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Better skills policies help build economic resilience, boost employment and reinforce social cohesion. The OECD Skills Strategy provides countries with a framework to analyse their skills strengths and challenges. Each OECD Skills Strategy diagnostic report reflects a set of skills challenges identified by broad stakeholder engagement and OECD comparative evidence while offering concrete examples of how other countries have tackled similar skills challenges.

These reports tackle questions such as: How can countries maximise their skills potential? How can they improve their performance in developing relevant skills, activating skills supply and using skills effectively? What is the benefit of a whole-of-government approach to skills? How can governments build stronger partnerships with employers, trade unions, teachers and students to deliver better skills outcomes? OECD skills strategy diagnostic reports provide new insights into these questions and help identify the core components of successful skills strategies. This report [for Italy] is part of the OECD's ongoing work on building effective national and local skills strategies.

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This publication presents OECD’s latest review of labour market trends and issues. In addition to its regular overview of labour markets in OECD countries and its comprehensive statistical annex, this edition also includes articles covering trade adjustment costs in OECD labour markets, regional disparities in labour markets, the role of in-work benefits in increasing employment of the unemployed and inactive, and evaluating the impact of labour market programmes and public employment services.

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The 'OECD review of migrant education' was launched to help policy makers to design and implement migrant education policy successfully in their countries. It will provide solid facts about access, participation and student performance of immigrant students in comparison with their native peers and identify a set of policy options based on evidence of what works and examples of experience from many countries. The OECD is conducting policy reviews of migrant education in Austria, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. This report is one in the series of country policy reviews and provides country-specific diagnosis and policy recommendations. By international standards, immigrant students in Ireland, on average, perform as well as their native peers at age 15. However, non-English speaking immigrants face particular challenges and do less well. Ireland is currently undertaking measures with a strong focus on language support and intercultural education. There is scope to: improve access to quality early childhood education and care for all, especially immigrant children, by implementing 'Free Pre-School Year for All'; strengthen initial and ongoing learning opportunities for language support teachers; concentrate efforts on mainstreaming language support and intercultural education into regular curriculum, teacher education and research; reinforce a 'whole-school approach' by enhancing capacities of teachers and school leaders to be more responsive to the growing linguistic and cultural diversity of students; ensure access to school, home and community liaison services for immigrant families, with careful attention to language and cultural barriers; collect better data to further encourage schools to adopt diversity and inclusive education; and set up a coherent framework for continuous feedback - at classroom, school and system [levels] - embedded in policy evaluation and school inspection. The overall findings of the review will be published in 2010 as a concise, action-oriented handbook for policy makers.

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The OECD thematic review of adult learning was undertaken between December 1999 and November 2001 to analyse policy options in different national contexts for improving access to, and participation in, adult learning and to enhance its quality and effectiveness. OECD countries taking part in the review prepared a descriptive background report on the adult learning practices in their own countries. These reports were used to provide an OECD expert review team with the information required to conduct an effective direct analysis. This document represents the background report for Sweden and it focuses on adult learning taking place below university and university college levels. The report contains the following parts: chapter one, ‘Adult education in Sweden: an overview’, provides broad background information on the development of adult learning and adult education; chapter two, ‘Adult learning: needs, incentives and access’, focuses on the individual as well as the conditions, opportunities and barriers to participating in learning; chapter three, ‘Organisers of adult education’, examines the supply of adult education and the various providers in this arena, such as national schools for adults, folk high schools, labour market training, private providers, and higher education; chapter four, ‘Current initiatives and overview’, reviews measures for improving opportunities for adult learning and examines the results that have been achieved; chapter five, ‘Challenges ahead’, reviews the current situation and the probable development of adult learning in the future.

The background country reports available in English are indexed from TD/TNC 73.64 to TD/TNC 73.69 and at TD/TNC 62.795. Available analytical country notes, prepared by the OECD multinational review team and based on the background reports and discussions with national stakeholders, are indexed from TD/TNC 73.70 to TD/TNC 73.75. The final comparative report is indexed at TD/TNC 73.63. Show less

This paper reviews international research in the field of dropout from upper secondary education and training in OECD countries in order to present possible solutions to policymakers faced with the completion challenge. The paper begins by presenting existing definitions of dropout and upper secondary completion and states that dropout must be understood as the final step in a process of disengagement that begins early. Causes that lead to dropout in OECD countries are then studied, and the paper illustrates that causes of dropout are highly complex and intertwined. Finally, to address these causes or risk factors, the paper reviews research that had been carried out on piloted or implemented measures across OECD countries. It finds that successful measures address several risk factors and involve action both within school, outside school and at systemic level simultaneously. The paper concludes by presenting a set of solutions according to educational level and emphasizes that preventive measures to reduce dropout should start early. Early identification enables broader, less costly measures to be set up earlier and leaves the more costly one-on-one measures for later stages of education to the remaining at risk students that have not yet been picked up. Overcoming the completion challenge requires a close cooperation between educational authorities and many other parts of government such as social and labour services, health services and justice system in some countries.

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The Survey of Adult Skills finds that adults aged 55 to 65 are less proficient in literacy and numeracy than adults aged 25 to 34. Adults tend to lose their information-processing skills as they age, especially if they do not use them. While older adults may compensate for this loss by developing other valuable skills, the importance of being proficient in information-processing skills in determining wages and employment does not diminish as workers age. But differences in skills proficiency that are related to age vary widely across countries, implying that skills policies can affect the evolution of proficiency over a lifetime. And while older adults are generally less proficient than younger adults, they do no worse, and often better, than younger adults in terms of labour market outcomes. The paper concludes that, to ensure economies do not suffer unduly as the working population ages, school leavers will need a basic set of information-processing skills on which they can build as they grow older. Also, more opportunities are needed for high quality adult and on-the-job training so that older adults can maintain the skill they already have and acquire new ones.

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In 2001, the OECD launched a review of policies to improve labour market prospects for older workers. The review aimed to examine both supply-side and demand-side aspects of this issue. Older workers have been defined as those aged 50 years and over. The review argues that many policy measures and workplace practices create significant barriers to older workers continuing to work and that current reforms will not be sufficient to encourage later retirement and to lessen the risk of future labour shortages. This report, part of a series covering around 21 OECD countries, contains a survey of Ireland’s main barriers to employment for older workers, an assessment of the adequacy and effectiveness of existing measures to overcome these barriers, and a set of policy recommendations for further action by public authorities and social partners. These recommendations are designed to alleviate some of the pension and health care pressures governments are facing because of ageing populations. Although participation rates of older workers in Ireland are expected to continue to increase in the future, the report recommends that further action be taken to remove existing barriers to older workers wishing to stay in employment longer. This report is published in English with a French translation of the executive summary and recommendations. The chapters are: The challenge ahead; The labour market situation of older workers; Income support and work incentives for older people; Encouraging employers to hire and retain older workers; Strengthening older workers’ employability; Policy guidelines.

The final report of the OECD review of ageing and employment policies is indexed at TD/TNC 85.65. Show less

This paper notes that OECD countries differ significantly in the way spending on tertiary education is shared between public and private sources of funding, and in the financial support they provide to students. Countries with high tuition fees tend to also be those where private entities other than households make a more significant contribution to funding tertiary institutions. By contrast, in countries with more progressive tax regimes, students often pay low or no tuition fees and have access to generous public subsidies for tertiary education, but then face high income tax rates. An increasing number of OECD countries charge higher tuition fees for international students than for national students, and many also differentiate tuition fees by field of education, largely because of the divergent returns on wages. In countries with high tuition fees, student financial support systems that offer all students loans with income-contingent repayments combined with means-tested grants can be an effective way to promote access and equity while sharing the costs of tertiary education between taxpayers and students.

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Across TALIS 2013 countries and economies, new teachers with a maximum of three years' work experience comprise, on average, 10 per cent of the total teacher population.

New teachers are more likely to feel prepared in the content of their subject field(s), rather than the pedagogy or classroom practice of their subject field(s). However, the levels of their perceived preparedness were lower than experienced teachers in all three domains. In nearly two-thirds of TALIS 2013 countries and economies, the largest difference in reported preparedness between new and experienced teachers was in classroom practice of the subject field(s) they teach, followed by the pedagogy of the subject field(s) they teach.

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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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