Directorate-for-education-and-skills-brochure.pdf?utm_content=bufferf4a33&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

Opening the “black box”of learning processesAn understanding of howstudents learn and howteachers teach is at the coreof education policy.The youngest of our citizens deserve the best possiblestart in life. Since many OECD countries have increasedpublic spending on early childhood education andcare in recent years, the Directorate for Education andSkills is investing more to develop data to help countriesevaluate the effectiveness – and cost-effectiveness– of their policies and practices. A staff survey willelicit information on the qualifications, professionaldevelopment, practices and working conditions amongstaff of early childhood education facilities. The OECDis also investigating ways to assess and comparechild outcomes, both cognitive and socio-emotional,internationally. The data from both the staff surveyand the child outcomes work will enable policy makersand others to identify the factors that influence thequality and equity of early education. In addition, thedirectorate offers countries in-depth, customisedreviews of their early childhood education and carepolicies and provision. The current focus is on howwell children make the transition from pre-primary toprimary education.Since the quality of an education system dependslargely on the quality of its teaching, the OECD gathersinformation about today’s teachers with the aimof helping countries build a high-quality teachingprofession. The Teaching and Learning InternationalSurvey (TALIS) examines teachers’ work and attitudes,and the role of school leaders. Teachers and schoolleaders in lower secondary schools in 34 countries andeconomies participated in the most recent survey in2013. Some countries also surveyed teachers in primaryand upper secondary education, and those teachingin the schools that participated in PISA in 2012. TALISis also examining initial teacher preparation acrosscountries, and is developing a video study that aims togo beyond teachers’self-reports to record and measure teaching practicesin the classroom. In addition, the InnovativeTeaching for Effective Learning project is investigatingthe issue of teacher quality by studying teachers’9OECD EDUCATION & SKILLS