Search Results

This document sets out the UK Government's suggestions for improving the system for recognising professional qualifications across the European Union (EU). Recent evidence suggests that there is significant untapped potential in EU services, both in terms of productivity and employment. Reforms that improved the single market in services could have a significant impact on growth within the EU. Reforming the process for mutual recognition of professional qualifications in the EU is a key achievable priority in improving the single market in services, and creating growth.

Edited excerpts from publication. Show less

More and more adults are earning a tertiary qualification, but not all tertiary degrees have the same value on the labour market. In general, postgraduate degrees such as master's and doctoral degrees are associated with higher employment rates and earnings than bachelor's degrees. Labour market outcomes also vary by field of education. Some fields of education differ markedly in their gender composition, reflecting the sex-typing of occupations and gender stereotypes. Graduates' field of education is closely related with their occupational choices; therefore a better understanding of gender disparities in this area can help to identify some of the mechanisms that lie behind gender differences in the labour market and beyond.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

This report was presented to the Working Party on the Information Economy (WPIE) in December 2004. It provides an overview of information and communications technology (ICT) skills and employment across OECD economies and analyses some of the impacts on economic performance. It describes a new approach to identifying the diffusion of ICTs in the economy. Two measures of ICT-skilled employment are developed. The first is a narrow measure that uses occupational data to identify ICT specialists (e.g. programmers, software developers but also cable layers). The second is a broad measure that includes those who intensively use ICTs to perform their work (both basic and advanced intensive users), as well as the specialists. These measures are calculated for the economy as a whole and also by sector. The report provides a brief review of earlier attempts to identify the presence of ICTs in the economy and describes a new measurement approach developed for the 2004 ‘OECD information technology outlook’, which attempts to capture the diffusion of ICTs throughout the economy based on the degree of their actual use. The industry rankings based on the share of ICT-skilled employment in total employment are then compared to the results of other studies that classify industrial sectors on the basis of ICT usage. Some preliminary results from the analysis relating the ICT skills measures to productivity measures are presented. The report has expanded the analysis of ICT-skilled employment from the 2004 ‘OECD information technology outlook’ and extended it to include Canada. The analysis revealed that the narrow measure of ICT specialists followed a similar pattern across countries (European Union (EU)15, US, Canada and Australia), but that the trends for broad measure of ICT-intensive users and specialists diverged. The share of broad ICTskilled employment is increasing in the EU15, but decreasing in the US, Canada and Australia. The broad ICT-skilled employment measure was also analysed at the sectoral level. Findings reveal that many business services sectors have a very large share of ICT-skilled employment (e.g. computer and related services, financial intermediation services, and research and development), as well as certain manufacturing sectors (such as manufacturing of office machinery and computers). Personal services tended to have a relatively low share. Most sectors were found to have increased their share of ICT-skilled employment somewhat, particularly those that already had a relatively large share. Show less

Across the OECD, the labour-market performance of foreign-born-adults tends to lag behind that of the native-born. Immigrants are not only more likely to be unemployed or inactive, but they also earn less and work in lower-skilled jobs. Foreign-born adults feel their skills are underutilised in some countries. This has considerable consequences for the successful socio-economic integration of immigrants. Differences in skills proficiency, language spoken and country of education explain a large part - albeit not the entirety - of these observed gaps. Policies should therefore aim to provide immigrants with effective language tuition, adult education and training programmes in order to ensure the successful integration of foreign-born workers into host economies.

Excerpts from publication. Show less

Summary of the results of the OECD's 'Definition and Selection of Competencies' (DeSeCo) project which provides a framework that can guide the longer-term extension of [Programme for International Student Assessment] PISA assessments into new competency domains.

Excerpt from OECD website. Show less

The demand and supply of tertiary workers contribute to shaping their earnings advantage. The expansion of tertiary education has been accompanied by a decrease in the earnings advantage of tertiary-educated younger and older workers in many OECD and partner countries. Tertiary-educated workers reap the largest advantage in countries where few adults have completed tertiary education, such as Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia and Mexico. Tertiary-educated workers with high literacy skills have considerably higher earnings than tertiary-educated workers with lower skills. Older tertiary-educated workers benefit from both their relative scarcity among their generation and their longer professional experience, resulting in a higher earning advantage than their younger counterparts. It is difficult to say whether younger tertiary educated workers will achieve the same earnings advantage over time that the older generation currently enjoys. However, a formal qualification is not the sole assurance of higher earnings: higher skills lead to positive financial outcomes across all educational attainment levels.

Edited excerpts from publication. Show less

Southern Arizona has developed into a hub of light-based industries but ranks near the bottom third of US cities in per capita income. State funding for education is in decline, accentuated by the economic crisis, and the public good of tertiary education is under threat. In a time of financial stringency, how can the University of Arizona and community colleges preserve their existing strengths and address the needs of the diverse population? How can the region and its tertiary education institutions fuel local growth and create high quality jobs and new businesses? How can the institutions prepare for the post-crisis economy and help diversify the economy? This publication is part of a series of reviews that help mobilise higher education institutions for economic, social and cultural development of cities and regions. They analyse how the higher education system impacts upon regional and local development and bring together universities, other higher education institutions and public and private agencies to identify strategic goals and to work towards them.

Published abstract. Show less

Each economic survey issue provides a comprehensive analysis of developments in the subject country, along with individual chapters covering key economic challenges being faced and recommendations for dealing with the challenges. This 2010 edition of OECD's periodic survey of Australia's economy includes chapters covering recovery from the [global financial] crisis, fiscal policy effectiveness, meeting infrastructure needs, and enhancing labour utilisation. The Australian economy has been one of the most resilient in the OECD during the global economic and financial crisis. The impressive results, which are only partially due to links to fast-growing China and India, have shown that the economy was well-prepared to face major shocks. Years of sound policies left ample room for monetary and fiscal policy to act rapidly and forcefully when the crisis struck. A key to the good outcome was the interaction of appropriate macroeconomic policy with structural flexibility of markets, especially financial and labour markets. The strong policy response and encouraging outlook restored confidence rapidly, and exit from the stimulus is underway. The chapters are as follows: Basic statistics of Australia (2009); Executive summary; Assessment and recommendations; Recovering from the crisis and addressing medium-term challenges; Enhancing the effectiveness of fiscal policy; Meeting infrastructure needs; Enhancing labour utilisation in a socially inclusive society.

Published excerpts from OECD iLibrary website. Show less

Governments are seeking to channel research funds into universities and other institutions in ways that support high-quality research in strategically important areas and bolster effective knowledge diffusion. These issues of steering and funding have even more relevance in light of the current financial crisis and economic downturn which have seen severe fiscal pressures fall on many countries. This publication presents a collection of papers presented at an OECD workshop on performance-based funding for public research in tertiary education institutions in 2010, as well as a rapporteur's report and workshop summary. It takes stock of current thinking and practice around performance-based funding for public research in tertiary education institutions as a tool to help governments meet their research goals. These funding models are essentially systems of ex-post evaluation of research outputs and outcomes from universities and other tertiary institutions, and are generally based on peer review, bibliometrics or other quantitative indicators. Their results are used to inform government decisions about how much and which institutions to fund. An online annex provides additional detail of the performance-based funding systems in place in Australia, Austria, Belgium (Flemish Community), the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Poland and the United Kingdom. Show less

Drawing on data from two OECD sources, the Survey of Adult Skills and the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), this paper focuses on the current competencies and skill needs of teachers in relation to information and communication technology (ICT) and problem-solving skills. The paper concludes that the education sector performs well for ICT and problem-solving skills as teachers, who make up a large proportion of its workforce, tend to have better ICT and problem-solving skills than the overall population. In Japan and Korea, primary and secondary teachers are over 40 percentage points more likely than other tertiary graduates to have good skills when age is taken into account.

In a world where students must learn to navigate complex digital landscapes to succeed in the future, teachers play an important role which poses high demands on their skills and competencies. This may be why, despite their relatively high skills, more than half of lower secondary teachers expressed the need for professional development in ICT skills for teaching.

Edited excerpts from publication. Show less