Trends Shaping Swedish Education

Henno Theisens, OECD

Questions for this talk

• Where does Swedish education stand?

• How are Sweden and the world changing?

• What does this mean for education?

WHERE DOES SWEDISH EDUCATION STAND?

Question one

Change in reading performance between 2000 and 2009

Pisa ranking for reading performance564 Shanghai-China538 Korea538 Hong Kong-China535 Finland524 Canada522 Singapore520 Japan518 New Zealand513 Australia506 Netherlands505 Norway504 Belgium502 Poland501 Iceland500 United States

499 Sweden498 Switzerland497 Estonia497 Hungary497 Ireland496 Chinese Taipei496 Denmark496 Germany495 Liechtenstein492 France492 Portugal492 United Kingdom489 Italy488 Macao-China487 Greece484 Spain484 Slovenia

How proficient are students in reading?

Variability in student performance between and within schools

Immigrants and reading performance

HOW ARE SWEDEN AND THE WORLD CHANGING?

Question 2

Megatrends

• Towards a globalising world, with a shifting balance of power

• Towards a more diverse and complex society

• Towards a technology-rich life and a knowledge-intensive economy

Growing international trade

China and India catching up

The widening global gap

Increasing migration rates

Income inequality tends to grow

More single-parent families

Consumption of ADHD medication steeply rising

0

2

4

6

8

10

Iceland United States Canada Norway Israel Netherlands Switzerland Denmark Sweden Germany Belgium New Zealand Australia United Kingdom Spain Chile Portugal Finland South Africa Korea Austria Japan

1996-1998 2006-2008

Expanding use of mobile broadband (3G subscribers)

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

South & Central America Middle East & Africa Eastern Europe

North America Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) Japan

Western Europe

Rapid growth of wikipedia

0

2,000,000

4,000,000

6,000,000

8,000,000

10,000,000

12,000,000

14,000,000

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Total English

Increasing numbers of people working in R&D

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

Finland Iceland Japan Denmark Norway Sweden United States Korea New Zealand Australia Canada Germany France Belgium Russian Federation Slovenia United Kingdom Ireland Spain Czech Republic Netherlands Portugal Slovak Republic Greece Hungary Poland Italy China Turkey Mexico South Africa India

1996 2007

A changing demand for skills

(Levy and Murnane; Economy-wide measures of routine and non-routine task input (US))

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR EDUCATION?

Question three

Schooling for Tomorrow

Is schooling for:• Culturally sensitive global citizens• Strong and open individuals who flourish

in complex and open ended environments • Life-long learners who thrive in diverse

teams• Able to deal with information overload and

on-line collaboration

Can it be done?

• It needs to be combined with the current “back to basics” agenda

• It is critically dependent on the quality of teachers and school leaders

• It requires much better education research than we currently have

• It requires the political will to stimulate some risk taking within schools

• It requires making tough choices