Estonia was the top performing European country in PISA 2018 in reading, math and science. And it’s done this with an education budget that is 30 % lower than the OECD average. Does digital strategy have something to do with Estonia’s success story? Estonia’s Ambassador-at-large for education, Birgit Lao, explains. Host: Clara Young; Producer: Ilse Sánchez Pacheco

Iceland has topped global charts on gender equality for nearly a decade. One of the country’s more radical approaches to breaking gender stereotypes is a school method called Hjalli. Margrét Pála Ólafsdóttir opened the first Hjalli pre-school in 1989. Here, children play with open-ended toys, wear school uniforms and use gender-neutral learning materials. More unusually, girls and boys have separate classes throughout most of the day. In 2006, Margrét Pála Ólafsdóttir received The Knight’s...

“Why is the sky blue?” “Why do people get sick?” “Why aren’t there any more dinosaurs?” Sometimes it feels like children never stop asking questions. And they shouldn’t. A recent OECD International Early Learning and Child Wellbeing study shows that children who are curious have stronger language and number skills, and better self-control. So how do we keep students curious and creative even after they’ve outgrown kindergarten? Rowena Phair, senior analyst at the OECD, and Mitch Resnick,...

People who graduate from university have on average better health, better life expectancy, and better earnings than those who don’t. But many students just can’t afford higher education, especially in countries where there’s less public money going into grants, bursaries and tuition waivers. With higher education budgets possibly tightening, where will the money come from? Lorraine Dearden, Professor of Economics and Social Statistics in the Social Research Institute at University College...

In the OECD’s PISA survey of 66 countries in 2018, 88% of high-school principals reported that climate change was covered in their school’s curriculum. But it was Italy that was the first country in the world to make climate change coursework mandatory in all public schools. As Italy’s Minister of Education, University and Research in 2019, Lorenzo Fioramonti drove Italy’s climate education reform. Nita Seng is a middle-school math and science teacher in the United States and co-director of...

Are schools teaching students enough about climate change? And are they empowering them to do something about it? In PISA 2018, an average of 88% of high-school principals in 66 countries reported that climate change was covered in the school curriculum. But maybe this needs to come earlier. We hear from Shreya KC, 23, from Solukhumbu, Nepal. Shreya was a delegate at COP25 in Madrid, Spain in 2019, an organiser of the Mock Cop initiative in 2020, and is currently the National Network...

Alperton Community School is in one of London’s lowest-income areas, Brent. Almost half of the children there live below the poverty line. And yet this secondary school is in the top 1-5% of the country in terms of qualifications and accreditations. What’s Alperton’s secret sauce? Well, to start with, its teachers. Andria Zafirakou teaches arts and textiles at Alperton. In 2018, she won the Varkey Foundation Global Teacher prize – what is essentially the Nobel prize in teaching. Host: Clara...

Children have probably spent more time online this year than they ever have before. Which is why the OECD’s newly adopted Recommendation on Children in the Digital Environment comes right in time. How much do children know about the privacy of their data? Or how to tell the difference between good and bad information? How do we deal with cyberbullying and hate content? Elizabeth Milovidov is an expert on digital parenting and children’s digital rights at the Council of Europe. Tracey Burns...

We’ve heard a great deal about what boosts our immune system during this pandemic. But what boosts our “commune” system? Michael Ungar, director of the Resilience Research Centre at Dalhousie University, Canada, discusses how community helps us through hard times. And as young people navigate through the pandemic and its aftermath, their resilience will serve them well – a resilience not of individual grit, but formed through the people around us. Host: Clara Young; Producer: Taline Shahinian.

If we looked into a crystal ball, what kinds of school would we see? Would classes be happening exclusively within school walls with a teacher in front and students in rows? Or would it be a robot conducting class? Would some school be online? Or would learning take place anytime and anywhere? The OECD has put together four scenarios of what the future of education might be. Keri Facer, Professor of Educational and Social Futures at the University of Bristol in the UK, and Tracey Burns,...

Remote schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic has opened our eyes to the difficulties of intersecting digital technologies and traditional schooling. Sanjay Sarma, who is Vice President for Open Learning at MIT, talks about online learning and how it can work hand-in-hand with teachers and students… with some serious cognitive science know-how.

Over the course of 2020, millions of students across the globe were unable to attend classes due to school closures, meaning that countries were forced to rely on emergency measures to keep learning going. Online classes were a popular choice in countries that had the technical capacity, but strategies differed between countries and depended heavily on the context of each area. In this podcast, we talk to Earl Phalen, Founder and CEO of George and Veronica Phalen Leadership Academies, Ryoko...

It could be said that there have been not one but two pandemics being propagated across the world over the past year. Alongside the spread of COVID-19 there has been an equally prolific spread of misinformation surrounding the origins, characteristics and treatments of the virus – some are calling it an “infodemic”. False information about the crisis fuels division and hinders government efforts to control the spread, especially in areas with already low levels of trust in government. The...

As schools closed across the globe due to the COVID-19 pandemic, education systems were forced to come face to face with the limitations of traditional schooling. In all sectors, technology picked up the slack when physical work environments became unfeasible, and education was no exception – technologies that were previously relegated to the fringes of pedagogical practice suddenly became the only way teaching and learning could take place. Coronavirus has rapidly accelerated society’s...

The transition from school to the world of work is one of the most pivotal moments in a young person’s life – it’s a time of high pressure and high uncertainty, and one that requires an equally high level of resilience to manage. Enter the coronavirus crisis, and suddenly this difficult transition gains a brand new set of complications. To discuss the current situation for school-leavers entering the job market, we caught up with Ingrid Schoon, Professor of Human Development and Social Policy...

With schools closed around the world, students and teachers are having to find new ways of learning outside of the classroom. Meanwhile, governments are working hard to assess the impact of school closures and make plans for education in a post-crisis world – a world that may well be fundamentally altered. What have the government responses been like so far? Have they worked? And does the crisis imply that we need to change the way we educate the next generation? In this episode, we invited...

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in school closures in countries across the globe, forcing many students to continue their learning from home. The news is full of government responses and updates from political leaders, but comparatively little airtime is given to those affected most by school closures. What is the sudden switch to home learning actually like for a student? Does it work? What are the major challenges? To find out, we spoke to three high school students in three different...

A lot of talk goes on about the future of education – in ministry offices, school staff rooms, even household kitchens. But one voice is routinely left out of the discussion: that of the students themselves. A defining – and inescapable – feature of “the future” is that it’s always just around the corner. But why is it that we so rarely consult those who are about to face what’s around that corner? In this episode of TopClass, we sit down with students from across the globe to ask what they...

Much talk about technology in the 21st century is focused around the advent of a new level of computing: artificial intelligence (AI). No sector will go untouched by AI’s reach and capabilities – and this includes teaching. Teachers today already have access to a wide range of technologies that they can use in the classroom, technologies that are getting smarter, sleeker and faster by the day. But how will teaching change if that technology has the ability to adapt, learn and even make...

You’re no doubt hearing a lot about education these days, with the release of the latest results from PISA. Over the two decades of its existence, the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment has convened a growing number of countries – now around 80 – to participate in its triennial assessment of what 15-year-old students know and can do. But PISA has also attracted some criticism along the way. Yong Zhao, professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas, and Aaron...

The world that today’s students will enter after leaving school is volatile, complex and uncertain. Things have changed dramatically in just ten years, and the rate of change shows no signs of slowing. Students will need to adapt to new ways of working, socialising and participating in society. Overcoming these challenges will require a generation of innovators, and a new approach to education. But how can educators foster innovation among their students? And why are schools struggling to do...

Teaching, like any other profession, will need to adapt to the new challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. But unlike some other professions, innovations in teaching are unlikely to come in the form of the latest gadgets or software – it will instead be a matter of refining and reshaping practice. But are our current education systems ready to accommodate this? Steven Farr, Director of Classroom Leadership at Teach For All, and Noémie Le Donné, analyst for the OECD’s Teaching and...

Teachers’ own learning is an integral part of their practice – after all, it is said that to teach is to learn twice over. But understanding which kinds of in-service training are effective for teachers and which aren’t can be complex, and many countries have yet to find the perfect formula. Data can provide some guidance. Edmund Mission, Deputy CEO of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), and Pablo Fraser, an analyst for the OECD’s Teaching and Learning...

We’ve heard a lot about adolescent girls showing less interest than boys in technology studies and about the dearth of women in tech industries; but in the United States, women were among the vanguard of programmers in the early days of computing. What happened? We talk with Francesca Borgonovi, a senior education analyst, and Luca Marcolin, an economist, both at the OECD, about why girls shy away from tech studies, why careers in technology are not attractive to more women, and what can be...

Technology has changed the way societies function, and schools will need to adapt in order to prepare students for the technology-rich environments they will face. But the gadget-filled modern world is still relatively new, and understanding how education should respond to it is still a work-in-progress. The influence of artificial intelligence, in particular, deserves serious consideration from educators. In this episode, we sit down with Yuhyun Park, founder of the DQ (Digital Intelligence...