By Emily Kingsland In order to successfully help young people prepare for employment, education providers and employers must open up the lines of communication and become more engaged in each other’s worlds.  In the most innovative and effective school-to-work systems around the globe

I recently returned from a week in Australia and another in Singapore, and found much food for thought in both. Mining is by far Australia’s biggest industry. But that does not mean that it is Australia’s biggest employer. I learned that once a mine is established, most of the mining

While Denmark has historically had a high performing vocational education and training (VET) system at the high school level, a new OECD report reveals that the country is also actively searching for ways to expand VET opportunities for post-secondary students.  Meanwhile, on the othe

In May 2012, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released its much-anticipated Skills Strategy, a major new initiative aimed at helping governments improve their economies through comprehensive skills policies.  Kathrin Hoeckel, a Policy Analyst at the OE

My colleagues Vivien Stewart, Betsy Brown Ruzzi and I returned from another visit to Singapore a few weeks ago, 23 years after my first visit.  Each visit is dazzling.  None has yet disappointed.  In a way, a visit to Singapore is like benchmarking the rest of the world through this o

Vivien Stewart, Senior Advisor for Education at Asia Society, a member of the Center on International Education Benchmarking Advisory Board, and author of A World-Class Education: Learning from International Models of Excellence and Innovation, spoke with Top of the Class about her la

The relationship between socio-economic status and performance is complex.  It has been tackled by education researchers over the years in an attempt to explain why some countries are more able than others to moderate the impact that socio-economic status can have on a student’s schoo

New Announcements On February 23, the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) announced that Robert L. King, president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, and Robert Schwartz, Francis Keppel Professor of Practice in Educational Policy and Administration at

By Roland Østerlund, former director general of the Ministry of Education, Denmark On the shelf with literature on education there is a wealth of books and articles on higher education issues but little on the possibilities for the large group of young people who do not opt for an aca