Data-driven OECD report highlights lifelong impact of educational inequities
Gender, race, and an immigrant background are key determinants in educational achievement and lifelong opportunities. That’s according to the latest report of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Education at a Glance (EAG) 2021.
Data-driven OECD report highlights lifelong impact of educational inequities
Gender, race, and an immigrant background are key determinants in educational achievement and lifelong opportunities. That’s according to the latest report of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Education at a Glance (EAG) 2021.
Participation in education is not a level playing field, with knock-on effects on employment, according to the EAG, which was published on 16 September. Along with policy proposals and an up-to-date analysis of education system-wide indicators available to the OECD, the report also outlines countries’ progress in achieving the United Nations’ Education Sustainable Development Goal (Goal 4).
Unemployment related to education completion
Among its main findings, the report shows that the unemployment rate for young adults who have not achieved an upper secondary qualification in OECD countries is twice as high as those who have. Whilst the OECD finds that lifelong learning is more important now than in the past, the pre-pandemic figure of less than half of adults participating in adult education has been exacerbated in the past two years.
EAG also notes that the upper secondary school student completion rate for foreign-born adults is lower than those students without an immigrant background.
“Even in the OECD, inequity is far harder to eradicate than policy makers have anticipated. Disadvantage still plays a massive role in reducing life chances.”
Impact of gender gap
In relation to gender, the OECD report highlights that, although it is expected more young women than men will graduate with a tertiary degree (by a factor of 15 points), their degrees are less likely to be in STEM subjects. In addition, those degrees will not be at a higher tertiary level, indicating a gender gap in degree level. The lifelong impact of this gender gap is evidenced by the fact that women earn between 76-78 per cent of men’s earnings, though this percentage gap has narrowed by two per cent.
The report also highlights that, in teaching, the gender gap has widened at primary and secondary levels and narrowed at tertiary level. Less than five per cent of teachers at pre-primary level are men, 18% at primary level and 40% at secondary level.
Funding: public and private differences
In relation to funding, EAG indicates that while OECD countries increased public expenditure on all educational institutions by 10.5 per cent since 2012, this was still at a slower pace than GDP growth (16.6 per cent). However, expenditure from 2018 will be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, EAG indicates.
Significantly, the report reveals that, while the public sector funds 90 per cent of total expenditure on primary and secondary education, private sector expenditure is more common for pre-primary (17 per cent) and tertiary education (30 per cent), the report underlines.
Class sizes: change in findings
Finally, OECD findings on class size are shifting from their previous conclusion that class size is not a factor in student achievement. For instance, the latest EAG finds that there is a negative correlation between larger classes and mean performance in reading and smaller classes are beneficial for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
EAG an invaluable resource for educational data
Education International’s General Secretary, David Edwards, welcomed the report, calling it “an invaluable resource for educational data in OECD countries”.
However, he expressed disappointment that this year’s findings show that, “even in the OECD, inequity is far harder to eradicate than policy makers have anticipated. Disadvantage still plays a massive role in reducing life chances. Gender is still correlated with achievement and pay/compensation. Spending on education has still not kept pace with overall economic growth and is likely to have deteriorated during the pandemic.”
“With this weight of data, teachers, their organisations, and school communities are well armed to resist any erosion of public education.”
Data helps efforts to support ‘resilient’ public education systems
Yet, Edwards was adamant that EAG “carries a message of hope” and that public education systems are “proving remarkably resilient”.
He concluded: “With this weight of data, teachers, their organisations, and school communities are well armed to resist any erosion of public education”.
The OECD report is available here
