Review education policies
Examine the OECD's extensive research and analysis of education policy around the world. Get a quick overview of key insights and policy options for a wide range of topics in education. Or delve deeper into the OECD knowledge base through quick and easy access to related websites and publications.
Education is complex. Policies and practices, as well as inputs, processes and outcomes, stand in a dynamic relationship with each other. Explore how different topics can be related through a visual network of education policy.
The OECD Education GPS is under constant development and the available information is continually growing. Come back soon!
Career guidance
Career decision-making is increasingly complex as individuals navigate a wider range of options in a fast-changing labour market. Lifelong learning has replaced the notion of preparing for a single career, making career guidance essential. Effective guidance provides information on education pathways, training, and job prospects, boosting confidence and improving alignment between education and employment. However, challenges such as undertrained counseling staff, fragmented services, and limited access to labour market data weaken its impact. To be effective, career guidance must equip individuals with long-term career management skills and be accessible throughout life. Strengthening staff training, improving real-time labour market insights, and ensuring sustainable funding are key to making career guidance a vital tool for lifelong learning and employment success. More
Teacher practices
Classroom teaching practices are key to student learning, shaped by two main approaches: direct instruction, focused on structured knowledge delivery, and constructivism, which encourages active student participation. Most teachers draw on both, adapting to context and goals. Effective teaching depends not just on method but also on teachers’ beliefs, training, and the school environment. Collaborative school practices and professional learning communities—supported by factors like school autonomy, resources, and openness to innovation—play a vital role in improving instruction and fostering student achievement. More
Research & innovation in education
Innovation in education enhances learning, teaching, and policy through advances in ICT, neuroscience, and learning sciences. However, integrating research into practice remains a challenge due to gaps in knowledge mobilisation and accessibility. Stronger collaboration among researchers, policymakers, and educators, along with better funding and digital tools, can drive effective reforms. Governments play a key role by promoting evidence-based policies, fostering strategic leadership, and supporting continuous innovation to better prepare students for future demands. More
Access & participation
In past decades, education systems in all OECD countries have managed to provide universal access to basic education and participation in education is now expanding to upper and lower levels of education. Access to upper secondary education is becoming almost universal in most countries, as is pre-primary education. The expansion of upper secondary education has been driven by increasing demand and policy changes ranging from a more flexible curriculum, a reshaping of vocational studies, and efforts to expand access to education to the entire population. The same applies to tertiary education, although participation rates at this level of education are significantly lower. More
Equity
Fair and inclusive education is desirable for a number of reasons. Everyone has a human right to develop their capacities and to participate fully in society. Education and the skills and knowledge it provides also strongly influence one's life chances, employment opportunities and wages, and health, as well as one's future contribution to society and the economy. A lack of inclusion and fairness may also lead to retention and/or school dropout, both of which have high economic and social costs. Furthermore, education plays an important role for general patterns of social and income inequality and mobility. For all these reasons, improving equity in education is a high priority in all OECD countries. Indeed, investing in equity pays off and equity in education goes hand in hand with quality and efficiency. More
Future of education & skills
Underlying a host of recent technological, political, environmental, economic and demographic transformations across the world is the recognition of their global scale. Thanks to AI advances, lower transportation costs, evolution of international agreements, and integration of markets, people, goods and services have traveled more easily than ever bringing to societies both, increased diversity, but also a growing uniformity of experiences and challenges. Migration, climate change, interdependency of financial markets, urbanisation, changes in family configurations, ageing societies, increasing public spending, and growing inequalities are just some of the current trends faced by governments. Education systems are influenced by these trends, and they also have the power to transform these changes into assets for the future. More
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Title
Glossary
| OECD Glossary of Statistical Terms |
| Glossary of OECD Education at a Glance |
| International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) |
Note
The development of education policies always needs to take into account country-specific traditions and features of respective education systems. Not all policy options are equally relevant for different countries, different contexts give rise to different priorities. In some countries, policy suggestions may already be in place; in others, they may have less relevance owing to specific social, economic and educational structures and traditions. Policy options rather distil potentially useful ideas and lessons from the experiences of countries that have been searching for ways to improve their education system. As policy options are removed from their wider analytical context, it is strongly advised that readers should refer back to the original OECD source for the fuller picture.