Despite significant increases in spending on child care and education during the last decade, PISA scores suggest that educational performance remains static, uneven and strongly related to parents’ income and background. Better educational performance could improve labour market outcomes,...

The NZ labour market is among the most flexible in the OECD, and outcomes for its young people have been among the best. However, labour-market opportunities are heavily determined by initial education, where New Zealand’s system is also successful and innovative in many ways. Average PISA...

This study provides estimates of the private Internal Rates of Return (IRR) to tertiary education for women and men in 21 OECD countries, for the years between 1991 and 2005. IRR are computed by estimating labour market premia on cross-country comparable individual-level data. Labour market...

This paper examines various efficiency and equity aspects related to the skill acquisition of young people and older adults. The analysis suggests that such human capital investment is associated with significant labour-market gains for individuals, including higher post-tax earnings and better...

Chile has made impressive progress in educational attainment. Yet, despite recent improvements, outcomes, as measured by PISA results, still need to catch up with OECD standards and equity problems should be addressed. One decisive ingredient will be better teachers. Chile should aim to attract...

Presque tous les travailleurs ont un niveau d’instruction correspondant au moins au deuxième cycle de l’enseignement secondaire, et l’enseignement professionnel contribue à assurer aux jeunes un passage à l’emploi parmi les plus réussis de la zone de l’OCDE. L’enseignement...

Improving education outcomes is important for Germany’s long-term economic performance and social cohesion. While student achievement is above the OECD average in science and at the OECD average in reading and mathematics according to the 2006 OECD PISA study, weaker students tend to do badly...

Traditionally, the Norwegian compulsory education system has focused strongly on the linked goals of equal opportunities to learn, comprehensive and inclusive education. While some of these objectives have been met successfully, a number of educational outcomes, notably measures of pupil...

The efficiency of schools diverges dramatically across countries in the OECD and can also vary markedly within countries. These differences in levels of efficiency can be traced to policy and institutional settings. As such, moving to best practice could boost educational attainment and reduce...

This paper assesses how policies and institutions affect private returns to invest in tertiary human capital, the ability of individuals to finance this investment and the institutional characteristics of tertiary education systems. Focusing on core tertiary education services, the paper...