Title: Measuring the Impact of the New Economy on Education Sector Outputs
1Measuring the Impact of the New Economyon
Education Sector Outputs
- Albert TuijnmanInstitute of International
EducationStockholm University
2Purpose
- Identifying the challenges facing the statistical
system as a consequence of the move towards
life-long learning
3New Economy
- Globalisation ICTs
- Increased speed and scope of change
- Increased risk
4Consequences
- Altered economic policy landscape
- Constraints on governance
- Reduced scope for policy instruments/interventions
- Need for insurance
- Increased relative importance of structural
policies
5Policy attention directed to
- Technology
- Innovation processes
- Human capital
- Social capital
6Changes in human capital skill mix
- Premium on higher educational qualifications
- Good entry qualifications no longer sufficient
- New focus on competencies and skills
- Foundation skills, essential skills, necessary
skills, employability skills, etc.
7New economy emphasis on actual skills and hence
on education and learning outcomes
- Formal initial education Pressure of numbers
Public funding constraints Time lag in skill
supply - Result Insufficient as sole provider of human
capital for labour market - Hence Importance of formal adult education,
workplace training, non-formal education and
informal, self-directed learning - Life-long dimension cradle to grave
- Life-wide dimension formal to informal
8Interest in life-long learning reflects
- Changes in economy
- Changes in policy environment
- BUT also new economic and social theories
- Emphasis on intangibles and externalities
- Emphasis on knowledge (Knowledge stock Knowledge
production Knowledge management) - Knowledge formation allocation and conversion of
scarce financial, human and social resources into
economically useful competencies
9Capital conversion process
Resource ConversionProcess
10Capital conversion process
- Life-long learning is seen as an efficient
strategy for managing the knowledge and skill
formation process. But time lag is a problem
because it introduces uncertainty and risk of
market failures
11Insurance policies include
- Learning rather than education
- Individual rather than institution
- Demand rather than supply side
- Life-long rather than front-loaded model
- But this presupposes major changes in education
12- The major changes in education have of course
implications for the statistical system and the
information it is called upon to supply
13Information Needs
- Move to life-long learning changes the nature
- of information needs concerning the
- education sector
- Current education information system
front-loaded - Much info about inputs some info about processes
and flows little info about outputs and outcomes
14Information Needs
- Market failures occur because the education
sector is information poor. But what is the
problem?
15Information needs
- Educational attainment not synonymous with labour
force qualifications - Labour force qualifications not synonymous with
actual job skills - Skill requirements of jobs not easily identified
- Lack of direct observations on skills
- Back to square 1 Use of proxy measures
16Inadequacy of proxy measures
- Education and skills only moderately strongly
- related because
- Quality variation in schooling
- Education levels too indiscriminate
- Learning beyond schooling
- Predictive capacity of initial education
diminishes with increasing time - Need is for information about the private and
social - costs and benefits of human capital investment.
But - this cost-benefit analysis hinges on valuations
of - human capital
17Inadequacy of proxy measures
- Human capital accounting requires that knowledge,
skills and personal attributes are somehow
measured - Current knowledge about the nature of necessary
skills, their determinants and interrelationships,
is insufficient. The statistical system needed
for the monitoring of progress in life-long
learning requires a competency-based approach
18Inadequacy of proxy measures
- But the wide-ranging orientation of life-long
learning poses near unsurpassable conceptual and
measurement problems - Life-long learning not tied to any institutional
context - Requires analysts to take a holistic perspective
- Consider the whole range of education provision
- Ensure better training statistics
- Development of data on informal learning at work
- How to measure self-directed and co-operative
learning at large in society
19Five large challengesfor the statistical system
201. Measuring impact of ICT onformal schooling
- Significant investment in information technology
hardware - Little evidence of major changes in teaching and
learning - Innovations a life-long learning strategy brings
to the education sector are less concerned with
inputs and more with process and outputs. - Conventional education statistics have little to
tell about process and outputs - Challenge Improve statistical system about ICTs
and schooling processes and their outputs and
outcomes
212. Measuring life-wide learning
- Efforts underway for a long time to cover the
full range of formal education across the
life-span - Statistics on adult education, vocational
training, workplace training, etc. are still
under developed - Challenges Extend measurement along the
life-wide axis address non-formal and informal
learning develop new survey tools to capture the
adult population
223. Measuring cumulative learning
234. Measuring occupational change
- ISCO based on a notion of competence, defined as
the ability to carry out the tasks and duties of
a given job, with abilities characterised by
their level of complexity and their area of
specialisation. - Objective measures of task complexity not
available internationally
244. Measuring occupational change
- Hence ISCO depends on ISCED
- Problem Although competence can be acquired
independently of educational programmes, in ISCO
educational qualifications linked to type and
duration determine an occupations place in the
hierarchy. - Challenge Review and revise ISCO
255. Measuring skills directly
- Problem is how to define, select, assess and
certify key competencies in a valid, reliable,
timely and cost-effective way - At the international level several avenues of
work on direct skill measurement have been
explored in recent years (IALS IEA-TIMSS PISA) - Challenges ALL PISA enlargement framework
development international management
26Conclusions
- Market failures currently stand in the way of
realising lifelong learning for all. Lack of
information of various kinds is the root cause of
market failure - Governments have an interest in improving the
statistical system concerned with education and
branching out to life-wide learning
27Conclusions
- Much work done on the conceptualisation and
measurement of skills. But so far progress has
been insufficient to satisfy requirements.
Research work on the definition and assessment of
different adult skills needs strong support
28Conclusions
- Life-long learning requires a holistic and
inclusive perspective. Hence a variety of avenues
to data development must be followed. The demand
is for administrative and institutionally based
statistics, national accounting data,
survey-derived measures of adult learning, as
well as longitudinal surveys of living conditions
and time and money spent on various learning
activities
29Conclusions
- Need for education process information, which can
only be collected in the field. Multiple
indicators organised in a multilevel framework --
and hence multiple information sources -- are
required for the monitoring of lifelong learning
30Conclusions
- Given the current state-of-play of the social
sciences and in particular of survey practice and
indicator measurement, the time when a holistic
and comprehensive framework of lifelong learning
statistics and indicators can be proposed lies
still far in the future