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Are teachers being adequately prepared and supported to make the most of the diverse students in their classrooms? Globalised societies must learn to benefit from their increasingly diverse populations. Teachers can play a key role in this by integrating students with different backgrounds and encouraging their academic and social achievement. As teachers’ roles and responsibilities change with their students, teacher education and training must evolve as well. What is the best way to do this, and how can success be measured? This publication summarises key research findings which can be used to redesign initial and continuing teacher education to help practitioners effectively teach diverse students. It looks at challenges teachers face in OECD countries and presents a range of policies and practices used in various contexts, from countries with long histories of diversity to those with more recent experiences. The key role of evaluation - of teachers, schools and systems - is emphasised. [This publication] asks how these insights can inspire continuing educational reform for our changing classrooms, with a special focus on key questions for research, policy and practice.

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Outside the Netherlands Rotterdam is best known for its port - once the busiest in the world, and still the busiest in Europe. But the docks have moved steadily downstream and the centre of Rotterdam is very different from what it was even 50 years ago. A young and dynamic city, Rotterdam is one of the few in Europe where the average age of the population is decreasing. It is ethnically and culturally diverse and has high potential for attracting the 'creative class'. The Rotterdam region is home to two leading research universities and several other innovative higher education institutions. This report looks at how to encourage growth in the Rotterdam region, through the transfer of technology and knowledge, and through realising the potential of its people. This publication is part of the series of OECD reviews of Higher Education in Regional and City Development. These reviews 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.

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This report collects five case studies of regional economic development models that have been considered of interest to Wales and similar regions. For each of the five strategies the aim has been to analyse rationale and conceptual framework, policy pillars, delivery mechanisms and potential transferability to Wales. The case studies have been prepared following a qualitative approach that has consisted of desk reviews of existing policy documents and interviews with regional policymakers and other relevant local development stakeholders.

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This report brings together findings from the case studies in Berlin and Rostock on how entrepreneurship support is organised, the activities in entrepreneurship education and start-up support, and the strategy behind. In addition, the report provides in its 'fishing ideas from international good practice' section 13 short descriptions of how places and universities collaborate elsewhere in mobilising their talents for entrepreneurial action. These short case studies are intended to provide inspiration for both policy and local action on the key issues in making places conducive to entrepreneurship and innovation, in entrepreneurship education, and in making university entrepreneurship support systems work.

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This report has three parts. Part one provides an overview of trends and challenges of Korean post-secondary [vocational education and training] VET. This part is composed of five chapters: introduction; trends and new challenges in skills development; skill formation beyond school; signals and matching labour market; and conclusion. Each of these chapters discusses the trend and developments that are giving rise to policy concerns. Part two provides an overview about post-secondary VET of OECD, with relation to supply and demand in post-secondary VET of OECD countries, career guidance, and access and dropout. Finally, the annex is composed of three parts: OECD-KRIVET joint seminar proceedings; joint meeting of OECD-KRIVET research teams; and OECD meeting materials. This annex shows the situation to pursue the collaboration between OECD and KRIVET.

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There is little cross-country comparative evidence on the way labour market institutions shape gross job and worker flows, by and large because comparable data for many countries are scarce. By using a unique harmonised dataset on hirings and separations at the industry-level for a large majority of OECD countries, we fill this gap, by analysing the role of a number of labour and product market institutions in shaping cross-country differences in gross worker flows. In order to identify the effect of policies and institutions we consider an industry-level difference-in-difference approach. The basic premise of this approach is that the effect of a particular policy on gross job flows is greater in industries where the policy is more likely to constrain firm behaviour. We check, however, the robustness of our results using more standard cross-country/time-series estimates. The richness of the data available to us allows estimating the impact of the institutions also on the transitions from job to job, the transitions from job to nonemployment and the transitions from non-employment to jobs. We find that cross-country differences in job protection for open-ended contracts and unemployment benefits can explain a large share of crosscountry variation in gross worker flows. However, the effect of the former is essentially limited to job-to-job flows.

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This review of Local Economic and Employment Development [LEED] policy approaches in OECD countries has been carried out by the OECD LEED Programme in collaboration with the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG). The aim of the review is to identify successful and/or innovative policy initiatives that could be relevant to Wales and regional economic development models that could inspire Wales’s future strategy-making. Given the large volume of material already available on Welsh economic challenges and policies, the focus was not on ‘looking in’ but on ‘looking out’ at initiatives that could inspire Wales from other OECD regions, based on existing understanding of the challenges. The two main objectives of the review have therefore been: (a) identify and analyse innovative and/or successful single policy tools that could potentially be applied in Wales; (b) identify and analyse some broader regional economic strategies and their delivery arrangements that could inspire the overall economic development approach of Wales.

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‘Learning for jobs’ is an OECD study of vocational education and training (VET) designed to help countries make their VET systems more responsive to labour market needs. Ireland has a wide range of VET provision targeted at different client groups. The national qualifications framework is comprehensive and includes a strong commitment to the avoidance of dead-ends and pathways of progression. At the same time, the economic crisis is making intense demands on the Irish VET system, particularly on the apprenticeship system, which focuses on a narrow set of occupations. Weak literacy and numeracy are serious problems for many learners, and many of those looking after VET students, in particular those in companies, lack pedagogical training. The OECD review assesses the main challenges faced by the VET system and presents an interconnected package of policy recommendations. For each recommendation, the report describes the challenge, the recommendation itself, supporting arguments, and issues of implementation.

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The impacts of climate change, and especially the subsequent mitigation and adaptation policies, on labour markets are still largely unknown despite the recent demand for knowledge production and diffusion on this topic and the increasing avalanche of reports and studies from public, private and not-for-profit organisations. The search for alternative models of growth in the midst of the financial crisis has increased interest in the 'green growth paradigm' and what it means for a rich-jobs recovery. This paper discusses some of the impacts of climate change including labour market regulation, the dynamics of green growth at the level of jobs and skills development, and the local implications for mitigation and enabling green growth. Although the paper does not provide all the answers to the green enigma (green jobs will come but how?), it argues that much benefit will come from focusing efforts on skills transformation, tools and initiatives. This paper benefits from the financial support of the European Commission.

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Across OECD countries, governments are seeking policies to make education more effective while searching for additional resources to meet the increasing demand for education. The 2010 edition of ‘Education at a glance: OECD indicators’ enables countries to see themselves in the light of other countries’ performance. It provides a rich, comparable and up-to-date array of indicators on systems and represents the consensus of professional thinking on how to measure the current state of education internationally. The indicators show who participates in education, how much is spent on it and how education systems operate. They also illustrate a wide range of educational outcomes, comparing, for example, student performance in key subject areas and the impact of education on earnings and on adults’ chances of employment. The indicator framework distinguishes between a macro level, two meso-levels and a micro-level of education systems. These relate to the education system as a whole, the educational institutions and providers of educational services, the instructional setting and the learning environment within the institutions, and the individual participants in education and learning.

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