by Tracey Burns and Roxanne Kovacs
Directorate for Education and Skills

The environment is a hot topic in the press and classrooms across the world and much has been said about the need for action to protect our planet. If current trends in climate change continue, temperatures could increase between 3 and 6 degrees Celsius by 2050. Such large temperature increases would lead to water shortages for billions of people, reduce agricultural yields, increase malnutrition related deaths by millions and lead to the extinction of a large part of animal species.

Education plays a crucial role in raising awareness of environmental challenges and shaping the attitudes and behaviours that can make a difference. A recently released Trends Shaping Education Spotlight looks at the role of education in both preparing and providing our citizens with the skills needed for a sustainable and productive future.

A first step in addressing the issue is raising awareness. Many classrooms already discuss im…

by Andreas Schleicher
Director, Directorate for Education and Skills



Compensating for students’ socio-economic disadvantage is one of the greatest challenges facing teachers,school leaders and education systems as a whole. However, data from PISA show that some countries are much better at this than others.

Consider the chart above. The horizontal axis shows the percentage of lower secondary teachers who work in schools where their principal reported that more than 30% of students in their school were from disadvantaged homes.1  The vertical axis shows the actual percentage of 15-year-old students from disadvantaged homes, measured by PISA’s internationally standardised index that summarises various indicators of socio-economic disadvantage, including parents’ income and education level, educational resources at home, and other family possessions.2 In other words, the horizontal axis reflects school principals’ perception of disadvantage by national standards while the vertical axis re…

by Dirk Van Damme
Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress division, Directorate for Education and Skills


The famous French social scientist Emile Durkheim – the founding father of the academic discipline of sociology of education – grounded the view that by transmitting society and culture into the next generation, education was inevitably looking more to the past than to the future. His legendary quote – “Education is only the image and reflection of society. It imitates and reproduces the latter… it does not create it” – coined the notion of education merely ‘reproducing’ societies. When social change accelerates, it is no surprise that the ‘conservative’ role of education becomes increasingly perceived as a problem in itself. Today, many economic and political leaders tend to share the view that education is losing the race with technology and is not changing fast enough to cope with future challenges.
But is this a fair account? And how do professionals in the education secto…

By Andreas Schleicher, 
Director, Directorate for Education and Skills


It used to be about what to do with the babysitting money; now it’s all about trying to get the best value for money. Or is it? What do 15-year-olds really know about money matters? Can they make sensible decisions about whether to spend or save? Can they tell the difference between a financial risk and a sound investment? (For that matter, how many of the rest of us can?)

Eighteen countries participating in PISA wanted to find out. They conducted the first-ever international assessment of students’ financial literacy. The results from that survey, released today, are presented in this month’s PISA in Focus.

The financial literacy assessment, which was administered as an option in parallel to the international PISA test, was conducted among 29 000 students – representing around nine million 15-year-olds – in the participating countries and economies.

What the assessment shows is just how varied are students’ knowled…

by Kristen Weatherby Senior Analyst, Directorate for Education and Skills


Last week we shared with the world the latest results from the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) , at an Informal Meeting of Ministers of Education (17th OECD/Japan Seminar) held in Tokyo on 25-26 June. 
TALIS touched upon a wide range of teacher-centred topics, from professional development to collaboration and teaching practices. TALIS has revealed many areas about teacher policies and behaviour that should be encouraged to continue development of the profession as a whole. However, it has also highlighted areas in some countries that could benefit from reform. The results of TALIS were widely received across countries as valuable information from which school leaders, teachers and policy makers can benefit.
For example, at the launch event in Mexico last week, the OECD presented the finding that 1 in 4 Mexican teachers do not feel prepared for their work. Furthermore, the TALIS results in…