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This paper concentrates on the role of foreign students' tuition fees in funding tertiary institutions and on the international mobility of students. The number of students enrolled in tertiary education outside their country of citizenship has been steadily increasing over the last 15 years. Some countries attract foreign students on a revenue-generating or at least a cost-recovery basis, while others do not differentiate between the tuition fees paid by national and foreign students. The evidence from recent tuition-fee reforms suggests that tuition fees influence the choice of destination countries among international new entrants. However, higher tuition fees do not necessarily discourage international students, and can contribute substantially to the funding of tertiary education.

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Chile has long considered education as a central priority and as key for its economic development. Over the past two decades the country has made great strides to increase the numbers of young people entering tertiary education. In 2008 Chile embarked on a bold initiative to develop its human capital with a scholarship abroad scheme - the Becas Chile Programme - which aims to train 30,000 outstanding students including teachers and technicians in institutions of their choice around the world. This joint OECD and World Bank report gives an overview of human capital development in Chile; describes features of the Becas Chile Programme; analyses the strategic and operational issues; and recommends ways to maintain and fine-tune the scholarship abroad scheme.

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Economic and cultural globalisation has ushered in a new era in higher education. Higher education was always more internationally open than most sectors because of its immersion in knowledge, which never showed much respect for juridical boundaries. In global knowledge economies, higher education institutions are more important than ever as mediums for a wide range of cross-border relationships and continuous global flows of people, information, knowledge, technologies, products and financial capital. Even as they share in the reinvention of the world around them, higher education institutions, and the policies that produce and support them, are also being reinvented. For the first time in history every research university is part of a single world-wide network and the world leaders in the field have an unprecedented global visibility and power. Research is more internationalised than before and the mobility of doctoral students and faculty has increased. The specifically global element in academic labour markets has gained weight, especially since the advent of global university rankings. This working paper explores the issues for national policy and for individual institutions. Part one provides an overview of globalisation and higher education and the global responses of national systems and individual institutions of higher education. Part two is focused on certain areas of policy with a strong multilateral dimension: Europeanisation, institutional rankings and typologies and cross-border mobility.

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The OECD education indicators enable countries to compare their educational performance with that of other countries. This publication provides a broad, comparable and current selection of educational indicators that provide information on the output of educational institutions and the impact of learning, the policy that shapes educational outcomes and how education systems operate and evolve, and the human and financial resources invested in education. The focus of this edition is on the quality of learning outcomes and the policy levers that shape them. The volume includes a comparative overview of student performance in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy as well as of students’ civic engagement and attitudes. In addition to national performance levels, the overview also examines issues of equity in learning outcomes and opportunities as well as the broader private and social returns that accrue to investments in education. New information on student learning conditions, including the learning climate in the classroom and the use of information technology in education as well as on teacher working conditions provide a better understanding of key determinants of educational success. Finally, for many indicators, a significantly larger number of OECD countries are now providing data. Through the World Education Indicators program, a wide range of non-member countries have also contributed to this edition so that the coverage of some of the indicators extends to almost two-thirds of the world population. The four major chapters examine the outcomes of education and learning, the financial and human resources invested in education, access to education and participation and progression through the education system, and the learning environment and organisation of schools.

The companion volume ‘Education policy analysis’ (indexed at TD/TNC 72.300) takes up selected themes of key importance for governments. Show less

The 2006 edition of ‘Education at a glance’ provides a current and comparable set of indicators on the performance of education systems and represents the consensus of professional thinking on how to measure the current state of education internationally. The indicators look at who participates in education, what is spent on it, how education systems operate and the results achieved. Indicators comprise a wide range of outcomes, from comparisons of student’s performance in key subject areas to the impact of education on earnings and on adults’ chances of employment. New material in this edition includes: further analysis of results of the 2003 survey of the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), including student access to, and use of, ICT; analysis of the lowest performing students; the effects of family background on students’ performance and the way classes are organised in schools; trend data on tertiary qualifications, including projections for the year 2014; trend data on survival rates in tertiary education; the impact of demographic trends on education systems, as well as projections on expenditure for the year 2015; trend data on expected years of education; instruction time per subject for 9-to-14-year-olds; a picture of student mobility and the significance of internationalisation of higher education. The ExcelR spreadsheets used to create the tables and charts are available via the StatLinks printed in the book. The chapters are as follows: The output of educational institutions and the impact of learning; Financial and human resources invested in education; Access to education, participation and progression; The learning environment and organisation of schools. Included as appendices are: Characteristics of educational systems; Reference statistics; Sources, methods and technical notes. Show less

Education at a Glance is the OECD’s annual round-up of data and analysis on education, providing a rich, comparable and up-to-date array of indicators on education systems in the OECD’s 30 member countries and in a number of partner economies. The 2008 edition of ‘Education at a glance: OECD indicators’ looks at who participates in education, what is spent on it and how education systems operate and the results achieved. The latter includes indicators on a wide range of outcomes, from comparisons of students’ performance in key subject areas to the impact of education on earnings and on adults’ chances of employment. New material in this edition includes: entry rates in tertiary education by field of study; data on the skills of 15-year-olds in science; an analysis of the socio-economic background of 15-year-olds and the role of their parents; data on the extent to which the socioeconomic status of parents affects students’ participation in higher education; data on the returns to education; data on the governance of higher education institutions; an analysis of efficiency in the use of resources; data on evaluations and assessments within education systems; and a comparison of the levels of decision-making in education across countries.

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‘Highlights from Education at a Glance 2008’ is indexed at TD/TNC 95.605. Show less

Choosing a field of study means choosing a career, a professional identity, a sector of society, and to a certain extent also a way of life and a set of values. Yet there is no longer a straightforward relationship between the subject studied and future employment, as today's students have a variety of ways to acquire new skills and multiple paths to specialise in different domains. People change jobs and professions more frequently and job mobility is becoming an increasingly important feature of contemporary labour markets.

This brief paper examines what tertiary students are choosing to study and makes the following points: (1) the social sciences are the most popular field for non-vocational tertiary education programs; one in three new students choose a program in social sciences, business and law; (2) gender equality has been virtually achieved in many fields of study, especially in social sciences and services but significant gender differences persist in computing and engineering (male-dominated) and in health and welfare and education (female-dominated); and (3) almost one in four international students in OECD countries follow programs in the field of business and administration (23 per cent), and the proportion of international students from fields oriented to the public function such as education (three per cent) or health and welfare (nine per cent) is lower on average.

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This report focuses on the results from the [Programme for International Student Assessment] PISA 2000 survey in terms of student approaches to learning, examining the learning strategies adopted by students, their motivation, and their confidence in their ability to learn. The results of the survey reveal strong correlation between student approaches to learning and measurable student outcomes. The results suggest that effective learning depends significantly on developing positive attitudes. The analysis identifies which learner characteristics are most common in 22 OECD and four non-OECD countries. Differences between the approaches to learning of a range of groups, including male and female students, and those from more and less advantaged social backgrounds, are noted.

Other reports on aspects of PISA 2000 are indexed at TD/TNC 67.328, TD/TNC 69.309, TD/TNC 69.532, TD/TNC 70. 554, TD/TNC 73.121 and TD/TNC 75.137. Show less

Parents' level of education still greatly influences that of their children: individuals are 4.5 times more likely to attend higher education if one of their parents has a higher education degree than if both their parents have below upper secondary education. Inequalities in higher education reflect to a great extent what happened earlier in an educational career. Upper secondary students from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to perform well in [Programme for International Student Assessment] PISA assessments, less likely to complete upper secondary education and less likely even to aspire to attend higher education. Nevertheless, higher education institutions still have an important role to play in reducing inequalities. Policies must aim to make higher education more accessible for students from disadvantaged backgrounds as well as to support these students and improve their success at this level.

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Many countries have been successful in closing gender gaps in learning outcomes. But even when boys and girls are equally proficient in mathematics and science, their attitudes towards learning and aspirations for their future are markedly different - and that has a significant impact on their decision to pursue further education and on their choice of career. This report, [based on Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data], tries to determine why 15-year-old boys are more likely than girls, on average, to be overall low achievers, and why high-performing 15-year-old girls underachieve in mathematics, science and problem solving compared to high-achieving boys. As the evidence in the report makes clear, gender disparities in school performance stem from students' attitudes towards learning and their behaviour in school, from how they choose to spend their leisure time, and from the confidence they have - or do not have - in their own abilities as students.

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The contents are as follows: Emerging gender gaps in education; Tackling underperformance among boys; Girls' lack of self-confidence; Expectations and reality for school-leavers; How family, school and society affect boys' and girls' performance at school; Policies and practices to help boys and girls fulfil their potential. Show less