How effective are school systems at providing young people with a solid foundation in the knowledge and skills that will equip them for life and learning beyond school? The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) assesses student knowledge and skills at age 15, i.e. toward the end of compulsory education. The PISA 2009 survey focused on reading, but for the first time, also assessed the ability of students to read, understand and use digital texts.

The successful integration of immigrant students in schools is an important policy goal in many OECD countries. A country’s success in integrating immigrant students is a key measure of its education system’s quality and equity, and also sheds light on the efficacy of its broader social policies. The variance in performance gaps between immigrant and non-immigrant students across countries, even after adjusting for socio-economic background, suggests that policy has an important role to play in eliminating such gaps.

Education’s impact on participating in labour markets, occupational mobility and the quality of life, has led policy makers and educators to focus in reducing educational differences between men and women. Significant progress has been achieved in weakening the gender gap in educational attainment, although in certain fields of study, such as mathematics and computer science, gender differences favouring men still exist.

Young people who are neither in employment nor in education and training (the “NEET” population) are at risk of becoming socially excluded – individuals with income below the poverty-line and lacking the skills to improve their economic situation.

As national economies become more interconnected, governments and individuals are looking to higher education to broaden students’ horizons. It is through the pursuit of high level studies in countries other than their own that students may expand their knowledge of other cultures and languages, and to better equip themselves in an increasingly globalised labour market. Some countries, particularly in the European Union, have established policies and schemes that promote such mobility to foster intercultural contacts and help build social networks.

Educational attainment is a commonly used proxy for the stock of human capital – that is, the skills available in the population and the labour force. As globalisation and technology continue to re-shape the needs of the global labour market, the demand for individuals who possess a broader knowledge base, more specialised skills, advanced analytical capacities, and complex communication skills continues to rise. As a result, more individuals are pursuing higher levels of education than in previous generations, leading to significant shifts in attainment levels over time within countries.

Policy makers must balance the importance of improving the quality of educational services with the desirability of expanding access to educational opportunities, specifically at the tertiary level. In many OECD countries the expansion of enrolments, particularly in tertiary education, has not been paralleled by similar rises in educational expenditures. In primary, secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education, enrolments are stable but expenditure has increased more than at the tertiary level.

Educational institutions in OECD countries are mainly publicly funded, although there are substantial and growing levels of private funding at the tertiary level. At this level, the contribution to the costs of education by individuals and other private entities is more and more considered an effective way to ensure funding is available to students regardless of their economic backgrounds.

Expenditure on education is an investment that can foster economic growth, enhance productivity, contribute to personal and social development and reduce social inequality. The proportion of total financial resources devoted to education is one of the key choices made by governments, enterprises, students and their families.