OECD, 2013 Skills Out Look

On Tuesday October 8^th, the OECD published their 2013 Skills Out Look. This is their first results from the survey of adult skills taken by countries who are OECD members. Not all the OECD members took the survey. The reason for the latter is because the survey is a voluntary, not all OECD members have the capacity to implement the survey, and it cost too much.

The survey is design to examine how well the people do on reading, numeracy, and problem-solving skills. There are many reasons why collecting data to know how well the people are in these skills. Some of the reasons are: it is needed for job growth, better job opportunities, people perform better, participation of politics, and inequality goes down.

Japan and Finland were one of the highest scoring countries. The lowest scoring countries were Spain and Italy. Just because some of the countries scored high, doesn’t mean that the economy does well. For this, the United States and England were given as examples. These two countries weren’t the highest in scores, but they tend to take the most advantage out of the skills of the people. Italy was also one of the countries that take’s the most advantage out of the skills of the people.

Countries that did well on the survey tend to deliver high quality continue education. They invest in good schooling particularly for people with disadvantage background. They provide financial support for the disadvantage. They provide opportunity incentives to continued development of proficiency both outside work and at the workplace. They make learning everyone’s business. They recognize that individuals with poor skills are unlikely to engage in education on their own. They invest in the lowest performance strategy. They make learning adaptive and flexible.  They provide a link between learning and work. They provide skills through real world experience and employment engagement.  They have a lot of transparency, easy to find information about adult education activities and counseling services. Less educated workers tend to be less aware of educational opportunities. So, the high scoring countries invest on the group of people who would benefit the most e.g. Immigrants and the less educated. The survey also shows that initial education has the best results during the life time.