OECD (2000)

Introduction
• Chapter D deals with the learning environment and the various ways in which school systems are
organised. It includes data on the compensation of teachers; the demography of the teaching
force; training requirements for new teachers; the numbers of hours for which teachers are
required to teach and students are required to be in the classroom; subject emphasis in the curriculum;
decision-making about the curriculum; and the availability and use of computers in
schools.
• Chapter E presents a broad picture of individual, social and labour-market outcomes of education.
It deals with labour force participation by level of educational attainment; education and work
among the youth population; and earnings and educational attainment.
• Finally, Chapter F presents indicators on student achievement.
Education at a Glance is designed to provide a comprehensive statistical description of the state of
education internationally. It therefore covers a broad range of educational domains and the data presented
are accompanied by detailed explanations that can guide readers on how to draw valid conclusions
from the indicators and to interpret country differences. In order to keep the publication
manageable, the number of indicators has been limited to 30, with the choice of indicators guided by the
following principles:
• Education at a Glance seeks to provide an appropriate balance between an encyclopaedia function
(showing how things are and where countries stand) and a yearbook function (showing how things
are changing). Trends are highlighted, in particular, in Indicators A1, A2, B1, B4, C1, C3, E1 and F2.
• Successive editions of Education at a Glance seek to maintain sufficient room for innovation. About one
third of the indicators have been newly introduced this year (or are recurrent indicators that are
not produced on an annual basis). These are Indicators B3, C5, C7, D2, D5, D7, E3, F2 and F3. About
another third of the indicators were present in the preceding edition but changes in data sources,
methods and presentation have been introduced to improve these indicators. This concerns indicators
A2, B2, B4, B6, C1, C2, C4, C6, D3, D6 and E2. The remaining indicators have been kept stable
in both content and presentation (A1, B1, B5, B7, C3, D1, D4, E1, E4, E5 and F1).
• More than one third of the indicators relate, directly or indirectly, to the outcomes of education systems,
reflecting a progressive shift in public and governmental concerns away from control over
the resources and content of education towards a focus on results. These are indicators A2, C2, C4,
D5, E1, E2, E3, E4, E5, F1, F2 and F3.
• Finally, almost half of the indicators provide a perspective of in-country variation, thus facilitating
analyses of issues of equity in provision and outcomes of education. These are indicators A2, C7,
D2, D5, D6, D7, E1, E2, E3, E4, E5, F2, F3.
The publication Education Policy Analysis, which builds on, and complements Education at a Glance, takes
up selected themes of key importance for governments and analyses the implications for educational
policy. The next edition of Education Policy Analysis will be published early in 2001, in preparation for the
meeting of the OECD Education Committee at Ministerial level.
NEW DEVELOPMENTS
Enhanced indicators offer further insight into the learning environment and the organisation of schools
Ongoing debates about teachers’ working conditions, qualifications and professional status have
sparked interest in comparative data on levels of compensation for teachers, the amount of time that
teachers spend working, the number of classes that they teach per day, and pre-service and in-service
training requirements in different countries.
Indicator D1 provides a more differentiated picture of the compensation of teachers and shows how
structural characteristics of education systems, such as teachers’ salary levels, student/teaching staff
© OECD 2000
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