Studies have highlighted the beneficial effects of parental involvement in children's educational lives. Few studies, however, analyse parental involvement in a cross-national perspective and few evaluate a wide array of forms of involvement. In 2009, 14 countries and economies implemented the parental questionnaire option in the PISA 2009 cycle.…

This study examines the feasibility of reporting scores of a test based on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2000 instrument that was administered to a sample of 25-year-old Youth in Transition Survey (YITS) respondents on the PISA scale. Each of these respondents also participated in PISA 2000. The study examines the…

Countless policy makers and researchers have flocked to observe the education systems of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore, which are among the top five performers in the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) 2009 reading assessment. Many visitors have been particularly impressed by the fact that these education systems succeed in…

Students who are highly engaged in a wide range of reading activities are more likely than other students to be effective learners and to perform well at school. Research also documents a strong link between reading practices, motivation and proficiency among adults. Proficiency in reading is crucial for individuals to make sense of the world they…

One of the ultimate goals of policy makers is to enable citizens to take advantage of a globalised world economy. This is leading them to focus on the improvement of education policies, ensuring the quality of service provision, a more equitable distribution of learning opportunities and stronger incentives for greater efficiency in schooling.…

This sixth volume of the Programme for International Student Assessment 2009 (PISA 2009) results explores students' use of information technologies to learn. For PISA 2009, the framework for reading literacy has been developed to encompass reading electronic texts. This has led to an expansion of the description of text types to take account of…

This report focuses on the development of reading proficiency during the transition from adolescence to early adulthood. The span of time between the ages of 15 and 24 is a critical period of development for young people. Once compulsory education is completed, individual decisions about post-secondary education, employment and other life choices…

Information and communication technologies revolutionise not only the speed at which information can be transmitted, but also how information is conveyed and received. Technological innovations have a profound effect on the types of skills that are demanded in today's labour markets and the types of jobs that have the greatest potential for…

This issue will show that strong performers do not invest scarce resources in smaller classes, but in higher teachers' salaries. They are neither the countries that spend the most on education, nor are they the wealthiest countries; rather they are the countries that are committed to providing high-quality education to all students in the belief…

Over the last decade, Canada has experienced a substantial increase in the number of individuals participating in post-secondary education (PSE). This trend emphasizes the importance of understanding the pathways leading to PSE enrolment and the competencies that are associated with them. This chapter describes a range of possible education and…

Whether in flight from conflict, with the hope of building a better life, or to seize a social or economic opportunity, people have been crossing borders for as long as there have been borders to cross. Modern means of transportation and communication, the globalisation of the labour market, and the ageing of populations in OECD (Organisation for…

One of the ultimate goals of policy makers is to enable citizens to take advantage of a globalised world economy. This is leading them to focus on the improvement of education policies, ensuring the quality of service provision, a more equitable distribution of learning opportunities and stronger incentives for greater efficiency in schooling.…

The relationship between ageing and skills is becoming an important policy issue, not least in the context of population ageing. Data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) will potentially add considerably to the understanding of the relationship between ageing and foundation skills. In particular, the…

How pronounced is income inequality around the world--and how can education help reduce it? This paper reports the following: (1) Across OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, the average income of the richest 10% of the population was about nine times that of the poorest 10% before the onset of the global economic…

The primary purpose of the report is to explore the impact of PISA reading scores on the early labour market outcomes of young Canadians of the Youth in Transition Survey. This inquiry is complicated by two facts. First, family and school characteristics that are positively correlated with PISA scores are also correlated with labour market…