality: (1) inter-age group skills differences: these are low in England; (2) skills differences deriving from migration flows: the effects are small in England; and (3) especially unequal adult learning: the inequality of adult learning is broadly middling in England; moreover, there is no observed tendency for countries with high inequality of adult learning to have especially unequal literacy and numeracy in their older cohorts.

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