Brussels, 13/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - The global economic downturn has thrown into sharp focus the importance of education: there have been far fewer job losses among those with university degrees than among people who left school with no qualifications. That is what is revealed in the latest of the OECD's annual reports on education which was published on Tuesday 13 September. The European Commission has welcomed the report and backed its findings. “The report provides invaluable evidence and data for policy-makers. Its findings underline the importance of our EUROPE 2020 targets to reduce early school leaving and boost university education, both in terms of increasing graduate numbers and quality”, said Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou. She added that 35% of jobs in the EU will require high-level qualifications by 2020. It is essential, therefore, that there continues to be proper investment in schools and universities. “Education must remain a top priority for the EU, even in a tough economic climate”, she stated.
The report, Education at a Glance 2011, brings together statistical data on investment in education, student-teacher ratios, teaching hours, graduate numbers and results. It covers 34 OECD countries, including 21 EU member states (the exceptions being Bulgaria, Cyprus, Malta, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania). The report found that: (1) the EU countries perform near the OECD average, though with strong differences between member states; (2) all the countries featured face the same challenge of improving educational results while public resources are, in many cases, being cut; (3) improving the quality of education systems yields high economic and social returns. The areas where EU countries in the report perform better on average than the OECD as a whole are: (1) early childhood education: in the EU, 76% of countries make provision for the education of 3-4 year-olds, compared with 70% in the OECD as a whole; (2) pupils leaving upper secondary education with qualifications: EU 85%, OECD 82%; (3) the percentage of young people not in education, training or employment (so-called “NEETs”: EU 6.4%, OECD 8.6%; (4) class size and student-teacher ratios in schools. However, the OECD as a whole outperforms the EU in: (1) adults (25-64) who have graduated from higher education: EU 27%, OECD 30%; (2) vocational education graduates at tertiary level: EU 8%, OECD 10%; (3) expenditure per student at tertiary level: EU $13,000, OECD $13,700; (4) private spending on tertiary education institutions: EU 0.2%, OECD 0.5%.
For OECD countries as a whole, three salient points emerge: (1) graduation rates: Korea, Canada, Japan and the Russian Federation lead the way, all with more than 50% of 25-34 year olds holding tertiary qualifications; the best performing EU country is Ireland, where 48% of 25-34 year olds have university-level qualifications; (2) unemployment rates: during the recession, unemployment rates among people with tertiary level education have stayed at or below 4% on average across OECD countries; for those who failed to complete upper secondary education, by contrast, unemployment rates have repeatedly exceeded 12% - the situation is very similar in the EU countries covered; (3) foreign students: increasingly students are looking beyond their home countries for university education; in 2009, the last year for which complete figures are available, more than 3.7 million tertiary students were enrolled outside their country of citizenship, an increase of 77% from 2000. This figure includes 500,000 EU students studying in other EU countries. (I.L./transl.rt)