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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.

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The United States [US] has the largest professional nurse workforce in the world numbering close to three million but does not produce enough nurses to meet its growing demand. A shortage of close to a million professional nurses is projected to evolve by 2020. An emerging physician shortage will further exacerbate the nurse shortage as the boundaries in scope of practice necessarily overlap. Nurse immigration has been growing since 1990 and the US is now the world’s major importer of nurses. While nurse immigration is expected to continue to grow, the shortage is too large to be solved by recruitment of nurses educated abroad without dramatically depleting the world’s nurse resources. Moreover, the domestic applicant pool for nursing education is very strong with tens of thousands of qualified applicants turned away annually because of faculty shortages and capacity limitations. The national shortage could be largely addressed by investments in expanding nursing school capacity to increase graduations by 25 per cent annually and the domestic applicant pool appears sufficient to support such an increase. A shortage of faculty and limited capacity for expansion of baccalaureate and graduate nurse education require public policy interventions. Specifically public subsidies to increase production of baccalaureate nurses are required to enlarge the size of the pool from which nurse faculty, advanced practice nurses in clinical care roles, and managers are all recruited. Retention of nurses in the workforce is critical and will require substantial improvements in human resource policies, the development of satisfying professional work environments, and technological innovations to ease the physical burdens of caregiving. Because of the reliance of the US on nurses educated abroad as well as the benefits to the US of improving global health, the nation should invest in nursing education as part of its global agenda.

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The leveraging training and skills development in [small and medium size enterprises] SMEs project is an international effort to look at policy issues related to the: low access to training in SMEs; barriers encountered by SMEs to training; and formal and informal ways SMEs access knowledge that is relevant for their business operations. The project examines how formal and alternative ways of training and skills development relate to specific outputs for the firm and employees, for the industry and for the local area where they are located. In particular the role of skills and training ecosystems at the local level is analysed. This policy review of vocational education and training in East Flanders, Belgium was prepared within the framework of the project. Show less

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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High-stake assessment can be an obstacle to the introduction of innovative practices in education and to the development of social and behavioural competences that are crucial for innovation (but typically fall out of the scope of existing assessments). This report reviews the evidence on the impact of high-stake summative assessment on innovation in education and explores possible ways to reconcile high-stakes assessments and examinations through innovative approaches to testing.

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In 1996, the OECD's Education Committee launched the 14-country 'Thematic review of the transition from initial education to working life'. Within a lifelong learning framework the review had two key goals: to describe how young people's transition to work changed during the 1990s; and to describe the education, labour and social policies, and the interaction between these, that lead to successful youth transitions. This country note provides an overview of the Australian educational system, and the policies that have developed in response to concerns about youth unemployment, social alienation among the young and long-term economic prosperity. The report is divided into four main sections: an outline of several of the key contextual factors shaping young people’s transition; major principles that characterise the reform efforts that have been underway since the mid-1980s in Australia; issues that struck the review team as requiring continuing attention from policy makers and practitioners; and concluding remarks.

The background report for Australia is indexed at TD/TNC 50.91; the final report of the OECD review is indexed at TD/TNC 62.156. Show less

The Polish government, acknowledging the importance of its human capital to Poland's transition to a market economy and accession to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), requested an OECD review of its education sector. The review, undertaken in 1995, covered all areas of the Polish system of education and training, including the quality and effectiveness of education, the teaching profession and teacher education, higher education and the financing of education. The report consists of two parts: a summary of the background report prepared by the Polish authorities and educational researchers from the Ministry of National Education and the examiner's report compiled by education experts from outside Poland. A number of recommendations are made in relation to curriculum development, evaluation of the performance of the system, the professional status of teachers, and the reorganisation of higher education. The report concludes with proposals for the development of a human resource development policy in Poland. Show less

Tertiary education policy is increasingly important on national agendas. The widespread recognition that tertiary education is a major driver of economic competitiveness in an increasingly knowledge-driven global economy has made high-quality tertiary education more important than ever. The imperative for countries is to raise higher-level employment skills, to sustain a globally competitive research base and to improve knowledge dissemination to the benefit of society. This two-volume publication provides a thorough international investigation of tertiary education policy across its many facets - governance, funding, quality assurance, equity, research and innovation, academic career, links to the labour market and internationalisation. The report presents: an analysis of the trends and developments in tertiary education; a synthesis of research-based evidence on the impact of tertiary education policies; innovative and successful policies and practices that countries have implemented; and tertiary education policy options. The report draws on the results of a major OECD review of tertiary education policy - the OECD Thematic Review of Tertiary Education - conducted over the 2004-08 period in collaboration with 24 countries around the world. Country papers from the review are indexed from TD/TNC 89.551 to TD/TNC 89.585.

Volume one is entitled ‘Special features: governance, funding, quality’ and contains the following chapters: Introduction; Setting the stage: impacts, trends and challenges of tertiary education; Setting the right course: steering tertiary education; Matching funding strategies with national priorities; Assuring and improving quality. Volume two is entitled ‘Special features: equity, innovation, labour market, internationalisation’ and contains the following chapters: Achieving equity; Enhancing the role of tertiary education in research and innovation; The academic career: adapting to change; Strengthening ties with the labour market; Internationalisation: shaping strategies in the national context; What next?: the challenges of policy implementation; Appendices: How the review was conducted; Structure of tertiary education systems in selected countries; Improving the knowledge base; Summary of policy directions.

A three-volume synthesis report was prepared for release and discussion at Tertiary Education for the Knowledge Society, an international conference to present the results of the OECD Thematic Review of Tertiary Education in Lisbon on 3-4 April 2008. This report is indexed at TD/TNC 89.577. Show less

In 1996, the OECD's Education Committee launched the 14-country 'Thematic review of the transition from initial education to working life'. Within a lifelong learning framework the review had two key goals: to describe how young people's transition to work changed during the 1990s; and to describe the education, labour and social policies, and the interaction between these, that lead to successful youth transitions. This background report looks at transitions in the Czech Republic, set within the context of the economic, social and political transformation that has occurred since the fall of the Socialist regime in 1989. The report is divided into sections as follows: (1) Contextual and institutional factors; (2) Clarification of perceptions; (3) Concerns about transition processes and outcomes; (4) Changes of expectations and objectives; and (5) Policy for the transition process.

The country note for the Czech Republic is indexed at TD/TNC 77.195; the final report of the OECD review is indexed at TD/TNC 62.156. Show less

Impressive progress has been made in raising participation in early childhood education as well as tertiary educational attainment over the past 30 years. However, the inflow of poorly educated youth into the labour market is unusually heavy for a high-income country, largely on account of high drop-out rates in lower secondary education which, in turn, reflect one of the highest grade repetition rates in the OECD. The supply of workers with intermediate vocational skills is surprisingly low, despite the high return, in terms of labour market outcomes that these skills offer, even if they have recently deteriorated. There is room to raise learning outcomes up to the end of compulsory school, as measured by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), although, owing to a compressed distribution of such outcomes, the share of poorly performing pupils is not unusually large. While significant reforms have been undertaken to address these problems, more measures are needed to reduce grade repetition and raise education outcomes, by improving accountability of schools and school staff, as well as by raising school autonomy further than has already occurred. Vocational training needs to become more attractive. In tertiary education, few Spanish universities have attained a high level of international standing, and scope remains to improve the contribution tertiary attainment can make to gains in economic welfare, notably by reforming funding arrangements.

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