Education and Employers
Research Digest - April 2022

Publications

Leave no child behind: global report on boys’ disengagement from education 

UNESCO

As this report shows, supporting boys does not mean that girls lose out and vice versa. Addressing boys’ disengagement not only benefits boys’ learning, employment opportunities, income and well-being, it is also highly beneficial for achieving gender equality and desirable economic, social and health outcomes. While globally, girls remain less likely than boys to enrol in school, in many countries boys are at greater risk of repeating grades, failing to progress and complete their education and not achieving adequate learning while in school.

The economic benefits of high quality universal early child education 

Matt Grudnoff

This report considers several of the economic dimensions to be considered in
designing Australia’s future ECEC policy – at a moment in history when the importance
of this vital service is more obvious than ever. The first section documents the
inadequate funding base for ECEC services in Australia. It shows that overall funding is
lower than the average of other industrial countries – and dramatically lower than the
Nordic countries (which have very strong public ECEC systems). Moreover, Australia’s
funding base is uniquely dependent on private payments (mostly from households):
Australian households pay more for ECEC services than their counterparts in other
industrial countries but get less.

A spotlight on Design and Technology study in England 

Sam Tuckett

The report provides an overview of changes in entry patterns by key student characteristics over recent years. However, it should be noted that there has been a long-term declining trend in Design and Technology entries since the turn of the millennium. There have been significant policy changes and reforms over the more recent period examined. For example the academisation programme, school
accountability reforms such as the introduction of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) in 2010 and Progress 8 in 2016, and qualification reform meaning that the subjects available to students have not been consistent through time. Entries to Design and Technology subjects have continued to decline against the backdrop of these policy changes.

Essential Skills Tracker 

Will Seymour & Robert Craig 

This report seeks to add to the information available to policymakers and
practitioners by exploring the relationship between specific levels of essential skills, employment and education rates. It looks at the skill score for each of the eight skills (e.g. Problem Solving) but also uses an average of eight transferable skills for each individual to give an average skill score. This average skill score enables us to undertake analysis and make effective comparisons across the population. Unless otherwise specified, when we talk about “skill score” in this paper, we are referring to an average skill score across the sample population, which in turn is an average of scores for each of the eight skills.

UNESCO in action for gender equality 2020/2021 

UNESCO

Over the last 15 years, UNESCO has committed the Organization to ensuring that gender equality is mainstreamed into all aspects, and at every level of its mandate. It was in 2007 that UNESCO Member States unanimously decided to make gender equality a Global Priority for the Organization. his publication, showing what has been accomplished even in times of a severe global pandemic, forges the way forward for our ambitions for the years to come, to continue, spanning a unique mandate, working towards this ideal of justice and dignity, because it is above all in minds, that prejudges and stereotypes can be deconstructed, and the defences of gender equality can be built.

Trends mapping study: Digital skills development in TVET teacher training

Gita Subrahmanyam

The purpose of this study is to map trends and challenges in the training of TVET teachers and trainers in the context of digitalisation, and to identify examples of innovative TVET teacher training efforts that have proven successful. The study builds on the recently published UNESCO-UNEVOC Study on the Trends Shaping the Future of TVET Teaching (UNESCO-UNEVOC, 2020a) and complements its enquiry on the digital skills required by TVET teachers and trainers to fulfil their role in preparing learners for the future of
work and of learning. The study provides a snapshot of trends and challenges in TVET teacher and trainer digital skills development. Its findings – in terms of data, policy trends and the identification of good practice examples concerning TVET teacher training – will inform UNESCO-UNEVOC’s work in support of TVET teachers and trainers.

Comments

Equal opportunities for all? Analyzing within-country variation in school effectiveness

Isa Steinmann & Rolf Vegar Olsen 

Post-pandemic: Return or reset?

Chris Rolph

Basic numeracy skills have stagnated among Africa’s poorest for decades

GEM report 

Education increasingly becomes a boys’ problem at high cost

Matthias Eck, Catherine Jere & Justine Sass

Forget About the ‘Math Wars’ and Look at Corey and Kyela

Laura Waters

Building TVET resilience for a just and sustainable transition

UNESCO-UNEVOC

Linking skills to needs with non-state actors – lessons from the 2021/2 GEM Report

Francesca Endrizzi & Pooja Gianchandani

Events