The above quote is from Derek Bok, an American educator and lawyer, and a former president of Harvard University. Quite an impressive chap and what he said was spot on. Getting an education is absolutely vital, and this survey from the OECD proves it.
You can see the full report here but here are the summary high level points.
- More than 40% of young people now complete university courses in Australia, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Poland, with graduation rates tending to be highest in countries where programmes are of short duration. By contrast, in Germany and Austria, where programmes are longer, only around 20% of young people get degrees.
- Higher education enrolments continue to grow, with more than 50% of high school graduates – and in some countries more than 75% -- going on to higher education.
- Even with this continued expansion, the earnings advantage of those with university degrees has not deteriorated and in many countries has in fact increased.
- Moreover, in countries where university education has expanded most, this has not gone hand in hand with deteriorating employment prospects for the lesser qualified, contrary to what many predict. Between 1995 and 2004, France, Ireland and Korea had the fastest growth in higher education attainment and saw unemployment among the less-well qualified decline or rise only marginally. By contrast, Germany, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic had little or no growth in higher education attainment between 1995 and 2004 and substantial growth in unemployment among the less-well qualified.
- In all countries the penalties for not completing upper secondary education are significant. On average, unemployment rates among people who do not complete high school are five percentage points higher than people who complete upper secondary education and seven points higher than people with university degrees.
- The successful integration of immigrants into schooling systems is a major equity challenge in many countries. The poorer performance of first generation immigrant students compared with their native counterparts represents more than a year’s worth of study.
- Countries are collectively spending more than they have ever done on education, with expenditure increasing in real terms by more than 40% since 1995. But the results gained from that investment are far from maximized. Analysis suggests that given current levels of expenditure, learning outcomes could be increased by 22%.
Just few posts back, I talked about the challenges in Greece for example. And now the OECD says, "In contrast, many Continental European countries are not investing more public money in their universities nor are universities allowed to charge tuition fees, with the result that the European average for spending per higher education student is now well below half that of the U.S."
There are some major issues with immigrant children with the report noting, "Among the 14 OECD countries with significant immigrant populations, first-generation students lag an average of 48 score points – equivalent to more than a school year’s progress –
behind their native counterparts on the PISA mathematics scale. The performance disadvantage of second-generation students is a still-significant 40 score points. In Canada, Luxembourg, Sweden and Switzerland and the partner economy Hong Kong-China, second-generation students perform significantly better than first-generation students, with the performance gap reduced by 31 score points in Switzerland and 58 score points in Sweden."
If the OECD countries want to compete in a knowledge economy, then they have to work very hard and improve their education systems. It is no longer necessary to just invest in education or ask 50% of school leavers to go into education. See the review of the British Educational System results from the Guardian.
And if you think we are spending too much on education, see this report. This states that, "Education is worth more to UK exports than financial services or the automotive industry, according to a report published by the British Council today. A total of £28bn in 2003-04 was earned from overseas students by a sector ranging from world famous universities to small English language colleges, from independent schools to publishers and broadcasters."
It is vital that you ask about the efficiency of education and whether the education is relevant for the needs of society. For people who refuse to change, they will fall behind. Quite an interesting time ahead of us, I am afraid.
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!
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