Developing Educational Policies in a Holistic Skills Framework

Abstract

Skills transform lives and drive economies, putting high quality education policies at the centre of the success of individuals and economies. However, if skills are to be developed effectively over a lifetime, then a broad range of policy fields are implicated, including education, science and technology, family, employment, industrial and economic development, migration and integration, social welfare, and public finance. A co-ordinated approach is necessary to allow policy makers to detect policy trade-offs, such as between spending on early education or investing in welfare programmes later on. Building on the OECD Skills Strategy, this chapter sets out a systematic and comprehensive approach that can help education policy makers to prioritise the investment of scarce resources, to balance between short- and long-term considerations, to build a case for lifelong learning, align and to consider the perspectives of different levels of government and all relevant stakeholders.

Appendix 1 The Analytical Potential of the OECD Survey of Adult Skills

The OECD Survey of Adult Skills, a product of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), is the most comprehensive international survey of adult skills ever conducted. It gathers information from some 5,000 people aged 16–65 in each participating country.

Directly assessing adult skills has significant advantages over previous measures of human capital, such as those based on educational qualifications. A diploma does not certify a precise skill, even on the day it is awarded; one that was awarded many years prior to an assessment says even less about a person’s current skills. The Survey of Adult Skills not only measures the level of skills, it also tries to assess how skills are associated with the success of individuals and countries. In addition, it examines how well education and training systems succeed in instilling these competencies, and how public policy might improve their effectiveness. The data gathered through the Survey of Adult Skills, which also includes information on participants’ demographic characteristics (age, gender, immigrant status, etc.), education and training, job history, and the social aspects of their lives are broad and deep enough to offer insights into many different aspects of skills, including:

• The influence of skills on social and economic outcomes: The survey allows for in-depth analysis of the relationship between skills and labour-market outcomes as well as between skills, trust, political engagement, volunteering, and health. Information from the survey, combined with advanced econometric modelling, can provide insights into how the supply of skills and the quality of those skills affect economic growth.

• The use of skills in the workplace: Data from the survey can be compared against other measures of skills, such as occupations and qualifications or diplomas, while differences and similarities in how skills are used in the workplace can be examined and compared among countries, industries and enterprises. The data also offer a unique opportunity to develop a direct measure of mismatch by comparing observed individual skills levels to skills requirements at work. In addition to shedding light on the under-use of skills, its causes and consequences, the data will also allow for an examination of the reasons behind skills deficits.

• Developing skills over a lifetime: The survey allows for a study of some of the factors that are important for acquiring and maintaining skills, and how the acquisition of skills changes over time. These aspects of skills development can be studied at both the cohort and country levels. The comparative data on adult learning can also be used to identify international patterns of who is and who is not participating in adult learning, whether and where the opportunity to participate is not available to all, and the factors that motivate people to participate. The data can also help identify adults with poor skills and can also be used to develop strategies to improve their literacy.

• Immigrant skills and qualifications: The data from the survey can also be used to examine differences in skills levels between immigrants who acquired their skills in the host country and those who acquired their skills elsewhere, and between first- and second-generation immigrants. This information sheds light on such issues as whether returns to skills depend on where the qualifications, diplomas and work experience were acquired; the relationship between outcomes and measured skills, as opposed to formal qualifications; and the role of language proficiency in immigrants’ labour-market outcomes and occupational choices.

• Digital literacy, problem solving in technology-rich environments, and using information and communication technologies: The survey will help build a better understanding of how well adults cope with an increasingly high-tech environment, both in and outside the workplace. They can be used to examine inequalities in cognitive foundation skills, particularly among young people, and the factors that drive those differences, including parental background, educational attainment, tracking, the quality of education and ICT-related practices.