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Recent years have seen a number of initiatives which seek to provide a range of community services on school sites, including adult education and other social and welfare services. These developments aim at co-ordinating more effectively services which are usually provided separately while optimizing the use of increasingly sophisticated and expensive educational buildings and equipment. However, providing integrated services "under one roof" poses a number of practical problems. What is the rationale for integrated service provision? What are the implications for the local authorities, planners and architects in charge of designing school sites that meet new requirements? This report presents the main lessons learned from a conference held in Stockholm, drawing on case studies from Finland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Quebec, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The case studies provide a wealth of examples of solutions to the challenge of optimizing the use of existing schools by better integrating them into local communities and by promoting new synergies with other services.
Middle-class households feel left behind and have questioned the benefits of economic globalisation. In many OECD countries, middle incomes have grown less than the average and in some they have not grown at all. Technology has automated several middle-skilled jobs that used to be carried out by middle-class workers a few decades ago. The costs of some goods and services such as housing, which are essential for a middle-class lifestyle, have risen faster than earnings and overall inflation. Faced with this, middle classes have reduced their ability to save and in some cases have fallen into debt. This report sheds light on the multiple pressures on the middle class. It analyses the trends of middle-income households through dimensions such as labour occupation, consumption, wealth and debt, as well as perceptions and social attitudes. It also discusses policy initiatives to address the concerns raised by the middle class, by protecting middle-class living standards and financial security in the face of economic challenges.
This book examines how new scientific developments in understanding how the brain works can help educators and educational policy makers develop new and more efficient methods for teaching and developing educational policies. This new "science of learning" is providing insights into how to improve reading and mathematical skills and highlights the significance of the distinction between nature and nurture in learning and brain development. The book focuses on the importance of developing a trans-disciplinary approach where teachers, the medical profession, and scientists work together.
This book provides new insights about learning by synthesising existing and emerging findings from cognitive and brain science and exploring how this new information might impact teaching, parenting, and educational policy making. It shows what the latest brain imaging techniques and other advances in the neurosciences actually reveal about how the brain develops and operates at different stages in life from birth to old age and how the brain is involved in acquiring skills such as reading and counting. It also presents scientific insights into what happens when the brain malfunctions in conditions such as dyslexia or Alzheimer's disease.
China Education Daily nominated this book as one of the "100 most influential education books for teachers" on December 15, 2011.
Education is vital for economic success, both at the national and the individual level. But education also has significant social effects. This report is OECD’s first attempt to gather and synthesise developments in measuring these social effects. The report focuses on two broad areas: health, and civic and social engagement. In general, better educated people are healthier, and take more part in civic activities. Why should this be so? This publication draws on findings from 13 OECD countries (Austria, Flemish Belgium, Canada, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom [England and Scotland] and the United States) to provide new models and insights into these important contemporary issues.
This profile provides a concise and policy-relevant overview of health and the health system in the United Kingdom as part of the broader series of the State of Health in the EU country profiles. It provides a short synthesis of: the health status in the country; the determinants of health, focussing on behavioural risk factors; the organisation of the health system; and the effectiveness, accessibility and resilience of the health system.
This profile is the joint work of the OECD and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, in co-operation with the European Commission.
The Brussels-Capital Region has witnessed significant improvements in its labour market over the past decade. Local job creation has been driven by ample opportunities for highly-skilled workers whom the Brussels-Capital Region attracts from its surrounding regions, the European Union, and beyond. However, not all of the region’s population has seen their labour market prospects improve equally. Many workers with lower levels of education continue to compete for a small number of vacancies, despite the increasingly tightening labour market.
A future vision for the Brussels-Capital Region, therefore, needs to be built on recognising and addressing the multiple and often distinct challenges faced by its young and diverse population. In a labour market that offers high rewards for skills formation, tailoring continuous education and training offerings to different groups while removing barriers to participation in such programmes will need to take priority. Simplifying processes for accessing employment services, streamlining labour market policies, supporting the geographic mobility of less-educated jobseekers, and removing barriers to employment for its migrant population could serve as building blocks to increase labour force participation and improve the employment quality of all local talent.
Among the millions of asylum seekers who recently arrived in OECD countries, the majority are young people who may be able to take advantage of vocational education and training (VET) opportunities to help them enter skilled employment. This report provides advice to governments and other stakeholders who are seeking to use VET to promote integration, in particular for young humanitarian migrants. While the study draws particularly on policy and practice observed in Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland, it also highlights other international practices.
The report focuses on the main channels through which migrants succeed in VET. It is essential that migrants are fully informed about the opportunities VET provision offers and that they have access to high quality preparatory programmes enabling access to upper-secondary VET. Once in such provision, targeted support should help them to complete VET programmes successfully. OECD countries are putting in place innovative measures to achieve better outcomes for both migrants and for economies as a whole. Ultimately this report argues that VET systems can become stronger, more flexible and more inclusive, when working better for all students, including those with diverse and vulnerable backgrounds.
The German vocational education and training (VET) system is admired around the world for its ability to prepare young people for skilled employment. In Germany, VET smooths transitions into work and is closely aligned with labour market demand. This report focuses on an unprecedented test of the German VET system: how to respond to the significant increase in migrants who arrived in the country in 2015-16. The study explores both the opportunities and the challenges presented by migration. Germany has already devoted significant attention to VET as a mechanism for enabling integration – and for good reason. Work-based learning assists integration because it demonstrably gives learners skills that employers want in real-world settings. The report assesses the barriers faced by learners in their journeys into and through VET, exploring how such challenges can be addressed. In addition, the study looks at system-wide issues in relation to how VET provision and integration policy is governed. Lastly, it explores opportunities for increased flexibility in the German VET system of relevance to all youth at risk of not succeeding in VET. In responding to migrant needs, German VET can become more inclusive without reducing quality.
This report reviews recent trends in international migration, describing the size of current foreign-born populations across countries and analysing factors associated to the size and nature of these populations, reviews a set of important differences and similarities across educational systems and gives a brief description of population sizes across countries.
It also provides an overview of the evidence emerging from PISA 2009 on the performance and socio-economic background of children of immigrants. Who are the children of immigrants? What do they know and what can they do? How do they differ from other students? Do they approach school and learning in a different way? It examines more closely the issue of assessment language proficiency among immigrant students and its possible impact on cognitive outcomes in PISA. It explores the effect of age at arrival on the performance of immigrant students in the PISA tests of literacy.
Selective migration policies of certain countries and the attractiveness of these countries generally to highly educated migrants is also explored.
It also discusses the future educational and professional career of the children of immigrant related to their performance in PISA. Does the skill and knowledge disadvantage at age 15 translate into a disadvantage in later educational outcomes? For example, are those children of immigrants less likely to access a post-secondary educational institution?
Transforming natural finite assets into human, social and physical capital is a key challenge for natural resource-rich countries. This report distils related lessons from the OECD Policy Dialogue on Natural Resource-based Development on natural resource revenue management and spending for sustainable development. This includes a guide on how natural resource-rich countries can ensure budget sustainability to support consistent spending over time. Further analysis focuses on the management of spending versus saving and the effectiveness of different spending mechanisms for sustainable development, making recommendations to address current challenges.