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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RschZFj3vHI

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師曼劉晟劉霞周平艷陳有義劉堅和魏銳2016-21世紀核心素養的框架及要素研究華東師範大學學報教育科學版34329-37

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Inside Singapore's elite education system | SBS Dateline

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https://www.gvm.com.tw/article/100042

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遠見雜誌 - 前進的動力

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學測放榜後，緊接著就是大學甄選的學習歷程審查。賴永祥攝

學測放榜後，緊接著就是大學甄選的學習歷程審查。現在，連大學考招制度也面臨ChatGPT人工智慧工具的嚴重挑戰，目前台大正面因應，其他大學處理進度一次看。

近年因應108課綱上路，推行學習歷程檔案來納入大學甄選一環後，各種「學習歷程資料代辦」顧問的服務就大行其道，早已有不少專家呼籲防堵。但現在，還有一個更簡單的方法，竟是請ChatGPT來做代筆？

由於ChatGPT的強大功能快速顛覆每個人的想像，現在只要打開網頁，和ChatGPT聊天下指令，就可以請AI代為寫報告、繳交作業、論文撰寫都行。衝擊這麼大，也將進一步延伸影響到教師的授課；更重要的是，大學考招制度也面臨人工智慧工具的嚴重的挑戰。

自108課綱開始實施、新制大學招考制度上路後，學習歷程檔案在其中扮演十分重要的角色。

尤其昨日學測放榜，大學申請入學是最多考生進入大學的升學管道，學習歷程檔案是重要的升學參考，如何檢視和判斷考生資料來源是否由考生親自撰寫，AI工具在考招制度是否需明文規定禁止使用，未來各大學是否需增加口試，甚至是否因為AI工具而影響或調整筆試的評量比例，都是刻不容緩的問題。

大學甄選的學習歷程備審，也將受AI衝擊？

大學招聯會則回應表示，今年考生大學甄選第2階段的備審資料於5月4日起上傳學習歷程檔案，招聯會將召開常務委員會議，討論ChatGPT對申請入學的影響，並提出審查時的注意事項，給各大學參考。

原則上，會請大學在二階甄試時，除了看學習歷程檔案，還要在口試、筆試及實作方面加強，現場提出問題問考生，提醒各大學針對備審資料嚴謹把關。

也因此，家長可能需提醒孩子，在製作備審資料時千萬別以為用ChatGPT或其他AI工具可以輕鬆代筆。其實目前ChatGPT背後OpenAI團隊已開發出可辨識內容是否為ChatGPT生成的工具。

在台灣，清華大學率先成立全台第一個AI影響教學工作小組，台大則表示AI輔助與人機協作勢不可擋，採正面看待的態度，把ChatGPT視為教學優化的契機，可鼓勵教學著重課程知識實踐，接著由台大教學發展中心製作專頁，提供ChatGPT的介紹與正確使用的建議和提醒。

陽明交大則說明，將於校內舉辦論壇，邀師生意見交流，除了消極面的禁止或處罰，也會就積極面討論AI輔助寫作的規範，待有決策方向後，再透過公聽會、辯論會形成最後決策。

此外，據了解，教育部近日也邀集各校舉辦「ChatGPT等軟體對於學校課程教學及入學招生影響事宜研商會議」。可見當ChatGPT進入校園，究竟是完全禁止？還是與它共「融」共「榮」？教育單位無不備戰中。

圖／如何辨識學生使用ChatGPT的正確性，成了大學頭痛的問題之一。達志影像

美國各大學設立專頁，明文規範人工智慧工作使用規則

另一方面，美國各大學針對學校究竟應該擁抱接受人工智慧工具，抑或是反對禁止它有諸多討論。

許多專文不僅介紹ChatGPT，也告訴師生它的優缺點或是可能需要多注意的考量。許多學校像是耶魯、普林斯頓等大學都已有在學校網站設立專頁，給師生更為詳細的指引、提醒與建議。這些都可供台灣的大學師生們參考；像是教師應該直接和透明地說明是否允許學生使用哪些人工智慧工具，以及任何限制的原因，或者是可和學生們相互討論訂定使用規範。

各大學也應提醒教師們在新一學期教學大綱中明確告知AI工具的使用規範和評量方式。課堂大綱即載明此堂課當中是否可以使用AI工具，學生若有使用可清楚註明像是「學術誠信聲明」，讓師生明確知道有無輔助使用，若教師決定禁止使用也須於教學大綱中明確告知，如此清楚說明評量方式，也比較不會造成後續評分爭議。

此外，老師們也可思考透過作業設計和評量結構的改變，降低學生作弊的可能性，並提高他們的學習效果。各校更應該成立團隊了解ChatGPT等不同人工智慧的功能與指令，才能知道如何善用或禁止它。

值得注意的是，面對人工智慧工具勢不可擋的趨勢，大專院校都應該針對自己特色、科系建立相關指引，也須盡速對學生與老師分別開說明會，在學生說明會的部分可強調使用規範，老師說明會則教導教師更認識此工具的特性，當老師比學生們更了解人工智慧工具，才能定訂出或變更合適的教學及評量方式。

不同科系對ChatGPT的衝擊差異大小不同，有些科系未來畢業的工作可能會消失，需提早因應，這些都是人工智慧工具引發未來思考的方向。

人工智慧工具愈多，建立規範時應與時俱進

人工智慧的發展比想像中的快速，ChatGPT可能改變學習、教學等各面向，讓世界各地的大學不得不積極做出應對，當大家在研議的同時，是否也應該趁此機會將人工智慧工具都納入討論，不要只限於ChatGPT的討論和規範，人工智慧工具的發展只會愈來愈多、愈來愈快，光是現今幾個熱門的人工智慧工具都已大大的挑戰教學與學習現場。

像是PhotoMath可由手機拍照就能解出從小學、高中到大學的數學題，甚至手抄題也沒問題，Midjourney能自動繪圖、Tome可自動生成簡報、D-ID能自動生成影片動畫、AIVA能自動生成音樂，人工智慧工具日益強大。大家真的都準備好了嗎？

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遠見天下文化出版股份有限公司

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學習歷程檔案請ChatGPT代筆？國內各大學決心因應 | 黃偌晴 | 遠見雜誌

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近年因應108課綱上路，推行學習歷程檔案來納入大學甄選一環後，各種「學習歷程資料代辦」顧問的服務就大行其道，早已有不少專家呼籲防堵。但現在，還有一個更簡單的方法，竟是請ChatGPT來做代筆？ ...

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Teacher strikes: How do teachers' salaries compare across Europe?

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Teacher strikes: How do teachers' salaries compare across Europe?

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Teachers are often hailed as heroes that are to be celebrated, but in many countries across Europe, they're feeling undervalued and are even taking to the streets.

Thousands of schools in England and Wales are set to close in February after teachers' unions voted to strike.

In Hungary, thousands of teachers marched in Budapest late last year, calling for higher salaries and urgent reforms from the government following strikes in September. Around 50 teachers have even been fired for "civil disobedience" after staging walkouts.

It's part of a wider picture of malaise in education, with a growing teacher shortage spreading across Europe. In France, there are currently 4,000 vacancies, with the latest estimates in Germany suggesting a shortfall of 25,000 teachers by 2025.

The situation is largely due to working conditions, including stagnant wages that are being exacerbated by the cost of living crisis.

So, how much are teachers paid in Europe? Which countries pay teachers the most and the least? And how much have teacher salaries changed in the last decade?

There are significant differences in teacher salaries across European countries.

The official annual gross starting salaries in public schools in lower secondary education (ISCED 2) ranged from around €4,233 in Albania to €69,076 in Luxembourg in 2020/2021, according to country data compiled by the European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice.

The average pay for teachers across European Union (EU) countries is €25,055.

Teachers in France and Italy earn half what they do in Germany

Leaving aside Luxembourg, the annual starting salary was above €50,000 in just two countries, namely Switzerland (€66,972) and Germany (€54,129).

The annual salary in France and Italy was less than half the German figure.

Bulgaria had the lowest annual starting teacher salary among EU countries, at €7,731. The figure is also below €10,000 in several other EU countries such as Latvia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Poland.

The purchasing power standard (PPS) is "an artificial currency unit" defined by Eurostat, where one PPS unit can theoretically buy the same amount of goods and services in each country. Looking at salaries in PPS irons out some of the cost of living differences between countries, but there are still wide disparities.

Teacher salaries seen through this lens ranged from 7,824 PPS in Albania to 50,357 PPS in Germany. While the annual gross starting salary of teachers is generally between 20,000 and 30,000 PPS, it is still below 20,000 PPS in 10 EU countries: Estonia, Malta, Czechia, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Latvia and Slovakia respectively.

The Balkan countries Montenegro and North Macedonia, which are outside the EU, have higher teacher salaries in PPS than several EU countries. Surprisingly, Turkey ranks significantly better in PPS (28,455) than in nominal salary (€8,330): while it ranked 28th out of 36 countries in nominal figures, it came 11th in PPS.

How do European teachers' salaries compare to the minimum wage?

The ratio of teacher salaries to minimum wage shows how much teachers earn compared to the minimum wage in each country. The ratio is calculated by dividing the gross teacher salary by the gross minimum wage.

That ratio is the highest in Germany, with 2.8, whereas Poland has the lowest ratio with 1.1.

In other words, the starting salary of teachers in Poland is very close to the minimum wage, while teachers starting in German state schools earn nearly three times the minimum wage.

The average ratio across 21 EU countries is 1.86 while it is just 1.4 in France and Greece.

In most European countries, teachers who start working in state schools also earn, on average, significantly less than the national gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.

Their annual gross statutory starting salary was higher than the GDP per capita in just seven out of 36 countries. The highest ratio of salary to GDP per capita was recorded in North Macedonia with 1.28, whereas it was the lowest in Ireland with 0.45.

While Germany is one of the countries with the highest GDP per capita in Europe, the ratio is 1.26, meaning that junior teachers still earn more than the average GDP per capita. In contrast, this ratio is just 0.71 in France.

How have teacher salaries changed in the last decade?

The latest Eurydice report also provides figures for the 2009/2010 period. At the time, the annual gross starting salaries of teachers varied from €2,743 in Romania to €63,895 in Luxembourg.

The average across 26 EU countries was €19,563 in 2009/2010. However, it was below €5,000 in six EU countries, namely Slovakia (€4,824), Poland (€4,462), Lithuania (€4,275), Latvia (€4,166), Bulgaria (€2,761) and Romania (€2,743).

In other EU countries, it generally ranged from €18,000 to €30,000 while starting salaries in Germany and Denmark were over €35,000.

The change in annual gross starting salaries of teachers between 2009/2010 and 2020/2021 was the highest in Lithuania, where wages rose by 269 per cent in those 11 years. Recent EU member states Romania and Bulgaria also saw dramatic increases in teacher salaries over the last decade, of 193 and 180 per cent respectively.

The starting teacher salary also rose by 42 per cent in Germany, which already had the second highest salary in the 2009/2010 period. The change was below 10 per cent in six EU countries - Cyprus, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Slovenia and Luxembourg.

Turkey is the only country on the list where starting teaching salaries decreased over the decade, falling by €876, or 10 per cent, likely due to the collapse of the Turkish lira in recent years.

In nominal terms, Iceland saw the annual gross starting salaries of teachers rise by €25,720 between 2009/2010 and 2020/2021, the highest increase among the countries studied, followed by Germany (€15,915) and Sweden (€15,135).

Starting salaries also rose by more than €10,000 in Austria, Lithuania and Denmark.

Are teachers satisfied with their salaries?

The short answer is no.

According to the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) in 2018, on average only 26 per cent of teachers in OECD countries and economies participating in TALIS thought their work was valued by society, and 39 per cent were satisfied with their pay.

How much have countries spent on education?

In 2020, general government expenditure on education in the EU amounted to €671 billion, or 5 per cent of GDP.

The EU countries spending the highest share of GDP on education were Sweden (7 per cent), Belgium and Estonia (6.6 per cent), followed by Denmark (6.4 per cent) in the EU.

Outside of the bloc, Iceland spent 7.7 per cent of its GDP on education. The lowest levels of expenditure on education as a share of GDP were seen in Ireland (3.1 per cent), Romania (3.7 per cent), and Bulgaria (4 per cent).

How many pupils do teachers look after?

In the EU, the average number of pupils per teacher at primary level was 13.6 in 2020 but once again, there are significant country-by-country variations.

The lowest ratios - which some would call ideal - were registered in Greece (8.4), Luxembourg (8.9), and Hungary (10), whereas the United Kingdom (19.9), Romania (19.2) and France (18.4) had the highest average number of pupils per teacher.

The pupil-teacher ratio is calculated by dividing the number of full-time equivalent pupils by the number of full-time equivalent teachers.

A worrying shortage of teachers

Last but not least, there is a worrying shortage of teachers in European countries.

More than 30,000 teacher positions remained unfilled in Germany at the beginning of this academic year.

There is a shortage of 20,000 teachers in Poland and 16,000 in Hungary, and the French Ministry of Education stated that 4,000 of some 27,300 new teacher positions remain vacant.

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Teachers' wages: How do countries in Europe compare?

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Teachers are often hailed as heroes that are to be celebrated, but in many countries across Europe, they're feeling undervalued and are even taking to the streets. Thousands of schools in England and Wales are set to close in February after teachers' unions voted to strike.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cbn08FYElU

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111-2 Comparative Education Syllabus (new)

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Why The Education System Is Failing America | CNBC Marathon

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Why The Education System Is Failing America | CNBC Marathon

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Why The Education System Is Failing America | CNBC Marathon

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What is ChatGPT, and why does it have educators worried?

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What is ChatGPT, and why does it have educators worried?

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What is ChatGPT, and why does it have educators worried?

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https://casel.org/casel-sel-framework-11-2020/?view=true

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International Telecommunication Union
https://www.itu.int/hub/2021/11/facts-and-figures-2021-2-9-billion-people-still-offline/

https://www.itu.int/en/mediacentre/backgrounders/Pages/connect-2030-agenda.aspx

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An estimated 37 per cent of the world's population - or 2.9 billion people - have still never used the Internet.

New data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies (ICTs), also reveal strong global growth in Internet use, with the estimated number of people who have used the Internet surging to 4.9 billion in 2021, from an estimated 4.1 billion in 2019.

This comes as good news for global development. However, ITU data confirm that the ability to connect remains profoundly unequal.

Of the 2.9 billion still offline, an estimated 96 per cent live in developing countries.

And even among the 4.9 billion counted as 'Internet users', many hundreds of millions may only get the chance to go online infrequently, via shared devices, or using connectivity speeds that markedly limit the usefulness of their connection. "While almost two-thirds of the world's population is now online, there is a lot more to do to get everyone connected to the Internet," said ITU Secretary General Houlin Zhao.

"ITU will work with all parties to make sure that the building blocks are in place to connect the remaining 2.9 billion. We are determined to ensure no one will be left behind."

The unusually sharp rise in the number of people online suggests that measures taken during the pandemic - such as widespread lockdowns and school closures, combined with people's need for access to news, government services, health updates, e-commerce and online banking - contributed to a 'COVID connectivity boost' that has brought an estimated 782 million additional people online since 2019, an increase of 17 per cent.

What it means for sustainable development

The 2021 edition of Facts and Figures, ITU's annual overview of the state of digital connectivity worldwide, shows the number of Internet users globally growing by more than 10 per cent in the first year of the pandemic - by far the largest annual increase in a decade.Strong growth since 2019 was largely driven by increases in developing countries, where Internet penetration climbed more than 13 per cent. In the 46 UN-designated Least Developed Countries (LDCs), the average increase exceeded 20 per cent.

"These statistics show great progress towards ITU's mission to connect the world," said Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Director of ITU's Telecommunication Development Bureau, which oversees ITU's data and analytics work.

"But a vast 'connectivity chasm' remains in the LDCs, where almost three quarters of people have never connected to the Internet. Women in LDCs are particularly marginalized, with roughly four out of every five still offline."

Many of these 'digitally excluded' face formidable challenges including poverty, illiteracy, limited access to electricity, and lack of digital skills and awareness. "Digital solutions would be needed to re-energize sustainable development and help put countries back on track to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030," Bogdan-Martin added. "Unfortunately, the communities identified in the 2030 Agenda as most at risk of being left behind are the very same communities now being digitally left behind."

Key report findings

The digital gender divide is narrowing globally, but large gaps remain in poorer countries.

Globally, an average of 62 per cent of men use the Internet compared with 57 per cent of women.

Although the digital gender divide has been narrowing in all world regions and has been virtually eliminated in the developed world (89 per cent of men and 88 per cent of women online) wide gaps remain in Least Developed Countries (31 per cent of men compared to just 19 per cent of women) and in Landlocked Developing Countries (38 per cent of men compared to 27 per cent of women). The gender divide remains particularly pronounced in Africa (35 per cent of men compared to 24 per cent of women) and the Arab States (68 per cent of men compared to 56 per cent of women).

The urban-rural gap, though less severe in developed countries, remains a major challenge for digital connectivity in the rest of the world.

Globally, people in urban areas are twice as likely to use the Internet than those in rural areas (76 per cent urban compared to 39 per cent rural). In developed economies, the urban-rural gap appears negligible in terms of Internet usage (with 89 per cent of people in urban areas having used the Internet in the last three months, compared to 85 per cent in rural areas), whereas in developing countries, people in urban areas are twice as likely to use the Internet as those in rural areas (72 per cent urban compared to 34 per cent rural). In the LDCs, urban dwellers are almost four times as likely to use the Internet as people living in rural areas (47 per cent urban compared to 13 per cent rural).

A generational gap is evident across all world regions.

On average, 71 per cent of the world's population aged 15-24 is using the Internet, compared with 57 per cent of all other age groups. This generational gap is reflected across all regions. It is most pronounced in the LDCs, where 34 per cent of young people are connected, compared with only 22 per cent of the rest of the population. Greater uptake among young people bodes well for connectivity and development. In the LDCs, for example, half of the population is less than 20 years old, suggesting that local labour markets will become progressively more connected and technology-savvy as the younger generation enters the workforce.

ITU continues monitoring the world's evolving digital divide.

ITU figures also point to a glaring gap between digital network availability versus actual connection. While 95 per cent of people in the world could theoretically access a 3G or 4G mobile broadband network, billions of them do not connect. Affordability of devices and services remains a major barrier. The widely accepted target for affordable broadband connectivity in developing countries sets the cost of an entry-level mobile broadband package at 2 per cent of gross national income (GNI) per capita. Yet in some of the world's poorest nations, getting online can cost a staggering 20 per cent or more of per capita GNI. Lack of digital skills and an appreciation of the benefits of an online connection is another bottleneck, compounded by a lack of content in local languages, as well as by interfaces that demand literacy and numeracy skills that many people do not possess.
Learn more about Facts and Figures 2021.

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Facts and Figures 2021: 2.9 billion people still offline - ITU Hub

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An estimated 37 per cent of the world's population - or 2.9 billion people - have still never used the Internet. New data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies (ICTs), also reveal strong global growth in Internet use, with the estimated number of people who have used the Internet surging to 4.9 billion in 2021, from an estimated 4.1 billion in 2019.

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https://gpseducation.oecd.org/revieweducationpolicies/#!node=41748&filter=all

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Future of education

Underlying a host of recent political, economic and demographic transformations across the world is the recognition of their global scale. Thanks to technological advances, decreasing transportation costs, international agreements, and integration of markets, people, goods and services travel 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 around the world. Many of such deep transformations require not only local, but also global solutions. Education systems are certainly influenced by these trends, but they also have the power to affect them. More

Learning environment

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

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Review education policies - Education GPS - OECD

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Future of education Underlying a host of recent political, economic and demographic transformations across the world is the recognition of their global scale. Thanks to technological advances, decreasing transportation costs, international agreements, and integration of markets, people, goods and services travel more easily than ever bringing to societies both, increased diversity, but also a growing uniformity of experiences and challenges.

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https://www.itu.int/en/sustainable-world/Pages/ICT4SDG-videos.aspx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xziCiGvgOm8

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​Below is a compilation of videos on the role of information communication technologies (ICTs) in achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs).Please select the desired SDG below to view the video.​

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https://gpseducation.oecd.org/Home

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Brief introduction to Singapore Education 

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Brief introduction to Singapore Education 

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Brief introduction to Australian Education

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Brief introduction to Australian Education

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https://usinfo.org/enus/education/edu_overview.html

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The U.S. Education System

Overview

U.S. Department of Education
A description of the structure and function of the U.S. Department of Education from theU.S. Government Manual.

Structure of the U.S. Education System
Overviews

Organization of the U.S. Education System
Information on how education in the United States is governed, including the roles of the different levels of authority in our federal system, the role of national associations, and the ways by which standards and quality are monitored. Provided by the U.S. Network for Education Information.

K - 12 Undergraduate
Graduate School

Accreditation in the U.S. System

Accreditation in the United States
An overview and description of accreditation of institutions of higher education, listings of accrediting agencies and the regulations governing the role of the U.S. Department of Education.

Education Statistics

Special Needs and Charter Schools

Diversity in Education

A Diverse Educational System
FromPortrait of the USA, this chapter describes the broad contours of U.S. education, including its structure, standards and challenges.

Religion and Education

Education and the Internet

The History of Education in the U.S.

Education Legislation

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U.S. EDUCATION > Overview of the U.S. Education System

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Information on the history and organization of the American education system, including resources on diversity, religion, and legislation. overview of the u.s. education system. Education in the U.S. The History of Education in the U.S. Organization and Structure of the U.S

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OECD Country Report on the Framework for Responsiveness and Resilience in Education Policy 

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OECD Country Report on the Framework for Responsiveness and Resilience in Education Policy 

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https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/75e40a16-en/1/3/5/index.html?itemId=/content/publication/75e40a16-en&_csp_=afa978e563bc62d2fa53de0de30815a3&itemIGO=oecd&itemContentType=book

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This work is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Members of the OECD.

This document, as well as any data and map included herein, are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area.

The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank under the terms of international law.

Photo credits: Cover © Sasha Chebotarev/Shutterstock.com; © Mahsun YILDIZ/Shutterstock.com; © Juice Dash/Shutterstock.com; © Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com.

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This work is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Members of the OECD.

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OECD 各國教育政策概覽

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OECD 各國教育政策概覽

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https://www.oecd.org/education/reformsfinder.htm

https://www.oecd.org/education/profiles.htm

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The Education Policy Reforms Finder contains information about more than 1 600 education policy reforms in 38 education systems. The database incorporates information published in the OECD Education Policy Outlook country policy profiles and comparative reports that has been gathered in co-operation with OECD and partner countries. To facilitate research, the data are organised by target of reform-students, educational insitutions and education systems-and by theme-including disadvantaged students, learning environments, quality of teachers, and school-to-work transitions.

User tips:

Click on a country in the 1st chart to see the corresponding information on Education Policy Theme in the 2nd chart, as well as all relevant information presented in the table below, notably, a link to the most recent EPO publication that provides data on the selected country.

The charts are interactive; to see a list of all policies related to a particular lever, click on it in the legend of the 1st chart. The other two charts will change accordingly. To see policies related to a certain lever and in a certain country, click on the corresponding colour in the bar graph for that country. To filter policies by policy theme, click on the theme you wish to explore in the 2nd chart. Hover over these themes to see their full title. Clear all search settings by clicking in any white space in the 1st or 2nd charts.

Finetune your policy search by using the filter bar, located to the right of the Reforms Finder. Select multiple filters by holding down the CTRL button. Clear your filters by clicking on the eraser icon.

To see policies adopted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, select the asterisk in the filter pane for the filter "COVID Response." To facilitate visualisation of the table of policies, select "Focus mode" (upper right corner of the table), or "full-screen mode" (bottom of the page).

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Education Policy Outlook Reforms Finder - OECD

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Data and research on education including skills, literacy, research, elementary schools, childhood learning, vocational training and PISA, PIACC and TALIS surveys., The Education Policy Outlook is a new publication that uses existing knowledge to review education policies and reforms across OECD countries.

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7 Education Policy Issues That Need to Be Solved in 2020

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7 Education Policy Issues That Need to Be Solved in 2020

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The greatest challenge facing educators-and the rest of the world-in 2020 is defeating the coronavirus. All of today's pressing education policy issues relate directly to fulfilling educators' mission to provide students with the most effective teaching possible. As the pandemic rages, that mission becomes more important than ever.

Educators' short-term focus is on establishing distance learning procedures that serve all students. However, the long-term impact of the pandemic remains unclear. Issues related to school funding, teacher training and retention, workforce development, and providing safe and welcoming education environments are too important to be shunted aside as the world focuses on combating the coronavirus.

The times of greatest challenge can also be the times of greatest opportunity for effecting lasting, positive change. Educators and education leaders must face this catastrophe head-on and prepare to reimagine how communities can best serve the education needs of their children.

The initial response to the shift from classroom instruction to distance learning has highlighted the disparity in online access that threatens to widen the digital divide between rich and poor students. The Associated Press reports that 17 percent of US students do not have access to computers at home, and 18 percent do not have broadband internet access from their homes.

The problem extends beyond ensuring students have the necessary computers and internet access. Even when students have access to online learning resources via internet-connected devices, family circumstances may hinder their ability to complete coursework remotely.

The New York Times recounts the experiences of students in the same political science class at Haverford College in Pennsylvania. One student was able to log into the videoconferencing app the college relied on for its online classes from her parent's vacation home in Maine, while another had to turn her full attention to helping her parents operate the family food truck in Florida. This student told the professor for whom she worked as a teaching assistant that keeping the family business running jeopardized her return to school.

The National Conference of State Legislatures describes the response of state governments to school closures related to the coronavirus:

The US Department of Agriculture has exempted states from prohibitions against large gatherings so schools can continue to provide students with meals they would have received in school.

The US Department of Education is considering one-year waivers on assessment and accountability requirements that are intended to identify low-performing schools.

Many colleges have announced they will remove ACT and SAT testing requirements for admissions and instead will consider the test scores optional.

#2: K-12 Funding

Funding for public education faced serious pressures prior to the coronavirus outbreak, and as the Brookings Institution reports, those pressures will only become worse as the full impact of the pandemic hits funding sources. States anticipate steep declines in the revenue they will collect from income and sales taxes to fund the 2020-2021 school year.

K-12 schools will be competing for funding with emergency public health efforts, higher education, and Medicaid, which is expected to experience a big jump in enrollment as the economy falters. The funding shortfall is exacerbated by schools' increased reliance on state funding as local property taxes continue to represent a smaller share of their total need. School districts are even more vulnerable to economic downturns than other public institutions because many are committed to multiyear teacher pay raises, according to the Brookings Institution.

#3: Training and Retaining Qualified Teachers

While long-term commitments to teacher salary increases may put added pressure on school district finances, the failure to compensate teachers fairly threatens schools' ability to ensure their students receive the quality education they need to serve their families and communities in the future. New America points out that the negative effects of low teacher salaries have gained the attention of the public, but other factors can be just as vital to attracting and retaining quality teachers.

A report from the Economic Policy Institute found that the gap between the supply of teachers and the demand increased from 20,000 per year in 2012-2013 to 64,000 per year in 2016-2017 and 110,000 in 2017-2018. The rate of teachers leaving the profession and declining enrollments in teacher education programs are only two of many factors contributing to the shortage. The disparities in teacher quality and the uneven distribution of highly qualified teachers in schools serving low-income students make the critical shortage of teachers even more dire.

#4: Ensuring Safe and Nurturing Education Environments

For students to reach their full potential, schools must provide them with a learning environment that is free from threats, fear, intimidation, bullying, violence, and crime. The National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) states that creating and maintaining a warm, welcoming, and orderly school setting is principals' top priority. However, school leaders, teachers and other staff, and the community at large also play important roles in ensuring safe, well-run schools.

Keeping schools safe and allowing students to learn without fear of violence requires establishing trust. The NASSP calls for increased funding and support for mental health services, crisis identification programs, and enhanced school safety programs. The National School Climate Center has created a school climate improvement process that supports leadership shared by school districts, individual schools, individual classrooms, students, and the community.

#5: Childcare and Universal Pre-K Education

Universal preschool starting at age three is gaining the support of a growing number of politicians after being championed by former Democratic presidential candidates Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders. However, resistance to extending free public education from age five to age three centers on concerns of higher taxes and the belief that three- and four-year-olds are too young to be in school.

The New York Times reports that both government-subsidized childcare and universal pre-K education are winning more support as research shows the benefits of high-quality care and education to the development of very young children. In addition, children in low-income families currently have "significantly less access" to these services. As childcare becomes more expensive, it is believed that expanding pre-K education would allow more women to join the workforce while alleviating the growing burden on families of escalating childcare costs.

#6: Readying Students for Tomorrow's Workforce

A primary goal of educators at all levels is to provide students with the skills they will need to thrive and succeed once they enter the workforce. However, We Are Teachers cites a McKinsey study that found 40 percent of employers struggle to find qualified candidates to fill their open positions. One approach to ensuring students learn the skills necessary to qualify for the in-demand jobs of the future is to encourage more collaboration between private companies and educators.

AT&T proposes five strategies for developing the twenty-first-century workforce:

Start developing workforce skills in K-12 education by focusing on competencies rather than on grade levels and by increasing hands-on training programs.

Implement mentoring programs that connect students with professionals in various fields via partnerships with organizations such as Girls Who Code.

Give students first-hand experience with workforce technologies through internships and other programs that immerse them in technology environments.

Encourage collaboration that benefits students and employers by sharing research and practice in data science and other cutting-edge technologies.

Help bridge the gap between technology haves and have-nots by connecting public school teachers with donors willing to fund creative educational projects.

#7: Charter Schools vs. Traditional Public Schools

Few education policy issues are more polarizing than the debate about the benefits of charter schools vs. traditional public schools. The Brookings Institution defines charter schools as tuition-free, publicly funded institutions whose leaders "accept greater accountability in exchange for greater autonomy." While public school students are typically assigned to a school based on where they live, charter schools accept students regardless of location.

Teachers' unions are among the staunchest opponents to charter schools, only 11 percent of which employ unionized teachers. Opponents claim that charter schools take funds away from traditional public schools, and they object to for-profit management, which currently represents about 12 percent of charter schools.

Whether charter schools offer quality education equal to or greater than that provided by traditional public schools remains unsettled. However, a study conducted by Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes found that students in charter schools and public schools perform about equally in similar tests, although students in urban charter schools outperform their counterparts in public schools, and students enrolled in online charter schools underperform public school students with comparable demographic characteristics.

Preparing Students to Become Education Policy Makers

The role of education leaders has never been more critical to students' success. American University's Online Doctorate in Education Policy and Leadership (EdD) program is geared to teaching the practical skills education leaders need to drive policy that improves education outcomes in the most vulnerable communities. The program emphasizes strategic budgeting, collaborative inquiry, talent development, partnership building, and other key education leadership skills.

Learn more about the benefits of the American University Online Doctorate in Education Policy and Leadership for educators who aspire to leadership roles in schools, school districts, and communities.

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7 Education Policy Issues that Need to Be Solved in 2020 | American University

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The most pressing education policy issues in 2020 include teaching during a pandemic, finding new sources of K-12 funding, and paying teachers fairly.

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There are two general categories of school choice programs: public and private. Public choice options provide parents with educational choices within the public school sector and include open enrollment, magnet schools and charter schools. Private choice programs use public dollars to fund education options in the private sector, often at private schools. These programs include vouchers, education saving accounts and scholarship tax credits.

Additionally, the following resources capture state policy trends, examples and other contextual information important for anyone working on these issues.

Here is a two-page explainer:

Searching for something different?

Explore our State Education Policy Tracking resource:

Browse pending legislation on our State Education Policy Watchlist:

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There are two general categories of school choice programs: public and private. Public choice options provide parents with educational choices within the public school sector and include open enrollment, magnet schools and charter schools. Private choice programs use public dollars to fund education options in the private sector, often at private schools.

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Enhancing Teacher Preparation Through Clinical Experience

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Enhancing Teacher Preparation Through Clinical Experience

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Research shows teachers are the most influential in-school factor in student achievement. Creating opportunities for strong teacher preparation, meaningful licensure, quality and supportive working environments, career growth and other items that lead to job satisfaction among teachers is paramount to the success of teachers and in turn, students. Though many of the decisions impacting teachers are made at the district and school level, state policy plays an important role in setting benchmarks, guidelines and incentives that lead to effective and well-supported teaching professionals.

Searching for something different?

View all available teaching resources:

Explore our State Education Policy Tracking resource:

Browse pending legislation on our State Education Policy Watchlist:

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Research shows teachers are the most influential in-school factor in student achievement. Creating opportunities for strong teacher preparation, meaningful licensure, quality and supportive working environments, career growth and other items that lead to job satisfaction among teachers is paramount to the success of teachers and in turn, students.

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Germany: IntegratIng refugees and other mIgrants Into educatIon and traInIng

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Germany: IntegratIng refugees and other mIgrants Into educatIon and traInIng

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What is Germany’s dual education system? – DW – 04/06/2018

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The German economy is powered by products sold the world over. The strength of Europe's powerhouse depends on outbound shipments. We take a look at one of its latest exports and reveal the secrets behind its success.

Charlotte Falke creates technical drawings of power plant generators. The 23-year-old designer, a trainee at German industrial giant Siemens, spent a year at university before opting for a more vocational program. "I left because there was too much theory," she said. "I wanted more practice."

Falke is not alone. Over 50 percent of Germans enter dual vocational and educational training programs (VET) as a route into employment. They choose from 326 professional trades that include diamond cutters, aircraft mechanics and even chimney sweeps.

The system is widely credited with fueling the German export engine. Outside the country, some tout it as a solution to rising youth unemployment. So how does VET work - and is it worth the hype?

Dual Vocational Training

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Theory and practice
"The basic idea is duality," said Ralf Hermann, head of the German Office for International Cooperation in Vocational Education and Training (GOVET). "That means integrating school-based learning with work-based practice."

Like most apprentices, Falke spends a few days a week at college learning foundation skills, such as math and language, as well as the theory underpinning her work. The rest of her time is spent mainly in the office designing products. The balance means she is able to produce technical drawings to industry standards and interact with her clients in English.

"A broader education in school is necessary to provide the soft skills that make responsible young people," said Hermann, who points to the need for flexibility in a rapidly changing digital economy. "Occupations have a broader sense of skills than mere training for one particular job."
Outside interest
Vocational training exists in many countries, but such schemes are rarely as popular as in Germany. More young people follow VET programs than go to university, even though many are qualified for further study.

Apprenticeships are standardized across the country - every product designer must study the same textbooks and be familiar with the same design tools - so employment prospects do not vary greatly by college or company. Most join their training company after three years of low-paid work and study.

This is important for the German economy, which has one of the lowest youth unemployment rates in the EU, and also the largest trade surplus. In 2017 Germany exported €1.279 trillion ($1.571 trillion) worth of goods and imported €1.034 trillion.

Some countries looking to balance their trade books are keen to learn from the German model. Ivanka Trump, adviser to protectionist US President Donald Trump, has expressed interest in bringing dual vocational training schemes to the US. Speaking to German weekly Wirtschaftswoche last year, Ms. Trump described Germany's apprenticeship system as "a great trailblazer."

"The perception of our international partners is quite right," said Hermann. "Part of the economic stability in Germany is due to the core elements of the VET, in that we produce a workforce that is ready for the labor markets."
History of training
One reason for VET's success in Germany is a culture of apprenticeships that stretches back to the middle ages. The practical component of study is so pervasive in German education that many young people even opt for semi-vocational university courses.

"This mixture you can't find in any other concept," said Marius Berger, a salesman at a German car manufacturer. The 27-year-old completed a dual study program in automotive retail, alternating 50/50 between three-month stints at university and internships at the company's headquarters. He graduated with a Bachelor's degree in 2012 and has stayed with the company since.

"I searched for the possibility to combine my love for German cars with a good economic study program," said Berger. "For me it wasn't an option to do a normal Bachelor degree without any practical part."

But feeding such systems into countries without a culture of vocational training poses problems. While Germany provides technical advice to countries looking to implement VET systems, such as Mexico and Russia, organizations such as GOVET are hesitant to describe vocational education as an export hit.

"A system that has grown in Germany under very specific conditions cannot just be exported to another country under very different conditions," said Hermann.

Vocational training in the Digital Age

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What is Germany's dual education system? - DW - 04/06/2018

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The German economy is powered by products sold the world over. The strength of Europe's powerhouse depends on outbound shipments. We take a look at one of its latest exports and reveal the secrets behind its success.

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Germany wants to improve educational equity. We take a look at current challenges and positive developments.

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Where does Germany stand with regard to educational equity?

International comparisons of educational equity show that Germany still needs to make improvements in this area. Although the German Economic Institute (IW) in Cologne noticed a positive trend in its 2011 and 2016 studies, in 2021 it found "that the link between socioeconomic background and educational success is growing stronger again. This can also be traced back to strong immigration." The education system is confronted by the challenge of creating equal opportunity for individuals with different backgrounds. Referring to the coronavirus crisis, the IW study makes clear: "As a result of the closure of educational institutions for a longer period, how well children and young people continue to be supported depends largely on their home environment." A country's prosperity is not the sole factor here: UNICEF investigated the educational equity of preschool- and school-age children in 41 industrialised nations in 2018. Germany received a lower middle ranking, and although it was placed more highly than the USA and Australia, it was behind smaller economies, such as Lithuania, Denmark and the number one country Latvia.

What positive developments have there been?

Success in higher education is becoming less dependent on social background. The IW study draws attention to the proportion of young people from non-graduate households who have attained a university degree or are still in higher education. While the average for the years from 2000 to 2002 was 18.7%, in 2018 it had already risen to 30%. Furthermore, the National Education Report for 2020 shows that "upward mobility" (children's education is higher than parents' education) increased slightly while "downward mobility" (children's education is lower than parents' education) decreased. Fundamentally, upward mobility in Germany is significantly higher than downward mobility.

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International comparisons of educational equity show that Germany still needs to make improvements in this area. Although the German Economic Institute (IW) in Cologne noticed a positive trend in its 2011 and 2016 studies, in 2021 it found "that the link between socioeconomic background and educational success is growing stronger again.

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Ukrainian refugee kids face a challenge in German schools

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Ukrainian refugee kids face a challenge in German schools

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Anna Bobrakova is happy. "Mom, you can be proud of me, I got almost only ones," her son told her recently. In Germany, a one is the highest grade you can receive for schoolwork. Her sons are 15 and 12. Both attend a Berlin grammar school and have been assigned to "welcome classes" there, where children are initially taught separately because they don't speak German.

According to Bobrakova, who fled Ukraine with her sons immediately after the Russian invasion, the setup is working well. "I haven't had to push him once since the start," she says of her younger son. "He's enjoyed going to school every day." His brother is sometimes not so eager, even if he has very good grades. "I often tell my children that if they don't make an effort at German school, we'll have to go back to Ukraine. That helps."

A growing number of Ukrainians want to stay

After nine months in Berlin, the two boys don't want to go back to Ukraine. And they're not the only ones. "We know that 50% of war refugees now want to stay," says Natalia Roesler from the Federal Parents' Network of Migrant Organizations for Education & Participation (bbt). "Even beyond the period of two years."

Ukrainian refugees in Germany are entitled to "temporary protection" - their residence status is initially valid for one year, but can easily be extended twice by six months each time.

According to the Central Register of Foreigners (AZR), around 1.02 million Ukrainian refugees had registered with German authorities by November of this year. Around 35% of them are children and young people under the age of 18, and most of them are of elementary school age. They're required by law to go to school - just like German children.

Natalia Roesler from the bbt is happy about compulsory schooling. Initially, most refugees hoped to be able to return home quickly. "They were excited and sat on their suitcases, so to speak, and there wasn't much willingness to voluntarily send their children to a German school," says Roesler. Especially since it was possible for the children to continue their schooling in Ukraine online.

The federal states decide on education matters

Around 201,000 Ukrainian children and teenagers are enrolled in German schools. Karin Prien, the education minister in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, has called this a "great achievement of integration."

Prien currently holds the rotating presidency of Germany's Conference of Education Ministers (KMK). In Germany, education is the responsibility of the 16 state governments and the KMK tries to streamline the rules and requirements as much as possible.

Currently, however, there are no nationwide guidelines on schooling refugee children. Whether they're integrated directly into regular German schools or first have to attend preparatory "welcome classes" depends on where they live. In some states, they can switch to regular classes once they've learned enough German. Elsewhere, Ukrainian students are taught separately in preparatory classes for up to a year.

That's difficult for many Ukrainians to understand, says Natalia Roesler. "It comes as a shock to some parents that there are 16 different systems in Germany."

'Welcome classes' face criticism

In Ukraine, German is one of the foreign languages taught in schools. But few students had reached a proficiency allowing them to cope well in regular German schools straight away.

Still, Juliane Karakayali, professor of sociology at the Evangelische Hochschule Berlin, believes in immediate integration rather than preparatory classes. "Segregation of migrants within schools has more negative than positive effects in practice," she says. The "welcome classes" are a parallel system that is not integrated into the regular school system and stigmatizes students. In the absence of a fixed curriculum for those students, what children learn usually depends on the individual teachers.

Karakayali has been researching such preparatory classes since refugees came to Germany in high numbers in 2015-2016. She has found that even without the Ukrainian refugees, German schools were already stretched to the limit due to a blatant lack of teachers and space.

"Often these students are simply dumped somewhere and nobody cares about their future," she says. "The schools just don't want them to be an additional burden on regular school life."

A study by the RWI Leibniz Institute for Economic Research supports the criticism. The report found that the educational success of refugee children of elementary school age deteriorates significantly if they attend a preparatory class instead of a regular class. Children from preparatory classes are also less likely to make the jump to a secondary school that prepares them for higher education.

"We have no guidelines as to what and how we should teach them," a 27-year-old elementary school teacher from Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany told DW.

Since the beginning of the current school year in September, she has been teaching Ukrainian children between the ages of six and 12 in a preparatory class. "At our school, we had a second preparatory class with children who spoke Arabic or Turkish. Unfortunately, because we didn't have enough teachers, we had to combine the classes."

The lessons have little to do with normal school teaching. "I communicate with hands and feet and Google translator," says the teacher, who wants to remain anonymous. "There are elementary language lessons in German and math, but the children's ages differ too much." So, she puts together material for individual students and asks them to work on them and show her the results.

Sarah is convinced that the children would learn much faster and much better if they were integrated into mainstream classes after a short preparation period of two to three weeks.

"Otherwise, the children keep themselves to themselves and only talk in their own language," she says. She also thinks it would be good to hire Ukrainian teachers and have them teach together with German teachers.

Ukrainian children go to school in Germany

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Double standards

Germany is lacking 30,000 teachers. A task force set up by the KMK in March is working on ideas for how Ukrainian teachers can be trained up through intensive language courses and an adaptation qualification.

However, such a program would not be enough to put them on an equal footing with German teachers. In Ukraine, a bachelor's degree is enough to work as a teacher. But in Germany, teachers need to have a master's degree and to have completed an 18-month traineeship afterward.

Karakayali says that the 3,000 Ukrainian teachers currently employed by German schools are mainly employed as "additional educational staff" - with lower pay.

Finding a flexible solution to recruit more Ukrainian teachers would help refugee children also stay up to speed with the Ukrainian curriculum, says education expert Juliane Karakayali. It's still possible to take part in Ukrainian school lessons online, but as time goes by, fewer children are willing to take on additional lessons in the afternoon after their German school day is over.

This shows that many young Ukrainians have decided for themselves that they want to stay in Germany.
This article was originally written in German. While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.

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Ukrainian refugee kids face a challenge in German schools - DW - 12/15/2022

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Anna Bobrakova is happy. "Mom, you can be proud of me, I got almost only ones," her son told her recently. In Germany, a one is the highest grade you can receive for schoolwork. Her sons are 15 and 12.

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German school system still holds back children of migrants, experts say

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German school system still holds back children of migrants, experts say

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In Germany, how well a child does in school is closely linked to their parental background, with immigrants and their children particularly affected by structural inequalities. Opposition politicians are calling for reforms, but experts fear there is a lack of political will for the necessary overhaul.

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In Germany, how well a child does in school is closely linked to their parental background, with immigrants and their children particularly affected by structural inequalities. Opposition politicians are calling for reforms, but experts fear there is a lack of political will for the necessary overhaul.

Inequality in Germany's educational system is a well-documented problem. For decades, studies have confirmed that students from more advantaged socio-economic backgrounds consistently outperform their peers even when displaying the same cognitive abilities.

These children are more likely to be recommended for the highest tracks in the country's education system and more likely to attend university.

Published in January, the government's latest Education Report for 2020 stated that "social background not only shapes the transition to secondary school, but also plays an important role in the subsequent school career."

Earlier this month, during a debate on the report in the German parliament, opposition politicians from the Greens, the far-left Die Linke and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) demanded reforms to address structural inequality in the country's education system.

However, experts say the political will is lacking for the kind of overhaul necessary to make real change.
Focus on migration
The problems are especially apparent among students with a so-called "migration background," a statistical category indicating those with at least one parent not born with German citizenship. According to the report, children with a migration background are four times more likely to be simultaneously impacted by social, financial, and education-related risk factors.

This makes for a uniquely challenging situation.

"It gets difficult when risk situations accumulate and when discrimination and racism are added to the mix," the migrant umbrella organisation BV-NeMO told EURACTIV.

In the 30 to 35 age bracket, just 18.7% of those with a migration background born in Germany have attained a university degree. Among those with two German born parents, that figure rises to 29.6%.

Structural inequalities vary depending upon where a student's family is from, the report notes. Those from the western and northern EU countries were far more likely to have a university degree than those with backgrounds rooted in Eastern Europe or Turkey.
Structural disadvantages
"Social disadvantages and migration have historically been closely coupled in Germany," Albert Scherr, director of Freiburg University's Institute for Sociology, told EURACTIV.

Scherr said the disadvantages were also compounded by the way the German education system is structured. "The question is whether schools compensate more or less" for possible disadvantages, Scherr said, pointing to two elements of the German system that make compensation less likely than elsewhere.

Firstly, Germany separates students by educational ability, a process often referred to as tracking. While other countries typically start tracking students between their sixth and tenth years in school, many states in Germany begin this process after fourth grade.

"Education research shows four years [in school] is way too early," Scherr said.

Klaus Kohlmeyer, Managing Director of BQN Berlin, an association that works to encourage the societal participation of people with a migration background, agrees. "The early selection process and the permanent pressure to be evaluated and graded humiliate children and young people instead of strengthening them," he told EURACTIV.

Secondly, Germany's public schools usually only run until the early afternoon, which delegates part of the student's education to parents who may be better or worse positioned to support their children, Scherr said.

The situation becomes even more difficult if language learning is thrown into the mix. "Language support is underdeveloped in Germany," Scherr said, adding that the system is not designed for students who do not speak German as their first language.

Teachers also have a role to play, he added. "There is still a strong attitude among German teachers that it's all down to the families ... but it is not attributable to me. It's a question of fate, because I can't fight the family," Scherr said.
'Won't win an election'
Education policy is a matter left to Germany's 16 federal states, resulting in a patchwork education system across the country.

Some states, such as Berlin, have made changes to these traditional structures, for example tracking students into separate schools only after sixth grade. The city also has an expansive system of integrated comprehensive schools, which keep all students together regardless of academic ability.

Scherr would prefer tracking to come even later than that, after the 10th grade, while Kohlmeyer wants schools to do away with selecting students for different career paths entirely.

However, Scherr fears that there is little political will to make the kind of drastic reforms needed.

"Every politician knows that if they were to seek substantial change in the education system now, a large number of ... middle-class parents would turn against them. No one seriously touches that because everyone knows it won't win an election," he said.
[Edited by Josie Le Blond]

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German school system still holds back children of migrants, experts say

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In Germany, how well a child does in school is closely linked to their parental background, with immigrants and their children worst affected by structural inequalities. Opposition politicians are calling for reforms, but experts fear there is a lack of political will for the necessary overhaul.

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Overview

The EdTech Plan will guide the development of the technological ecosystem and key platforms for learning in primary schools to pre-university institutions.

Building on the foundation laid by past plans, the plan seeks to:

Maintain a broad overall 10-year vision from 2020 to 2030.

Build agility in recognition of the emergent and rapid changes in technology.

The EdTech Plan is positioned as a rolling plan subject to regular reviews and updates.

Vision

Over the next 5 to 10 years, educational technology will help make education more:

Self-Directed
By developing pedagogy, tools and structures to help students develop intrinsic motivation and take ownership of their learning.

Personalised
By creating learning experiences that customise the pace and path that cater to each child's needs.

Connected
By developing collaborative learning experiences and connecting students' learning to the community and the world.

Human-centred
By leveraging a data-driven understanding of how students' interests, attitudes and motivations can optimise learning.

Vision Statements

Students: Future-ready digital learners

Self-directed learners who:

Are intrinsically motivated to learn.

Take ownership of their own learning.

Manage and monitor their learning independently.

Explore and sustain their interests beyond the curriculum.

Connected learners who continually learn by:

Collaborating with their peers, the community and the world.

Connecting a range of online and offline information sources.

Digital learners who leverage technology for learning and can:

Find, think, apply and digitally create.

Navigate the digital space in a safe and responsible way.

Schools: Responsive environments that support learning anytime, anywhere

Adopt an EdTech planning process that is user-centric and responsive to change, in order to:

Quickly adapt to emergent needs for teaching and learning.

Apply data-driven insights to continually improve teaching and learning practices and meet user needs.

Develop a school environment that supports seamless learning by:

Continually improving ICT infrastructure and systems to support teaching and learning in school and at home.

Reimagining learning spaces to enrich learning interactions beyond the classroom.

Active partners who support technology-enabled learning

Informed and supportive parents who:

Understand the benefits and potential risks of technology-enabled learning.

Have strategies and mindsets to support and scaffold students' technology-enabled learning, especially at home.

Active community collaborators who can provide students with authentic learning opportunities, enabled by technology.
Committed industry partners whose resources and offerings can complement and support the EdTech Plan.

What is the EdTech learning experience like?

Students engage in multiple technology-mediated interactions with content, their peers, teachers and the community.

Student - Content
Students access personalised learning pathways - a range of e-learning activities to build their knowledge progressively. They can do this anytime and anywhere using personal learning devices (PLD) to learn at their own pace.

Student - Peer
Students connect with their peers online and in-person to engage in self-organised, collaborative, and interest-driven learning.

Student - Teachers
Teachers are skilful practitioners of e-pedagogy, using data-driven insights in the cognitive and affective aspects of learning.

Student - Community
Students extend their learning sphere to connect with the community and the world to enrich their learning.

Implementation focus

Supporting the EdTech Plan vision are the approaches and enablers.

Approaches

The following strategies help achieve student outcomes directly.

1. Empower students' self-directed learning

Strategy 1: The Personal Learning Device (PLD) Initiative

Provide every secondary level student with a PLD to support personalisation of learning.

Support schools to integrate the use of PLDs into instructional programmes.

Provide students with seamless access and a technology-enhanced learning environment to learn anytime, anywhere.

Strategy 2: Blended Learning as a regular feature of the schooling experience

Provide students opportunities to apply self-directedness and self-management through Home-based Learning days.

Develop students' intrinsic motivation and passion for learning through "student-initiated learning", dedicated time and space for students to pursue interest-based activities.

2. Enhance personalisation of students' learning experience

Strategy 1: Harness Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance teaching and learning

AI-enabled Student Learning Space (SLS) for every student.

Learning analytics capabilities that track students' learning and make students' progress and performance visible.

Digital resources (including textbooks) that support self-directed learning.

3. Connect students in collaborative networks

Strategy 1: Digital making

Provide students with opportunities to create artifacts using digital technology, including programming robots, coding applications, producing music, creating visual art, and learning digital fabrication techniques like 3D printing.

4. Harness technology for learner-centred assessments

Strategy 1: e-Formative Assessment

Assessment of a wider range of skills and competencies through technology. Done in the course of learning, this helps teachers and students evaluate progress.
Strategy 2: e-SBA (School-Based Assessment)

Ongoing graded technology-enabled assessments that are modelled on summative assessment, but used to evaluate and improve learning outcomes.
Strategy 3: National e-Examinations

Leverage affordances of technology to enhance authenticity and interactivity in national examinations. Technology is used to conduct authentic assessments, for example, through simulation and multimedia resources.

Enablers

The following enablers contribute to the intended outcomes indirectly through teachers, parents and stakeholders.

1. Develop teachers' capacity for teaching with technology

Strategy 1: e-Pedagogy

Build teachers' capacity to design, enact and assess with technology for active learning in class and online through initiatives, including professional development opportunities, teaching and learning guides, SLS resources and lesson designs, aligned to SkillsFuture for Educators (SFEd).
Strategy 2: Data literacy for all teachers

Develop teachers' ability to analyse and interpret students' learning and assessment data to develop interventions, and to continually improve the design of learning experiences.

2. Strengthen digital safety, security and responsibility of students and teachers

3. Enhance partnerships with parents and stakeholders to support learning

Strategy 1: Active parent engagement

Increase public awareness of MOE's efforts for digital literacy by leveraging MOE's communication channels.

Support parents by providing relevant resources and suggestions to ensure their children's effective and safe learning with technology at home.

Strategy 2: Networking with community and industry

Develop a network of industry partners and community stakeholders to provide authentic learning opportunities and to address digital inclusion in all schools.

4. Create responsive structures and processes

Strategy 1: Responsive school environment

Enable schools' systems and processes to support personalised and connected learning with technology, alongside traditional teaching.
Strategy 2: Classroom of the Future (CotF)

Deliver user-centric technological solutions to support connected and personalised learning.
Strategy 3: Agile methodology

Infuse the spirit and principles of agile methodology into the design and governance structures of the EdTech Plan.

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The EdTech Plan will guide the development of the technological ecosystem and key platforms for learning in primary schools to pre-university institutions. Building on the foundation laid by past plans, the plan seeks to: Maintain a broad overall 10-year vision from 2020 to 2030. Build agility in recognition of the emergent and rapid changes in technology.

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The Desired Outcomes of Education are attributes that we aspire for every Singaporean to possess by the time they complete their formal education. These outcomes establish a common purpose for our educators, drive our policies and programmes, and allow us to consider how well our education system is doing.

A child schooled in the Singapore education system embodies the Desired Outcomes of Education. They should possess a good sense of self-awareness, a sound moral compass, and the knowledge, skills and dispositions to take on the opportunities and challenges of the future.

They should be:

Confident persons who have a zest for life, have a strong sense of right and wrong, are adaptable and resilient, know themselves, are discerning in judgment, think independently and critically, and communicate effectively.

Self-directed learners who take responsibility for their own learning, are curious, reflective, and persevering in the lifelong pursuit of learning, driven by their passion and purpose.

Active contributors who are empathetic and open-minded to collaborate effectively in teams, exercise initiative, have courage to take risks responsibly, are innovative and strive for excellence.

Concerned citizens who are rooted to Singapore, have a strong civic consciousness, are responsible to their family, community and nation and take active roles in improving the lives of others.

Key stage outcomes

The Desired Outcomes of Education are translated into a set of 8 developmental outcomes for each key stage of our education system: primary school, secondary school and post-secondary education.

The key stage outcomes spell out what we aspire to develop in our students through primary, secondary, and post-secondary education. Each education level builds upon the previous stages and lays the foundation for subsequent ones.

For example, primary school students start by knowing their strengths and areas for growth. In doing so, they will believe in their abilities and learn to adapt to changes by the time they are in secondary school. At the post-secondary level, they will grow to be resilient in the face of adversity.

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Find out what your child will be learning in each key stage of their education.

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Globalisation, changing demographics and technological advancements are some of the key driving forces of our current times, and they will continue to shape our future. Our students will have to be prepared to face these challenges and seize new and exciting opportunities.

To help our students thrive in this fast-changing world, we have identified a suite of core values and competencies that are increasingly important. They underpin the holistic education that our schools provide to better prepare students for the future.

Together, schools and parents need to work hand-in-hand to help our students develop these 21st Century Competencies.

Framework for 21st Century Competencies and Student Outcomes

Core Values

Values are at the core of one's character. They shape the beliefs, attitudes and actions of a person, and therefore are positioned at the centre of the framework of 21st Century Competencies.

Our Core Values include respect, responsibility, resilience, integrity, care and harmony, which are acknowledged as values that are at the foundation of our shared societal and national values.

Respect: Our students demonstrate respect when they believe in their own self-worth and the intrinsic worth of people.

Responsibility: Our students are responsible when they recognise they have a duty to themselves, their families, community, nation and the world, and fulfill their responsibilities with love and commitment.

Resilience: Our students are resilient when they demonstrate emotional strength and persevere in the face of challenges. They show courage, optimism, adaptability and resourcefulness.

Integrity: Our students demonstrate integrity when they uphold ethical principles and have the moral courage to stand up for what is right.

Care: Our students are caring when they act with kindness and compassion, and contribute to the betterment of the community and the world.

Harmony: Our students uphold harmony when they promote social cohesion and appreciate the unity and diversity of a multicultural society.

Social-Emotional Competencies

These are competencies necessary for children to develop healthy identities, recognise and manage their emotions, develop a sense of responsibility, care and concern for others, relate to others and develop positive relationships, handle challenges, make responsible decisions, and act for the good of self, others and the society. Students will learn skills from these 5 interconnected Social-Emotional Competencies:

Self-Awareness

Self-Management

Responsible Decision-Making

Social Awareness

Relationship Management

Emerging 21st Century Competencies

Building on a sound character foundation, the following Emerging 21st Century Competencies enable students to thrive in and beyond school while living, learning and working in rapidly changing, highly digitalised, and interconnected environments:

Critical, Adaptive and Inventive Thinking

Communication, Collaboration and Information Skills

Civic, Global and Cross-Cultural Literacy

Together, these core values and competencies will help our students embody the Desired Outcomes of Education so that they possess the dispositions, skills and knowledge to take on the opportunities and challenges of the future.

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We have identified a list of competencies that are essential for your child to develop to prepare them for the future.

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The future US economy depends on a new bipartisan education agenda - Read the oped from Republican Llew Jones, Democrat Justin Woodson, and NCEE's Vicki Phillips.

Context

Finland outperformed all other jurisdictions on the first PISA in 2000. Since then, Finland has remained among the top tier in all subsequent administrations, although its performance slipped in all three subjects on the 2015 and 2018 PISA.

Not until 1970 did Finland establish a basic comprehensive school for all students through grade 8, and not until the mid-1980s did it create a common curriculum. Finland coupled this curricular reform with a restructuring of teacher education, moving preparation programs into research universities, which elevated the status of the profession. A shift in authority for managing schools and teaching from the central ministry to local schools followed in the 1990s, alongside an expansion of secondary and postsecondary education, including efforts to make secondary vocational education more rigorous. Teachers in Finland have a well-deserved reputation for excellence, and the Finnish public trusts and admires its educators. But the Finnish focus on teacher quality is only one element of a carefully designed system that has been adapting to changes in society and the economy for the last half century.

Finland does face some challenges, however. The recent decline in PISA scores mirrors a decline in performance on national exams. Moreover, while Finland remains one of the most equitable nations in the OECD, results from both PISA and a national sampling test show a slight increase in differences in performance based on socioeconomic status. Finland's learning gap reflects growing economic inequality across the nation as a whole. Furthermore, although Finland remains largely homogeneous, the country, like the rest of Europe, has seen an influx of immigrants in recent years. Immigrant students performed significantly below their non-immigrant peers in reading on PISA 2018, after accounting for socioeconomic background. An anti-immigrant party, the Finns Party, narrowly lost a national election in 2019. More recently, the Finns Party has topped opinion polls, and public surveys show widening polarization on a range of political issues.

In April 2019, the new national government, led by the center-left Social Democratic Party, pledged to strengthen the education system and address inequality. It reversed funding cuts to education (part of the previous government's focus on austerity) and raised the upper age limit on mandatory schooling from 16 to 18, making upper-secondary education-general and vocational-compulsory.

In addition, like many countries, Finland has tried to make its education system responsive to the opportunities and challenges of the digital era. This includes finding ways to capitalize on artificial intelligence as a means to improve teaching and learning and strengthen social supports for young people. A new national curriculum, released in 2016, attempts to take on that challenge by explicitly emphasizing cross-curricular competencies such as learning to learn, cultural competence, and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) competence.

Governance

Governance Structure

The Ministry of Education and Culture oversees all publicly funded education, including the development of the national core curriculum and the accreditation of teacher training programs. The Finnish National Agency for Education is the operational arm of the Ministry, responsible for administering education programs.

Below the national level, six Regional State Administrative Agencies administer some discretionary funds for education, such as for school construction. Primarily, however, administration of local basic schools falls to 311 municipalities, which determine funding allocations, local curricula, and recruitment of personnel. The municipalities can also grant autonomy to schools to perform those functions. There are more than 2,000 schools in Finland, of which one-third teach fewer than 100 students. However, larger schools exist, with the largest comprehensive schools enrolling more than 900 students. For upper secondary education, the Ministry of Education and Culture provides licenses to local authorities, municipal authorities, and registered associations and foundations to establish schools.

There are very few private schools in Finland; those that exist are granted the same government funds as public schools and are required to use the same admissions standards and provide the same services as public schools. The majority of the private schools in Finland are religious.

The local municipal authority in any given region appoints principals for six- or seven-year terms. Once appointed, the principal is responsible for managing the school, including its staff, budget, and the well-being and success of its students. Principals generally work in close collaboration with teachers.

Planning and Goals

Until recently, Finland's Ministry of Education and Culture developed its own four-year plans with specific objectives and measures to guide the education system during that period. In 2019, the country created a 10-year government-wide strategy so as to set more comprehensive national goals and to ensure stability of reform direction across all government agencies. The 2019 Government Strategy is called Inclusive and Competent Finland - a socially, economically and ecologically sustainable society . Among its broad goals is to improve the education level of all Finnish citizens and decrease differences in learning outcomes among them; to improve the well-being of children and young people; and enhance gender equity and nondiscrimination in society through education and training. The Ministry of Education and Culture has developed its own strategic plan with specific measures for reaching the education-related goals in the national strategy.

Education Finance

Funding for schools is divided between the central government, which covers about 40 percent of costs, and the municipal governments, which assume the remaining 60 percent. The amount of state money each municipality receives is determined by the number of resident children ages 6-15 and an annually calculated unit cost per student. Municipalities pay for meals for every student in basic education.

The Ministry of Education and Culture allocates additional funds to municipalities for immigrant students who have been living in Finland for less than four years, for low-income students, for students in single parent families, and for students with parents who are unemployed or undereducated. Municipalities can distribute these funds to schools as they see fit.

Accountability

School Accountability

In 1991, Finland abolished its central education inspectorate and established in its place the National Evaluation Council. The Council oversaw periodic evaluations of a sampling of schools, with the goal of assessing the performance of the education system as a whole. In 2013, Finland replaced the National Council with a new independent agency: the Finnish Education Evaluation Center (FINEEC). The Ministry of Education and Culture appoints researchers, teachers and principals to FINEEC's staff, which then conducts thematic evaluations, such as the performance of immigrant children in Finnish schools, as well as evaluations of learning outcomes in specific subject areas. For the latter evaluations, FINEEC administers examinations to a sample of grade 9 students across the country in Finnish and mathematics every three years and in other subjects every five years. Currently, FINEEC's emphasis is on evaluating the consistency of implementation of the core curriculum. It also provides support to schools to conduct their own self-evaluations. Although FINEEC publishes its findings and makes recommendations for improvement in both policy and practice, the recommendations are not binding.

Teacher Accountability

Formal teacher evaluation is not required in Finland and rarely occurs. Teachers are expected to use professional judgment take collective responsibility for the education of their students, and be accountable to their peers. Some municipalities have, however, created tools for teacher evaluation that principals can use. In Helsinki, for example, principals use a common form to appraise teachers' practice. This form focuses on key teaching practices, but does not rate teachers based on student test results.

Foundation of Support

Supports for Young Children and Their Families

Finland offers a wide range of supports to families with young children. Since the 1930s, every mother of a newborn baby has received a box filled with clothes, sheets, toys, diapers, and other essential items. The country also provides mothers with four months of paid maternity leave and fathers with nine weeks of paid paternity leave, followed by 14 months of paid parental leave which can be taken by either parent.

Health care is a right guaranteed to all Finnish citizens under the constitution. Municipalities manage, fund, and provide primary care under the National Health Insurance system. They also provide specialized health care in regional hospitals, usually in concert with other municipalities. Like all health services in Finland, all prenatal and perinatal care is free of charge, as are annual checkups for children up to age seven. In 2019, the Center party government proposed consolidating the provision of health care into regional authorities rather than the municipalities that currently operate it and allowing more private providers. The plan was an effort to contain rising health care costs for Finland's aging population, but that plan was defeated amid broad pushback against dismantling a key feature of Finland's welfare system. Key government leaders resigned as a consequence.

Finland also makes direct payments to families with children under age 17, which increase for each child. Single parents receive an extra supplement.

Historically, all children in Finland have had a right to subsidized early childhood services from birth to age six, when compulsory school starts. Parents who chose to care for their children at home also received a childcare allowance. However, in 2016, a new law ended equal access to these services. Now, children whose parents are not students or full-time workers have only a 20-hour per week entitlement to subsidized care and have no right to subsidized part-time care (which parents typically use as a supplement to half-day pre-primary education). Children are more likely to participate in care outside the home as they age. As of 2017, 1 percent of children under age one participated in ECEC, while 31 percent of one-year-olds, 59 percent of two-year-olds, and 79 percent of three- to five-year-olds participated.

Supports for School Aged Children

Finnish schools provide many important resources and services for their students, including a daily hot meal, psychological counseling, and health and dental services.

The Ministry of Education and Culture allocates additional funds for immigrant students who have been living in Finland for less than four years, for low-income students, for students in single parent families, and for students with parents who are unemployed or undereducated. Municipalities can distribute these funds to schools as they deem appropriate. Since 2016, the government has also invested significant funds into additional supports for new immigrants, including improved training for teachers.

Finnish law also requires instruction in Finnish, Swedish, or Sami, depending on students' native language. Deaf or hard of hearing students are given instruction in sign language.

Learning System

Until recently, Finnish children began compulsory primary school at age seven. In 2016, however, the government added a year of compulsory pre-school for six-year-olds, and, in 2019, launched a pilot two-year pre-primary program for children starting at age five. Most pre-primary schools are public, but there has been an increase in the number of private, for-profit centers. All centers must meet national standards for quality, including the national Curriculum Guidelines for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). The guidelines were put in place following the transfer of ECEC oversight to the Ministry of Education in 2013, with the goal of raising and standardizing quality throughout the preschool system and strengthening its connection to primary schools. The Finnish Education Evaluation Center undertakes periodic thematic evaluations of the early childhood system.

There are no formal learning performance standards or outcome requirements for early childhood education, and no requirements for formal assessments. However, ECEC teachers are expected to use formative assessments to gauge children's progress and use the data from these assessments to adjust instruction or program quality. Teachers develop an individual learning plan for each student that is passed on to the child's primary school teacher.

Primary and Secondary

System Structure

Since the 1970s, Finland has had comprehensive schools for all students. Today in Finland, students start school with one year of preschool at age 6, followed by nine years at a basic school. In 2020, the government extended compulsory schooling from age from 16 to 18 and made upper secondary education free. The goal is to retain the 10 to 15 percent of young people who typically leave school before earning a degree.

During early primary school, students generally stay together in a class with the same teacher for several years. This allows teachers to build more personal, lasting relationships with students and closely follow their development over several grade levels. Following the completion of basic school, students choose between academic or vocational upper secondary schools, with about half of students pursuing each path. Student receive a basic school certificate when they graduate from basic school.

In the final two years of academic upper secondary education, there are no required classes. Instead, students choose from among a set of short courses, known as modules. However, the coursework is not entirely unstructured. Students who plan to attend university take specific modules in sequence to prepare for the subject-based Matriculation Exam, which is used to apply to university. For example, all students who wish to earn a passing score on the mathematics Matriculation Exam will need to take several sequential modules in advanced mathematics. Students earn a leaving certificate from upper secondary school.

A set of specialized upper secondary schools exists for students who want to focus on subjects such as the sciences, the arts, music or sports. Some general upper secondary schools also offer specialized tracks, while others offer the International Baccalaureate diploma program.

Students who choose vocational education work towards an upper secondary certificate and vocational qualification in one of 10 broad industry areas. These programs are typically three years. Recent reforms have added flexibility to the program and allow students to personalize their vocational studies. Students who attend a vocational program may also choose to take courses in an academic program to prepare for the university entrance exams.

Standards and Curriculum

Finland has a national core curriculum which includes learning objectives for the core subjects; suggested time allotments for each subject; and requirements for assessment, with guidance on how to grade assessments at two benchmarks. Municipalities either develop their own curriculum based on the national curriculum but reflecting local contexts, or develop curriculum guidance and allow each school to develop its own curriculum. The local curricula, whether at the municipal or school level, define in much greater detail than the national curriculum what instructional objectives teachers should follow and how students should be assessed. Separate local curricula are required for Finnish-speaking, Swedish-speaking, and Sami-speaking schools, in which instruction in the native language complements basic education.

In 2014, the National Board of Education (renamed the National Agency for Education in 2017) began a revision of the national curriculum, which had last been revised in 2004. Although some press accounts suggested that the new curriculum for basic schools, released in 2016, did away with subject areas, this was not the case. The curriculum defines learning objectives for all core subjects, and assessments continue to measure achievement in subject areas. However, the curriculum document states that local curricula can integrate subjects through interdisciplinary projects, and the curriculum for basic school (grades 1-9) defines "transversal" competencies that are infused in the curriculum in all subject areas. The transversal competencies are thinking and learning to learn; cultural competence, interaction, and self-expression; taking care of oneself and managing daily life; multiliteracy; ICT competence; working life competence and entrepreneurship; and participation, involvement, and building a sustainable future.

To support schools and municipalities in developing local curricula based on the national curriculum, the National Agency for Education established the Majakka ("Lighthouse") network, which created a website with resources for developing curricula and has hosted meetings of local educators. The National Agency also provided €100 million (USD $121 million) to support localities in implementing transversal competencies; municipalities also established 2,200 tutor-teacher positions to support the teaching of the transversal competencies.

The core subjects in the basic school curriculum are

For grades 1-2: Mother tongue and literature, second national language, foreign languages, mathematics, environmental studies, religion, ethics, music, visual arts, crafts, physical education, and guidance counseling (focused on personal responsibility and study skills);

For grades 3-6: Mother tongue and literature, second national language, foreign languages, mathematics, environmental studies, religion, ethics, history, social studies, music, visual arts, crafts, physical education, and guidance counseling (focused on social and teamwork skills);

For grades 7-9: Mother tongue and literature, second national language, foreign languages, mathematics, biology, geography, physics, chemistry, health education, religion, ethics, history, social studies, music, visual arts, crafts, physical education, home economics, and guidance counseling (focused on transitions in studies and careers).

The Core Curriculum for General Upper Secondary Education, which was updated in 2019 and again in 2021, is designed differently than the one for basic school. Students in general upper secondary school must complete a minimum of 75 courses, which average approximately 38 hours each. Students develop an individual study plan when they begin upper secondary school. Students do not have free choice in all their courses; there are required numbers of courses that must be taken in different subject areas. The 2021 curriculum shifts from required courses to required competence points for graduation and assigns courses specific point values.

The curriculum requirements include compulsory courses; specialization courses which offer a more in-depth study of a subject area; and applied courses, which include methodology courses, vocational courses, and multidisciplinary courses. The curriculum document identifies the objectives and core content for each course. It also specifies that students should receive both formative and summative assessment, and that teachers should assess students using either a 10-point numerical scale (where 5 is "adequate," 10 is "excellent," and 4 or below is failing) or a pass-fail mark. There is no specific grading rubric for school-based assessments.

Until 2021, the Core Curriculum for General Upper Secondary Schools identified six cross-curricular themes, analogous to transversal competencies in the basic education core curriculum. The 2021 curriculum replaces these themes with a set of transversal competencies, similar to those in the basic schools core curriculum.

The curricula for upper secondary VET schools are discussed below.

Assessment and Qualifications

The national core curriculum includes criteria and guidelines for assessment and states that the ultimate goal of assessment is to develop students' capacity for self-evaluation, helping them learn to monitor their progress and design their own learning activities.

At the end of each school year, the national core curriculum requires every basic school to provide students with a report on their academic progress. Until 2021, the report could include a verbal assessment or a numerical grade. As of 2021, schools began to shift away from verbal assessments and towards grades in an effort to provide more consistency in feedback. The end-of-year report also provides an assessment of the student's behavior, and indicates whether the student will be promoted to the next grade or retained. Students who fail courses can be retained, although they generally have the opportunity to demonstrate subject mastery by taking a test.

At the end of basic education, schools administer a final assessment. The final assessment is required for mother tongue and literature, the second national language, foreign languages, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, geography, health education, religion or ethics, history, social studies, music, visual arts, crafts, physical education, and home economics. Students are graded on a 10-point scale and need a 5 to pass. At present, the core curriculum only contains guidance on what students must do to earn an 8, or "good" grade, in all subjects. Ministry officials have collected samples of student work from different levels and determined that teachers need more guidance on grading. They are developing standards for awarding grades of 5 ("adequate") and 10 ("excellent.")

At the end of basic education (ninth grade), students who have received a grade of 5 or better in all required subjects receive a basic education certificate. The certificate shows the student's grades in each core and optional subject and confirms that the student has received guidance counseling and an introduction to career pathways. Students who earn a certificate can apply to general or vocational upper secondary schools.

A sample of students in grades six and nine also participate in external testing, but these tests are used for monitoring the effectiveness of the overall education system and do not analyze the performance of individual students, teachers, or schools. Finland also participates in international assessments like PISA. At the end of basic education (lower secondary school), Finnish students must decide whether to continue in an academic track (possibly leading to university) or to pursue vocational education. Students are admitted to academic upper secondary schools based solely on their seventh and eighth grade GPA, and admissions can be quite competitive in urban areas where there are many choices of schools. Vocational upper secondary schools are generally less competitive but often have specific pre-requisites for admission.

At the end of upper secondary school, all students who want to apply to research universities take the Matriculation Exam. This examination measures a student's competency in five subjects: two are compulsory (mother language and literature) and three are chosen from mathematics, foreign language, science and humanities subjects. The languages and mathematics tests have two levels, basic and advanced. Students can take either level on a given test but are required to take at least one advanced level test among the five subjects. In addition, the test subjects are weighted, so that students who pass exams in priority subjects (such as advanced mathematics) receive many more points toward university admission. For this reason, almost all university-bound students take the same subjects.

The national language tests include a skills section that measures the student's ability to read, comprehend, analyze, and make inferences about passages of text, as well as an essay. For the essay, students choose one topic out of 12 and write a four-to-five-page response. The foreign language test includes multiple-choice and open-response questions, as well as translations and short essays. On the mathematics test, students answer 10 of 13 multi-step problems and show their work. The other tests vary by subject but include multiple-choice and essay questions as well as drawing assignments and data analyses. All of the tests have been administered online since 2019. Teachers can access them through a password-protected online portal.

Although Finland's higher education institutions historically administered their own admissions tests, most universities now primarily consider Matriculation Exam results. There are national guidelines on the percent of students who must be admitted based on Matriculation Exams; these were recently raised in an effort to reduce the amount of individual university-based testing students needed to do to gain entry. Students who do not take the Matriculation Exam can choose to take university-based exams in their place and some specialized programs continue to use their own admission exams in place of or in addition to the Matriculation Exams. Students can also retake subject tests or supplement their scores by taking more advanced level tests or adding tests in additional subjects. Students in upper secondary vocational school can also take the Matriculation Exam. Admission to university is highly competitive in Finland, as there are a limited number of places, with admission rates below 20 percent in many programs. Students often apply multiple times to the most competitive university programs before they gain entry. The average age of first year students is 24.

Learning Supports

Unlike many countries, Finland does not distinguish between students who need general learning support and special needs students. All Finnish schools are assigned full-time specialists to address an array of learning needs. Teachers refer students to the specialists, who work with students individually and in small groups, as needed. Almost half of Finnish students receive some sort of academic support at some point during their schooling.

Finnish law outlines three levels of support for struggling students. Teachers provide "basic support" to most students who need assistance, including remedial instruction, part-time special needs instruction, and individual guidance. About 22 percent of students qualify for basic support. Students who need "intensified support," as determined by a pedagogical assessment, receive an individualized learning plan, which includes part-time special education classes and individual guidance. Students' learning and attendance are monitored regularly and learning plans adjusted as needed. In 2018, about 11 percent of students received this intensified support. The third level of support is "special support." Students who need more than part-time support in the classroom are referred for full-time services. About 8 percent of students receive this level of support. Most receive these services in mainstream schools, but a small number of students with severe handicaps, autism, dysphasia, and visual or hearing impairment (less than 1 percent of the school population in 2018) are served in special schools funded by the national Ministry.

Each school has a group of staff that meets twice a month in order to discuss which students need new or continued learning support and how they are faring in particular classrooms. This group - comprised of the principal, the school nurse, the special education (or learning support) teacher, the school psychologist, a social worker and the classroom teachers - determines whether classroom supports are adequate and what other interventions may be needed. If students need help beyond what the school can provide, the school helps the family find professional intervention.

Digital Platforms and Resources

Finnish schools have embraced digital resources for their classrooms. Most Finnish texts are online and many municipalities have invested in online learning platforms for schools. The government utilizes a nationwide communication platform, Wilma, to share school information at home, including student assignments, grades, teacher feedback, and other administrative information. The National Agency for Education seeded a peer learning network specifically to foster digital competence among teachers and encourage the use of technology in the classroom. The National Agency has also recently developed an online national library of digital tools and resources for teachers, and a coalition of six Finnish cities developed the DigiOne learning platform for education. In partnership with Business Finland, the government office for innovation in business, the coalition hopes to expand participation in DigiOne to 70 cities and municipalities by 2023.

Career and Technical Education (CTE)

Development of the System

Since the 1970s, Finland has committed to modernizing and expanding its upper secondary vocational schools; they are now such a popular option in Finland that over 40 percent of upper secondary students are enrolled in VET programs. The 1994 Vocational Qualifications Act established a sequence of competency-based vocational qualifications -initial, further, and specialist -that can be earned based on demonstrated proficiency of skills, with or without certificates of formal training. The 1994 Act was followed in 1998 by the Act on Vocational Education, which required all upper secondary vocational programs to be structured as three-year, full-time programs of study with a common academic foundation. This made the structure and foundational courses of vocational upper secondary programs equivalent to academic programs and allowed all graduates to apply to university, although vocational graduates often need to take additional courses in order to succeed on the admissions exams. Amendments to the legislation in 2017 introduced a modular structure for vocational qualifications that provides students with a foundation of basic vocational skills with options for individualization and specialization depending on a student's career interests.

In addition, the 2017 reforms focused on improving the quality of VET and encouraging lifelong learning. The introduction of performance-based funding encouraged schools to raise completion rates and help students find jobs in expanding fields. The reforms also streamlined oversight and regulation of upper secondary VET, continuing VET, apprenticeship training, and labor market training, and halved the number of qualifications. The remaining 43 initial qualifications were broadened to better align with the labor market and to provide students with a more flexible skill set. The reforms also made VET available in varied learning environments, including online, in school and in workplaces. The goal was to encourage more participation in VET from both students and adults seeking to upskill.

Governance and System Structure

VET programs are developed, delivered, and assessed in cooperation with business and industry partners. The National Forum for Skills Anticipation, working on behalf of the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Finnish National Agency for Education, organizes groups from key industry sectors to monitor, evaluate, and anticipate the development of education and training needs in their sector, making projections about the future labor market and revising them on a regular basis. Secondary VET is designed to prepare students to earn one of 43 initial vocational qualifications, organized in 10 broad areas of study, which indicate competence to enter employment in particular fields. Beyond initial qualifications, young people and adults can earn further and specialist qualifications that certify an increasingly specialized set of skills. Vocational qualifications are developed by a broad range of stakeholders, including representatives from the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, unions, industry, and universities.

The 10 broad fields of study in the Finnish VET system represent a range of industries that go beyond the traditional trades, including agriculture and forestry, education, humanities and arts, natural sciences, and technology. VET schools, mostly operated at the municipal level, prepare their own school curricula based on the Finnish National Agency of Education's requirements for qualification. The national requirements specify the vocational skills to be mastered and methods for demonstrating and assessing competence. Industry representatives participate in the development of school curricula, organize and plan training and skills demonstrations, and play a role in assessing students.

Funding for VET comes from both the national and municipal governments. Funds are paid directly to VET schools, which can use the funds as they see fit. A new performance-based funding process is being phased in as result of the 2017 reforms. By 2022, 50 percent of a school's funding will be based on student enrollment, 35 percent on how many qualifications it awards and graduates it produces, and 15 percent on the percent of its graduates who are employed or enrolled in further studies.

CTE Programs

The Ministry of Education and Culture regulates, finances, and monitors VET, including accrediting VET schools. VET programs are developed, delivered, and assessed in cooperation with business and industry partners. VET schools prepare their own curricula based on guidance from the Finnish National Agency of Education that specifies required units of study, specialization options, and criteria for assessing student mastery of skills. As of 2017, students can complete an entire qualification or can customize it with a supplementary skill set via another vocational module. Students can work at their own pace and "place out" of certain units if they demonstrate competence. At the time of enrollment, each student, in partnership with the school and worksite supervisor, designs an individual study plan. A typical program for secondary school students is three years.

Since 1998, all initial vocational qualifications have had the same basic structure, which includes a common set of academic studies. This enables VET students to have the academic preparation needed to pursue academic pathways after their VET qualification. The academic areas focus on communication and interaction; mathematics and science; and citizenship and workplace competence. About 75 percent of the coursework in VET programs is vocational, in a student's field of choice, and the remaining 25 percent covers core curriculum subjects, which are common to all upper secondary pathways. VET programs also include six months of on-the-job learning in addition to coursework. The training can take the form of a paid apprenticeship or an unpaid training agreement between the education provider and the workplace. Some schools also provide a simulated workplace. Skills demonstrations are arranged as part of on-the-job learning periods.

Once students have completed and passed assessments for all modules included in a qualification, they receive a qualification, which consists of a vocational upper secondary certificate and a certificate of skills demonstrations. VET graduates can continue their studies and earn further and specialist vocational qualifications at VET schools. Students can also progress to higher education, either at a general research university or a university of applied sciences (polytechnic). Students who want to apply to a university program take the same Matriculation Exam as students in general upper secondary school. They also have the option to take university-based entrance exams. Students who take the Matriculation Exam often take courses at an upper secondary general school to prepare.

Continuing education programs and classes are available for adults, whether the ultimate goal is learning to read or earning a master's degree. Adults who did not complete upper secondary school may take courses toward a general education certificate or vocational qualification; they can strengthen their education in certain areas by earning advanced degrees or qualifications; or they may take non-degree courses. Raising the participation of adults in lifelong learning - already much higher than the EU average of 10.8 percent at 26 percent -is a key priority in Finland.

Teachers and Principals

Teacher Recruitment

Finnish teacher education programs, like most graduate programs in Finland, are highly selective. Historically, only one out of every ten applicants to primary education programs is admitted; while that number has increased slightly, it is still highly competitive. Up to 40 percent of applicants to subject teacher programs (lower and upper secondary school) are admitted, depending on the selectivity of the field. Programs assess applicants based on their upper secondary school record, their extra-curricular activities, and their score on the Matriculation Exam, which is taken at the end of upper secondary school. Applicants to primary school teacher-education programs must earn exceptionally competitive scores on either the Matriculation Exam or the Vakava entrance exam, a take-home, multiple-choice test that assesses critical thinking and knowledge of the education sciences. Applicants who pass this first screening round then participate in an interview and a simulated teacher observation. Only candidates with a clear aptitude for teaching and a commitment to the profession are admitted.

Teacher salaries are somewhat lower than other professional salaries in Finland but teaching is still a highly-regarded profession and teachers feel well-respected by society. On the 2018 TALIS survey almost 60 percent of Finnish teachers agreed that teaching is highly valued, much higher than the average of 26 percent.

Teacher Preparation and Induction

In the 1970s, teacher education was moved from seminaria, or teachers' colleges, into universities and a master's degree requirement was added for all teachers. Only eight universities have traditional teacher education programs, so quality control and consistent standards are easy to achieve.

Primary school teacher training programs are four years. Students must major in education, with a minor in two primary school curriculum subject areas. Secondary school teacher programs are five years. Students must major in the subject they will teach and then do a year of pedagogical training. Student teachers for both primary and secondary schools complete a research thesis on a topic of their choice and must spend a full year teaching in a university-affiliated training school before graduation. Training schools have the same curricular and teaching requirements as other municipal public schools, but their schedules are designed to accommodate the feedback and collaboration needs of student-teachers and mentors without affecting the learning time of students. Further, because the training schools are affiliated with universities, prospective teachers and researchers have a pathway to publishing the results of their innovations in teaching and learning. The Finnish Education Evaluation Center monitors teacher education programs across Finland.

Finland has comparatively high standards for early education teachers. Lead teachers and heads of childcare centers in Finland hold bachelor's degrees, and every third staff person in a childcare facility must have primary teacher certification, which requires a master's degree.

Vocational teachers are required to have either a master's degree or a polytechnic degree (or whatever is the highest possible qualification in their occupational field), as well as three years of work experience in the field. Finland has five vocational teacher education colleges and one Swedish-speaking university where vocational teachers are trained (free of charge) in pedagogy and teaching practice. Vocational teachers are also required to participate in continuing education (usually up to 5 hours per school year) to keep their classroom competencies up-to-date. In addition to classroom teachers, workplace instructors supervise students during on-the-job learning periods and assess their vocational skills.

Teacher Career Progression

Because the Finnish system places so much emphasis on school and teacher autonomy, the teaching profession does not have a clearly defined career ladder. Teachers have control over their classrooms, lesson plans, and hours outside of teaching. However, following the introduction of the new curriculum in 2016, the national government created the position of tutor-teacher and proposed to have a tutor-teacher in all 2,200 comprehensive schools. These tutor-teachers provide peer-to-peer guidance and support on implementation of the new curriculum, design of multidisciplinary learning modules, incorporation of digital pedagogy, and other areas of teaching and learning. Between 2016 and 2019 the government provided €23 million (USD $28 million) to train tutor-teachers and created regional networks for them to share ideas.

Successful teachers may become principals, who are appointed by the local municipal authority. Principals oversee school budget and other aspects of administration, but they do not have much authority over teachers. There is no tradition in Finland of principals observing teachers in order to evaluate them. In smaller schools, principals may have their own teaching load in addition to other duties.

Teacher Development

Professional development requirements differ by municipality. The national government requires each municipality to fund at least three days of mandatory professional development each year, but interpretation of the requirement varies widely. Similarly, the government does not regulate the type or content of professional development offered to teachers. However, Finland does fund professional development for national priorities; in 2019, the government provided €9 million (USD $11 million) to support professional development in pedagogical, vocational, and subject-specific competencies; well-being and support for learning; development of school culture; language and cultural diversity; and digitalization and ICT.

TALIS data indicate that the average Finnish teacher spends seven days a year on professional development, even though there are no financial incentives to do so. The types of professional development vary, with some municipalities arranging large, multi-school training events and others leaving it up to schools to develop in-service programs.

Principal Recruitment, Preparation, and Development

Principals in Finland must be qualified to teach at the level of school they lead and meet one of three additional qualification requirements: a Certificate of Educational Administration issued by the Finnish National Board of Education (this primarily certifies knowledge of Finnish educational law and policies); completion of a program in Educational Leadership at a university; or proven experience in educational administration. In practice, almost no principals are hired without a Certificate of Educational Administration or a qualification in Education Leadership from a university, and the university qualification is much more highly valued. Vice principals are required to have the same qualifications. Municipalities, which conduct principal hiring, can specify additional requirements for candidates depending on their own needs.

The most common path to the principalship is through completion of a university program in Educational Leadership. The programs typically last 18 months, and candidates can enroll in them part-time while teaching. The curriculum at the University of Jyvaskyla, for example, focuses on management and leadership issues, and requires students to participate in weekend seminars and do a field practicum with a cooperating school. The practicum consists of five field visits to a cooperating principal, each focused on a different aspect of the job. Senior principals, or "tutors" guide student discussions; many of these tutors are themselves working towards a doctorate in education. In addition to a final exam, students must develop and present a personal leadership philosophy, based on their own research and experience in the program.

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The future US economy depends on a new bipartisan education agenda - Read the oped from Republican Llew Jones, Democrat Justin Woodson, and NCEE's Vicki Phillips. Finland outperformed all other jurisdictions on the first PISA in 2000.

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Jessica Magaziner, Credential Analyst at World Education Services

At its peak, British colonialism affected half the nations on the globe. As a result, the United Kingdom's educational system emerged as one of the most influential models in the world: Even today, British credentials are awarded at more than 10,000 independent schools globally.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) in the U.K. are widely recognized for their research and teaching excellence and have traditionally been a magnet for international students. The U.K. likewise exports a high number of students. In the 2014-2015 academic school year, the nation was the 12th leading feeder of international students to US-based HEIs, contributing an estimated US$ 380 million to the nation's economy.

This article seeks to provide admissions and enrollment professionals with a snapshot of the U.K's education system from the primary through tertiary levels. It also offers an analysis of relevant mobility trends and an overview of the accreditation process for U.K. higher education institutions.

History

The U.K., with a population of over 64 million people, comprises England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Its history of higher education dates back to 1096, with the founding of the University of Oxford, popularly known as "the oldest university in the English-speaking world."

The 19th century saw dramatic expansion of higher education in the U.K., including the establishment of many medical and engineering institutions. In the decades after World War II, the British government sought to respond to the increased demand for higher education and technology training through two primary routes: The creation of new institutions, and an increase in the number of HEIs designated as universities. (This designation process is discussed in greater detail below.)

In 1992, the government awarded university status to additional colleges and polytechnic institutions, which, just like universities, provided bachelor's, master's and PhD degrees, albeit with a bent towards professional practice and application. Expansion was again initiated in the early 2000s, and has continued since.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have significant autonomy over education issues. Despite this independence, many aspects of the diverse U.K. educational systems remain similar. The most notable differences are seen in the Scottish education system; they are highlighted in this article as applicable.

Student Mobility Numbers and Trends

Educational exchange between the United States and the United Kingdom has been significant for at least the past 18 years. The 2015 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange indicates that the U.K. is the most popular choice as a destination for American students, attracting 12.5 percent of all Americans participating in study abroad programs. The U.K. is likewise a significant contributor to U.S. institutions of higher education, stacking up as the "twelfth leading place of origin" for U.S.-bound students. The financial impact of these students is significant; in 2015, some 10,743 students from the U.K contributed US$ 380 million to the U.S. economy.

The number of British students coming to the U.S. has trended upward since the late 1990s. The last decade saw some fluctuations, but the number of students coming to the U.S. has grown continually since the 2008-2009 academic year. In the 2014-2015 academic year, the numbers reached an all-time high.

British students in the U.S. typically study at the undergraduate level. In the 2014-2015 academic year, 48.5 percent of the British students in the U.S. were studying at the undergraduate level and 24.5 percent were enrolled in graduate studies. The remaining were participating in other types of programs, including Optional Practical Training (OPT.)
IIE Open Doors Data
Education System

Education is compulsory for all children in the United Kingdom at the elementary and lower-secondary levels; most students are between the ages of five and 16. Instruction is offered in English, and the academic year runs from the end of September or the beginning of October to June. Most institutions operate on a trimester schedule, with three ten-week school terms.

As previously stated, the most significant differences within the education structures of the United Kingdom occur in the Scottish system. In an effort to highlight the specifics of each system, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland will be covered in one section, and Scotland will be addressed in a subsequent section.

Education in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland
Elementary and secondary education
Elementary education in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland is provided for six years to students between the ages of five and 11.

Compulsory secondary education is offered for five years. Students are typically between the ages of 11 and 16.

At 16, students may sit for multiple examinations in different subjects. Students sitting for the GCSE typically take between five and ten examinations; they are free to choose the subjects and number. (The GCSE led to the creation of the International GCSE, which offers international students access to the British curriculum.) A General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is awarded for each subject passed. Sitting for the exam exam marks the end of 11 years of compulsory education. World Education Services (WES) evaluates a minimum of three GCSE as equivalent to a high school diploma.

Students interested in higher education will typically pursue the pre-university or further education programs that are discussed in greater detail below. Other students may pursue vocational training.
Pre-university education
The GCSE can be followed by pre-university or further education. Pre-university education is a two-year senior secondary program that leads to a new round of examinations, the General Certificate of Education, Advanced Level (also known as GCE A-levels). As with the GCSE, students who sit for the exam choose the subjects and the number of examinations. (The average number taken is three.) WES awards undergraduate credit based on the nature and number of subjects passed.

The GCSE and the GCE, Advanced Level examinations are offered by regional examination boards, including Edexcel Limited, the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance ( AQA) and the Oxford and Cambridge Examinations RSA (OCR).
Vocational secondary education
Vocational programs for studies in subjects like healthcare, information technology, business and engineering are also offered. After reform in 2007, these programs can now lead to one of several credentials, such as the Applied General Certificate of Education. This credential is less theoretical than the GCE A-level and is intended to help recipients to enter the workforce.
Further education
Further education is also known as senior secondary vocational education. This refers to education that is no longer a part of the secondary system, but not included in higher education. It is focused on vocational programs, or hybrid general academic and vocational programs. The most common credential earned through further education is the BTEC Level 3 Diploma, which is awarded after two years of part-time study. WES evaluates the BTEC Level 3 as equivalent to a certificate-level program.
Admission to higher education
Admission to HEIs is managed by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). UCAS is responsible for post-secondary admissions. Prospective students begin the UCAS application process a year in advance of their anticipated enrollment. Once these prospective students are accepted by the admissions office, they are given a list of universities to which they may apply. HEIs then send conditional offers, or, in rare cases, unconditional offers to their chosen applicants. Conditional offers stipulate the examination results that must be obtained on the GCE A-Levels in order to guarantee admission. Most HEIs request three GCE A-levels and three GCSE, though this depends on the institution and program.

For those students who wish to continue their studies after vocational secondary education, many British HEIs will admit students on the basis of vocational A-level results or BTEC Level 3 Diplomas. This type of admission often requires the student to continue in the same vocational field of study.

Higher education

Higher education in the U.K. is categorized as undergraduate or postgraduate study. Undergraduate study leads to a British " first degree," which is generally a bachelor's degree credential. Postgraduate programs are entered into after a bachelor's degree has been earned and result in master's or doctorate degrees, or postgraduate diplomas.

Most bachelor's degrees are earned after three years of undergraduate study, however there are many four-year programs as well. The programs result in degrees such as the Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Engineering, Bachelor of Laws, and Bachelor of Education, all of which are equivalent to a bachelor's degree in the U.S. system.

Bachelor's degrees can be awarded as "honors" or "pass" degrees. This indicates the type of program followed, the course load required to obtain the degree, and the final grade percentage earned. Both degrees usually require the same time to complete, but the honors program has a " higher study load and more examinations." The level of achievement of the student is designated by the class obtained. Students can achieve first class, upper second class, lower second class, or third class. Students typically need a bachelor's degree with honors in the first or upper-second class in order to enter a master's degree program.

(Note: Grades associated with degree classifications may vary among institutions.)

Professional programs in areas like medicine, veterinary science, dentistry, and architecture typically last for five or six years of study. The Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery is equivalent to the first professional degree in medicine in the U.S., and enables the holder to practice as a medical doctor.

Master's degree programs can be broken down into several types. One type of master's degree can be characterized by either a focus on coursework (master by instruction) or by a requirement for a final paper (master by research). These programs are typically one year in length and result in degrees such as the Master of Arts or Master of Science and Business Administration. The other type of master's degree is the Master of Philosophy (MPhil). This program is two years in length and is a research-focused degree.

Students typically enter into doctoral studies after earning a master's degree, though it is possible to enter such programs with a bachelor's degree and then complete additional classes. Doctoral programs are typically three years in length, which are comprised primarily of research leading to the completion of a dissertation. The credential earned is a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil or PhD) and is the equivalent of a doctorate in the United States.

Education in Scotland
Elementary and secondary education
Elementary education in Scotland extends for seven years. Students are typically between the ages of five and 12.

Elementary education is followed by four years of lower-secondary education for students between the ages of .

After 11 years of compulsory elementary and secondary education, students sit for the Scottish Certificate of Education (SCE or SCE Standard Grade). The examination is offered at the standard or intermediate level. The Scottish Qualifications Certificate (SQC,) awarded by the Scottish Qualifications Authority, was introduced in recent years to replace the SCE, Standard Grade. WES evaluates both the SCE and the SQC as the equivalent of a high school diploma.
Upper-secondary education
The SCE, Standard Grade is followed by one to two year of specialized education, designed to prepare students for higher education, employment, or vocational training. This usually includes one to two additional years of study, and generally leads to credentials such as the SCE Higher Grade or SCE Advanced Higher Grade. Depending on the nature and number of subjects passed, WES offers undergraduate credit based on Higher and Advanced Higher examination results.
Vocational education
Vocational study in Scotland results in a Scottish Vocational Qualification (SVQ). SVQs are designed to give students the " the knowledge and skills required in order to do a specific job." These credentials are taught at five different levels of difficulty to address the training needs of all students, from novices to experienced professionals.
Admission to higher education
Admission to higher education in Scottish institutions is also managed by UCAS. Most Scottish institutions require four or five SCE Higher credentials as an entrance requirement.
Higher education
The higher education system in Scotland is very similar to the system in place in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. One distinction is that bachelor's degree with "honors," which traditionally takes four years to complete; "pass" degrees are earned after three years of study.

Another difference is the " first degree," which is awarded by the four oldest universities in Scotland. The University of Aberdeen, the University of St. Andrews, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow all award a Master of Arts (Honors) degree after four years of study; this credential is viewed by World Education Services as equivalent to a bachelor's degree.

Institutions

Higher education throughout the U.K. is offered at a variety of institutions, including universities, institutes, colleges, and schools. Higher education institutions can offer both professional and academic programs, regardless of the institution's title. Universities, and some other HEIs, have the autonomy to establish their own curricula and program requirements, and to award recognized degrees.

Other institutions, without the right to award these degrees, are able to offer post-secondary programs and have degrees validated by a recognized university.
Credit Systems
British institutions typically use the Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme (CATS) for calculating academic course loads. This is a point-based system that allocates 120 points per year for a full-time course load that fulfills the program requirements, yielding 360 points for a three-year bachelor's degree or 480 points for a four-year bachelor's degree. In order to aid student mobility throughout Europe, institutions have also begun utilizing the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). The standard conversion rate between these credit systems is 1 ECTS = 2 CATS. The ECTS allocates 60 credits per year for a full-time course load, or 180 credits for a three-year bachelor's degree and 240 credits for four-year bachelor's degree.

Grading Scales
Secondary Education Higher Education Accreditation in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland
The U.K. does not have a statewide accreditation process. The existing accrediting agencies do not have any governmental authority, and are therefore focused on private institutions and professional study programs.

Higher education institutions are recognized by the British government through legislation, such as a Royal Charter or an Act of Parliament, and are referred to as " recognised bodies." Only these institutions are authorized to award degrees in the U.K.

The designation " listed bodies " refers to institutions that have not been recognized through legislation, but that are allowed to offer a program specifically designed to lead to a degree awarded by a "recognised body."

Other institutions have governmental authorization to "award their own unique degrees" and are able to deliver diplomas referred to as " recognised awards." These institutions are monitored by the authority of the Department for Business Innovation and Skills.
Accreditation in Scotland
The accreditation of HEIs in Scotland falls under the authority of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and the Quality Assurance Agency. As in the rest of the U.K., Scottish institutions have to be deemed "recognised bodies" by the British government in order to award degrees. Excluding university degrees, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) is responsible for the national accreditation of all recognized qualifications such as the SQC.

Document Requirements
Secondary Education
In order to evaluate secondary credentials from the United Kingdom, World Education Services requires the examination results (ex: the GCSE and/or the GCE Advanced Level examination results) to be sent directly by the appropriate examining body.
Vocational and Professional Education
For vocational and professional qualifications, like BTEC Diplomas, WES requires a photocopy of the degree certificate provided by the applicant, as well as official examination results sent directly by the appropriate examining body.
Higher Education
For post-secondary credentials, like bachelor's and master's degrees, WES requires transcripts of academic records sent directly to WES by the institution that awarded the degree and photocopies of degree certificates sent by the applicant. For completed doctoral studies, WES also requires a letter confirming degree conferral sent directly by the awarding institution.

All information on WES required documents can be found here.

Sample Documents: The U.K.

This file of Sample Documents (pdf) shows the following set of annotated credentials from the U.K. education system:

High school examination results issued by the University of Cambridge International Examinations (General Certificate of Education, Ordinary Level

High school examination results issued by Edexcel Limited (International General Certificate of Secondary Education - IGCSE)

Degree certificate for a three-year bachelor's degree in nursing from the University of Sunderland (Bachelor of Science Honours)

Academic transcripts for a three-year bachelor's degree in economics from the University College of London (Bachelor of Science Honours)

Academic transcripts for a five-year degree in civil engineering from the University of Glasgow (Master of Engineering Honours)

Degree certificate and academic transcripts for a one-year master's degree in forensic psychology from the University of Leicester

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Jessica Magaziner, Credential Analyst at World Education Services At its peak, British colonialism affected half the nations on the globe. As a result, the United Kingdom's educational system emerged as one of the most influential models in the world: Even today, British credentials are awarded...

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Jing Guan, Evaluation Documentation Specialist at WES, with Bryce Loo, Research Associate at WES, and Stefan Trines, Research Editor, WENR

Both a continent and country, Australia has, as a nation, the world's sixth-largest land mass. The country is entirely surrounded by water, with the Indian and Pacific Oceans on either side. It nonetheless has been characterized by large-scale immigration ever since British colonialization in the 18 th century. Although immigration has become an increasingly polarizing political topic in Australia in recent years, the government has continued to embrace favorable immigration policies for highly skilled and educated individuals. It's strong economy has attracted many. Australia is also one of the world' top international education destinations, particularly for degree-seeking students.

In 2015, Australia had the third-largest share of foreign-born residents among OECD countries after Switzerland and Luxembourg. Fully 28 percent of the country's 24 million people were born in another country - a far larger share than in Canada and the United States. While net overseas migration rates have slowed in the past few years, immigration accounted for 60 percent of Australia's population growth since the mid-2000s, and the percentage of the foreign-born population has increased by almost 4 percent since 2005.

Some of the top countries of origin among the current wave of immigrants include India, China, and the United Kingdom. Most of the recent immigrants are relatively young and well-educated: 81 percent of recent migrants arrived at the ages of 20 to 44, and an estimated 65 percent had some form of post-secondary educational attainment, 76 percent of them holding a bachelor's degree or higher.

More than half of Australia's voters surveyed in 2017 favored reducing immigration, a fact causing growing numbers of politicians to advocate curbing migration from overseas. Australia has recently instituted increasingly harsh asylum policies and has been criticized by Human Rights Watch and other organizations for detaining so-called "boat people" - refugees and illegal economic migrants crossing over from Indonesia - under inhumane conditions in offshore detention camps. The government of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in April 2017 announced that it would also restrict work visas and curb the immigration of skilled workers in 2018. The prime minister declared that Australia would no longer allow "... visas to be passports to jobs that could and should go to Australians. We're putting jobs first, and we're putting Australians first ".

Australia's continued economic dependence on open borders is also reflected by the fact that international education is a core economic sector in Australia. Over the past decades, Australia has become one of the world's main international education hubs - a development that has turned international education into Australia's third largest export after iron ore and coal, valued US$ 15.7 billion in 2015/16. The number of international students enrolled in degree programs alone increased by more than 150 percent between 1999 and 2015, from 117,485 to 294,438 students ( UNESCO Institute of Statistics - UIS).

And Australia still has ample room for expansion: according to a recent analysis by Deloitte Access Economics Australia's education system has the capacity to increase international enrollments by more than 40 percent within the next eight years. Australia may also capitalize on the political volatility in its two biggest competitors in international education - the U.S. and the U.K. - where the have called into question both countries' commitment to multiculturalism and openness. At the same time, the growing anti-immigrant sentiment in Australia itself poses significant risks to the country's international education sector, especially if the government should curtail post-study work opportunities - an important draw for international students.

In addition to a attracting a growing share of the world's international students, Australian universities are also major providers of transnational education (TNE), particularly in Asia and the Middle East. By most accounts, Australia presently ranks among the top five TNE providers worldwide. The country's geographic proximity to key TNE markets in Asia alone places the country in a position to further increase its market share of the world's fast-growing offshore education market.

International Student Mobility

According to Project Atlas data Australia hosts the fourth largest number of international students in the world after the U.S., the U.K., and China. Nearly 24 percent of Australia's total higher education enrollment is international, the most of any country in the world (and just ahead of the United Kingdom, at 21 percent). Australia's global market share has also risen over time - from 4 percent of the world total in 2001 to 7 percent in 2017, much at the expense of the United States, also according to Project Atlas.

Overall, Australia is a net importer of students by a large margin with outbound mobility being relatively modest by international comparison. According to UIS, the outbound mobility ratio was only 0.8 in 2015, signifying that less than 1 percent of Australia's tertiary-level students go abroad to enroll in degree programs in other countries.

Inbound Student Mobility

Australia's preeminence as a destination is often ascribed to the perceived high quality of the higher education system, similar to the reputation of the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. More than 90 percent of foreign students in Australia surveyed in 2016 cited the reputation of Australian education as a reason to study in the country. The fact that English is the national language also plays a role. While the country is anything but a cheap study destination, it is on average less expensive than the U.S. and the U.K. and, by some measures, Canada, at least in terms of tuition and fees.

According to the Australian Government's Department of Education and Training, there were a total of 587,942 full-time fee-paying foreign students enrolled at Australian institutions in degree and non-degree programs in 2017 - an increase of 13 percent over 2016. Since a number of these students enroll in multiple programs, the total count of foreign enrollments is higher and stood at 729,790 in 2017 (a 160 percent increase since 2002).

The top five sending countries in 2016 were all in Asia: China, India, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. The top sender, China, had 196,315 total enrollments in Australia in 2016, a nearly 16 percent growth from the year before and comprising almost 28 percent of all international enrollments in the country. India accounted for 78,424 enrollments - an increase of 8.9 percent. The strongest growth in 2016, however, was from Colombia (a 22.4 percent increase), Brazil (19.6 percent), Malaysia (18.2 percent), Nepal (15.9 percent), and Hong Kong (10.3 percent).

Forty-three percent of all international students were enrolled in tertiary education programs, while about 26 and 22 percent of students, respectively, were enrolled in vocational-technical education programs and "English language intensive courses for overseas students," often known as ELICOS. The states of New South Wales and Victoria, where the major cities of Sydney and Melbourne are located, host the most international students by far.

U.S. and Canadian Students in Australia

For U.S. degree-seeking students at the tertiary level, Australia was the sixth most-favored destination in 2015 (2,942 students), after the U.K., Canada, Grenada, Germany, and France ( UIS). Per IIE's 2016 Open Doors Report, which includes both degree-seeking and non-degree students, Australia was the 8th most popular study abroad destination among U.S. students with 9,536 students during the 2015/16 academic year, up over 8 percent from the year before. Australia has about 3 percent of all U.S. students enrolled abroad.

Outbound Student Mobility

A 2016 survey of 8,663 students at Australian universities provides some insights into the study abroad decision-making behavior of Australian students and reflects that the U.S. and other Western countries are the most desired study destinations. Thirty-eight percent of the Australian respondents had already completed a study tour or exchange program during either secondary school or university, and the top destination was the U.S. (15 percent). The U.S. was also cited most often as the most recent destination that respondents had visited and one that they would most like to visit (25 percent among Australians). The top three reasons for studying abroad were "interest in travel" (47 percent of Australian citizens), "learn about another culture" (32 percent), and "strengthen my degree" (32 percent). Among Australians who had not yet participated in a program, the top destination choices were the U.K. (18 percent), the U.S. (18 percent), Canada (9 percent), Germany (6 percent), France (5 percent) and Japan (5 percent). International students in Australia strongly favored the U.S. (22 percent) as a short-term study abroad destination.

Per UNESCO UIS, 12,026 Australian tertiary-level students were enrolled in degree programs in other countries in 2015. The U.S. was the top destination with 3,814 students, followed by New Zealand, the U.K., Germany, and Canada. In addition to these degree-seeking students, 38,144 Australian non-degree students were enrolled in short-term study abroad programs in 2015, according to the Australian Government's Department of Education & Training. This number represents an increase of 19.5 percent over 2014, which is perhaps unsurprising, given that these short-term exchanges are increasingly for less than one semester and include short-term visits, such as faculty-led study tours.

The top destinations among non-degree students were the U.S. (4,769 students, or 13 percent), China (3,524), the U.K. (3,304), Indonesia (1,675), and Canada (1,468). The largest group among these students (20 percent) enrolled in STEM fields, followed by health fields (18 percent), management and commerce (14 percent), and society and culture (14 percent).

The prominence of China and Indonesia as study destinations among short-term students likely owes to the fact that 11,157 Australian undergraduates participated in a program called the " New Colombo Plan." The program is an initiative of Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade designed to promote ties with the Asia-Pacific region through study opportunities and internships for Australian undergraduates. The government provides funding to Australian universities who in turn give grants to students to study or complete internships in one of the target countries. The program will fund 13,000 grants in 35 countries in 2018 but is as of now apparently little known among students. The above-cited 2016 student survey revealed that fully 68 percent of Australian respondents were not aware of the program.

Australian Students in the U.S. and Canada

There were 4,933 Australian students - degree-seekers and short-term exchange students - studying in the U.S. in the 2016/17 academic year, an increase of 3.8 percent from the previous year, according to . In 2015/16, 47 percent were undergraduate students, 23 percent were graduate students, 21 were non-degree students, and 9 percent were on optional practical training (OPT). Overall, the number of students increased by 75 percent over 2005/06, when there were 2, 806 Australians enrolled at U.S. institutions.

Australia is not a major sending country of international students to Canada. According to Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), there were only 710 Australian students enrolled in Canada in 2016, down from 835 in 2014. Australia ranked at the 48th largest sending country. British Columbia hosted the by far largest number of students (425, or around 60 percent), followed by Ontario (330), Alberta (150), and Quebec (115).

Transnational and Distance Education

Rapidly increasing demand for education in many countries means that the future growth potential in the offshore sector is enormous. Based on projected demand in 29 key sending countries of students to Australia, Deloitte Access Economics predicts that if Australian institutions could reach just 1 percent of potential learners, "....this would translate to over 11 million learners in 2025, and if Australia was able to reach 10 percent of these learners that would equate to over 110 million learners in 2025."

Australia's Education System

Administration of the Education System

The Commonwealth of Australia has a federal system of government in which governance is shared between the federal government in Canberra and six states (New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia). In addition to the federal states, there are ten territories with varying degrees of self-governance. While the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory have a similar degree of autonomy as the federal states, most of the other territories are directly governed by the federal government.

In higher education, governance is shared between the federal government and the states and territories. Universities are established and recognized under state legislation. Funding, on the other hand, primarily comes from the federal government and subsidizes Australia's universities, which are largely tuition-funded. Federal government funding for universities is contingent on compliance with quality standards stipulated by authorized accreditation authorities, such as Australia's Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TESQA). The federal government also funds financial aid and student loans and provides about one-third of funding in the vocational education and training sector (VET).

School Year

The school year in elementary and secondary schools starts in late January or early February, and ends in December, while the school year in higher education typically lasts from February to November. Australian seasons are the inverse of those in the Northern Hemisphere.

Elementary Education

Compulsory education in Australia lasts until the end of the age of 16 in most jurisdictions. Schooling is not free - tuition fees are charged even at public schools. School education lasts for 13 years (until age 18) and begins at the - by international standards - early age of five when pupils enter a mandatory "foundation year," designed to prepare kids for grade 1 of elementary school.

The foundation year is followed by six or seven years of elementary education, depending on the jurisdiction (grade 1 to grade 6 or 7). The curriculum varies by state, but usually includes English, mathematics, social studies, computer technology, science, physical education and health and creative activities. Progression is based on teacher assessments and tests, but there are no standardized year-end or graduation examinations. No formal credential beyond a school transcript is awarded upon completion of elementary school.

There are nevertheless significant differences between the jurisdictions. Grading scales, for example, are entirely different, depending on the state or territory.

Lower Secondary Education

Lower secondary school begins with grade 7 or 8, and lasts until year 10 (three to four years, depending on the jurisdiction). Admission to public schools is open to students who completed elementary education. However, selective high schools for gifted students in some states require passing of an entrance examination. The core curriculum usually includes English, mathematics, social sciences, science, foreign languages, information and communications technology, arts, and physical education. Additional elective specialization subjects are introduced in higher grades. Promotion is based on internal examinations, written assignments, oral presentations and classroom participation. Standardized external exit exams are not required for graduation in most jurisdictions.

There are no specific credentials awarded upon completion of grade 10 in most states and territories. Students in the Australian Capital Territory, however, receive a "Year 10 Certificate". New South Wales awarded a "School Certificate" until 2011, but students since just receive a Record of School Achievement (RoSA) - a school transcript listing cumulative academic results.

General Upper Secondary Education

Senior secondary education in Australia is not compulsory, but the official retention rate - the number of secondary students staying in school until the final year of secondary schooling - stood at around 84 percent in 2016 (up from 75 percent in 2006).

Students who have completed year 10 can usually continue on to senior secondary education at their schools - there are no separate entrance examinations. Alternatively, students can opt to enroll in vocational education and training programs (discussed below).

Graduation generally requires completion of certain minimum credit requirements in specific subject groups, and, in most jurisdictions, passing of a final, jurisdiction-wide external examination in grade 12. Content and assessment criteria of the exams vary by jurisdiction. The examination results also play an important role in determining admission to tertiary education. In many states, year 12 scores in designated subjects are used to calculate an "Australian Tertiary Admission Rank" (ATAR), which Australian universities utilize as a selection mechanism. (See also the section on university admissions below) The final credential awarded upon completion of the senior secondary program is commonly referred to as the Senior Secondary Certificate of Education (Year 12 Award), but the exact name differs by state or territory.

The Cost of Schooling in Australia
A sizeable number of secondary students are in enrolled in private schools - Australia has one of the highest percentages of private school enrollments . According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 65.4 percent of Australia' school students (elementary and secondary) studied at public schools in 2016, whereas enrollments at Catholic schools and independent private schools accounted for 34.6 percent. Schooling in Australia is expensive by international comparison, particularly in metropolitan areas. Costs vary significantly by state, but one 2013 survey found that average tuition fees in metro areas amounted to AU$ 4,455 (US$ 3,383) at public schools, compared to around AU$ 12,599 (US$ 9,567) at Catholic schools and up to AU$ 22,450 (US$ 17,047) at independent private schools.
Vocational Education and Training (VET)

At the secondary level, VET programs lead to the award of certificates of different levels and scope ( Certificates I, II, III and IV). Certificate programs provide training in vocational fields and trades at increasing level of complexity. The Certificate IV, at the highest level, is considered equivalent to the Senior Secondary Certificate of Education and gives access to tertiary education (an overview of the different certificates can be found here). The majority of Australia's VET students pursue certificate programs.

At the post-secondary level, VET programs lead to award of a Diploma, Advanced Diploma, Graduate Certificate or Graduate Diploma. Program lengths range from 6 months in the case of graduate certificates to 1 to 2 years in the case of diploma programs. Graduate certificates and diplomas are also offered in the tertiary sector, but VET programs have a much stronger focus on applied training. Common to all programs is that they convey advanced vocational skills, while simultaneously providing pathways to tertiary education. Holders of VET diplomas and advanced diplomas may be exempted from one or two years of bachelor's degree programs, respectively, while holders of graduate diplomas may, under certain conditions, be admitted into master's programs.

Admission requirements are flexible, vary by program, and are much less formalized and sequential than in tertiary education. Generally, the minimum requirement for certificate programs is completion of grade 10 or a certificate at preceding levels, whereas the benchmark for post-secondary programs is usually a Year 12 or a Certificate IV at minimum, even though admission may also be based on work experience or other criteria.

Assessment in VET programs is usually based on the achievement of certain core competencies tested in examinations, projects and practical tests. The learning outcomes of RTO programs are defined in so-called "training packages," which are designed in consultation with industry and approved by the federal and state and territory governments for consistent use in all of Australia. These "packages" define admission requirements, curricula, required competency units, assessment criteria and the placement of programs within Australia's National Qualifications Framework (see below).

The different training packages are cataloged in a " National Register of Vocational Education and Training," maintained by the federal Department of Education and Training. The National Register also lists all RTOs that are approved to offer accredited courses.

There is no grading scale for VET courses; instead, all units taken are marked as pass/fail, or competent/not competent. As such, the academic transcripts for VET qualifications only list units of competency that have been completed successfully.

VET Providers and Oversight

Registered Training Organizations can be divided into two categories: private RTOs and public institutes of "Technical and Further Education" ( TAFE), administered by the governments of Australia's states and territories. TAFEs are the largest VET providers and are sometimes affiliated with universities. RTOs may also be Higher Education Providers (HEPs) and offer accredited tertiary education programs, such as a bachelor's degree programs.

There is a separate accreditation process for individual training programs. However, course accreditation is not compulsory, and RTOs can deliver non-accredited programs, partial training packages or "non-award courses." Delivery of partial packages and non-awards courses nevertheless requires fulfillment of quality standards stipulated by ASQA.

To distinguish accredited qualifications from non-recognized qualifications and to protect against the fraudulent issuance of documents, ASQA uses the trademark logo " National Recognized Training" (NRT). Permission to use the NRT logo is only granted to duly authorized institutions and can only be displayed on academic documents if the program is accredited and leads to an official Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) qualification. The Australian Qualifications Framework Council established a similar " AQF Qualifications Issuance Policy " and uses a trademark logo that can only be displayed on formal AQF qualifications. If the NRT and AQF logos are displayed on academic documents in the proper format, it can, therefore, be assumed that the program in question is accredited.

Of note for credential evaluators is also the fact that ASQA maintains the records of attainment for RTOs that went out of business or were shut down. It may, therefore, be possible to obtain official documentation from ASQA even if RTOs are no longer operating.

The Australian Qualifications Framework

The Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) was established in 1995 and defines levels, learning outcomes, and length of programs of regulated qualifications in Australia, as agreed to by the federal, state and territory governments. The framework ensures that qualifications are recognized across Australia and specifies which institutions are authorized to award the different qualifications. The AQF encompasses VET and tertiary education. There are ten levels ranging from the Certificate I to Doctoral degree. The Senior Secondary School is also included in the framework but not pegged at a specific level.

Tertiary Education

University Admissions

The university admissions process in Australia is complex and varies by jurisdiction. Universities generally have autonomy to set their own admissions criteria, but all states and territories have centralized admissions authorities, referred to as Tertiary Admissions Centers (TACs), as well as state-specific systems for the ranking of students. Universities admit students based on a quota system with higher-ranked students having better chances of admission.

Eligibility criteria and minimum scores for admission differ by institution and program. While criteria like the grade point average in senior secondary school, portfolios or interviews may factor into admissions decisions, admission is commonly based on the Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank (ATAR). The ATAR is a number between 0.00 and 99.95 that ranks students in relations to other students. A score of 80.00, for instance, means that a student is in the top 20 percentile and ranked better than 80 percent of the population eligible to be in year 12 at the time of graduation. The calculation criteria differ by state but are usually based on year 12 grades and examination results in specific subjects.

The state of Queensland uses a different system called " Overall Positions" (OPs) that ranks students on a scale from 1 to 25, with 1 being the highest position. OP ranks are calculated according to a complex scaling method that ranks students in relation to other students both within their school, as well as in relation to other schools in the state.

Alternative pathways to tertiary education include admission based on VET qualifications (discussed below) or the completion of preparatory bridging courses. Mature students over the age of 25 may be admitted based on relevant work experience, entrance examinations, and interviews.

Overall, the admissions rate in Australia is relatively high in comparison to other OECD countries. Out of 340,027 students who applied for undergraduate admissions either though TACs or directly to universities in February 2017, 82.7 percent received admission offers.

English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS)

While English language requirements vary by institution, it is presently possible for graduates of ELICOS programs to transition into tertiary programs without further external examination at a number of universities. In October 2017, however, the Australian government tightened ELICOS standards and announced that it would introduce an English-language test for ELICOS students in Australia. The tighter restrictions, which also stipulate a minimum of 20 hours of instruction a week, came amidst concerns that not all ELICOS programs adequately prepare students to take up studies in English. Providers in the VET sector, which were previously exempted from ELICOS standards, will now also have to comply with the regulations.

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)

Australia's higher education sytem includes 43 universities and 122 recognized non-university higher education providers (HEPs), such as colleges and institutes. Universities are multidisciplinary institutions that are "self-accrediting," that is, they are authorized to have internal quality assurance mechanisms for their programs and do not need to apply for external program accreditation. They are predominantly public - there are only three private Australian universities (Bond University, the University of Notre Dame Australia and Torrens University Australia). In addition, there are two foreign-owned private universities (Carnegie Mellon University Australia and the University College London Australia) One university, the University of Divinity is classified as an "Australian University of Specialization." It offers specialized programs in theology, religious philosophy, and ministry.

The non-university HEIs in Australia are a heterogeneous group that is different to categorize, but mostly includes smaller mono-specialized providers, many of them private. To name but one example, the private for-profit Kaplan Higher Education Corporation operates " Kaplan Professional " - a registered HEP authorized to award a range of qualifications from diplomas to master's degrees in business majors. Most of these institutions are not authorized to operate as self-accrediting institutions, even though there is a small number of self-accrediting non-university institutions as well.

Accreditation and Quality Assurance

HEIs without self-accrediting authority must seek program accreditation by TESQA for all programs leading to AQF qualifications and must offer at least one TESQA-accredited program to qualify for registration as a HEP. Accreditation and registration are valid for seven years, after which institutions need to apply for re-registration and re-accreditation of programs. HEIs with self-accrediting authority are obligated to internally re-evaluate and accredit their programs every seven years.

Tertiary Education Spending

Government expenditures for education are nevertheless relatively high in Australia compared to other industrialized countries. Education spending amounted to 5.23 percent of GDP and 14 percent of total government expenditures in 2014, according to the World Bank. 26.5 percent of these expenditures were allocated to the tertiary sector (an increase from 22.3 percent in 2010) and averaged US$ 18,038 per student in 2014, compared to an average of US$ 16,143 in the OECD.

Student Enrollments

In 2016, there were close to 1.46 million students enrolled in higher education programs in Australia, an increase of 3.3 percent from 2015. More than 90 percent of these students were enrolled at public universities. Enrollments at private universities and non-university HEPs, however, are on the rise and increased by 10.2 percent since 2015 to 132,703 students in 2016. According to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS), the share of private sector enrollments among all tertiary enrollments grew from 0.3 percent in 1999 to 8.5 percent in 2014. One probable reason for this expansion is that the educational niche offerings of private providers are increasingly attractive to Australian learners. Compared to public universities, private institutions also admit more students based on alternative entry pathways (mature age and other special entry provisions), so that private education in Australia tends to increase access and educational opportunities.

Credit Systems and Grading Scales

There is no standard credit system in use throughout Australia - credit systems vary widely by institution. Most commonly, the standard number of courses required for one year of full-time study in undergraduate programs is eight courses (or units), but the exact credit value assigned to these courses varies. At Monash University, for instance, the standard credit load for one year of full-time study is 48 credit points, whereas one year of study at the University of Melbourne is 100 credit points per year. To make credit units comparable and allow for the transferability of courses between institutions, universities in Australia therefore also convert their credit units into a standard measurement unit called "Equivalent Full-Time Student Load (EFTSL)." One EFTSL unit represents one year of full-time study. To give an example, the standard undergraduate credit load at Griffith University is 8 courses or 80 credits per year. Griffith converts each standard 10 credit course into 0.125 EFTSL (8 x 0.125 = 1 EFTSL).

Grading scales used in Australia also differ significantly by institution. There are a multitude of scales, ranging from A to E letter grade scales (with A as the highest grade) to 1 to 7 numerical scales (with 7 as the highest grade) and 0-100 scales. The most widely used scale, however, uses descriptive grades from "High Distinction" to "Failure."
Australian institutions offer a variety of dual degree programs - a flexible fast-track option to earn two degrees in different fields of study. These programs may also be referred to as joint or conjoint degrees, double degrees, combined degrees or vertical double degrees. What is common to these programs that they are structured study programs that allow students to earn two degrees in a shorter time (typically four or five years for dual bachelor's programs) than it would take to complete two separate programs. The total credit requirements for dual degree programs are lower compared to the credits units required for two separate programs. As an example, Canberra University offers a dual degree program leading to a "Bachelor of Commerce/Bachelor of Event and Tourism Management" that requires 96 credit points (four years of full-time study). Dual degree programs also exist at the master's level and are becoming increasingly common in professional disciplines. Students, in this case, can simultaneously earn a professional degree together with a degree in a standard academic discipline. The University of Melbourne, for example, offers a dual "Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery and Bachelor of Arts" .
Degree Structure

Associate Degree, Associate Diploma, and Advanced Diploma

Short first degree programs in Australia are pegged at level 6 of the Australian Qualifications Framework. Associate degree and associate diploma programs are typically offered at universities, non-university HEPs (colleges, institutes) and sometimes RTOs. They are commonly two years in length, even though they may be shorter. The standard admission requirement is the Senior Secondary Certificate of Education or an equivalent qualification like the Certificate IV. Advanced diplomas programs are more applied in focus and offered by RTOs, universities and other HEPs. Graduates of level 6 qualifications may be exempted from the first two years of study in bachelor's programs.

Bachelor and Bachelor Honours Degree

Bachelor's programs are primarily offered at universities and are typically three years in length in standard academic fields like arts, commerce or science. The standard admission requirement is the Senior Secondary Certificate of Education or an equivalent qualification. Curricula are specialized - there is usually no general education component.

Bachelor Honours degrees are at a higher academic level than ordinary bachelor's degrees. Honours degrees are pegged at level 8 of the AQF, whereas ordinary degrees are pegged at level 7. Honours programs typically build upon an ordinary bachelor's degree and require one additional year of study. Alternatively, honours programs are also offered as 4-year integrated programs that incorporate the ordinary degree curriculum. The honours component involves writing of a thesis and completion of academic subjects at advanced level in the area of specialization. Relatively few students complete the honours program. Holders of honours degrees with high grades may be admitted into doctoral programs without completing a master's degree, an option that is not available to holders of ordinary degrees.

Dual Degree Programs

Graduate Certificate, Graduate Diploma, and Postgraduate Diploma

Graduate Certificates and Graduate Diplomas are pegged at level 8 of the AQF, and deliver specialized education beyond a bachelors' degree, which is typically required for admission (although alternative entry pathways do exist). Graduate certificates usually require one semester of full-time study, whereas graduate diplomas typically require one year of study. Graduate certificates and graduate diplomas are awarded by universities and other HEPs, as well as by RTOs, in which case programs tend to have a focus on vocational skilling.

Another short-term graduate qualification awarded by Australian institutions is the Postgraduate Diploma. Some universities use the terms "Graduate Diploma" and "Postgraduate Diploma" interchangeably, but other universities differentiate between them. Curtin University, for example, stipulates that admission into graduate diploma programs is "normally based on a bachelor degree or diploma. Exceptions may be made in the case of less academically qualified applicants with appropriate work experience." Admission into postgraduate diploma programs, on the other hand, is reserved for students "who have completed a bachelor degree in a particular discipline, and want to further their studies in the same area."

Both graduate diplomas and postgraduate diplomas may be issued as exit qualifications in incomplete master's programs. Some universities also award postgraduate diplomas as a regular component of master's programs and issue the diploma after completion of the first year of study. Students who complete the master's program will be awarded both the master's degree and the postgraduate diploma.

Masters Degrees

Master's degrees are pegged at level 9 of the AQF. The length of the programs is somewhat flexible and depends on the prior education of students. Students who have completed a level 8 honours bachelor's degree, graduate diploma or postgraduate diploma can usually complete a master's program in a shorter amount of time than students entering with a level 7 ordinary bachelor's degree. The length of the program also depends on whether the bachelor's degree was completed in the same academic discipline as the master's program. Programs tend to be longer if the bachelor's degree was earned in a different field.

Australian universities award three different types of master's degrees:

1. Masters Degree (Coursework). Programs are one to two years in length, depending on the prior education of the student. Study normally involves a set amount of specialized coursework and completion of a final project, but a research thesis is not required.

2. Masters Degree (Research). Programs are more research-oriented and normally take one to two years, depending on the prior education of the student. Completion of a research thesis is typically required for graduation in addition to coursework. An honours bachelor's degree or level 8 graduate diploma may be required for admission in some cases.

3. Masters Degree (Extended). These types of programs are relatively new and designed to provide advanced academic training in professional disciplines, such as medicine, health fields or pharmacy, for example. Programs usually last three to four years and require coursework and a final project. The minimum admission requirement is typically a level 7 bachelor's degree.

Doctoral Degree

The Doctoral degree is the highest qualification in the AQF, pegged at level 10. Programs take 3 to 4 years to complete and require a master's degree or an honours bachelor's degree earned with high grades for admission. There are two types of doctoral degrees:

Doctoral Degree (Research): Programs require completion and defense of an original research thesis and lead to the award of a Doctor of Philosophy. Most programs are purely research-based, but a limited amount of coursework may also be required in some cases.

Doctoral Degree (Professional): Professional doctorates are designed to advance knowledge and practices in professional disciplines. Programs consist of both advanced coursework and applied research. Credentials awarded include the Doctor of Education and Doctor of Technology.

In addition, there is a Higher Doctorate, which is an honorary degree similar to the honorary doctorate in the United States. It is awarded to individuals who have made internationally-recognized contributions to their fields of knowledge. No formal study or assessment is required.

Professional Education

Professional entry-to-practice degree programs in disciplines like medicine, dentistry, law, or engineering are either long single-tier programs entered directly after secondary school or postgraduate programs following a bachelor's degree in a standard academic discipline. In the first case, programs are between four and six years in length, while programs in the latter case last between three and four years.

Credentials awarded include the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS), Doctor of Medicine, Bachelor of Dental Surgery, Doctor of Dental Surgery or the Bachelor of Laws. Professional bachelor's degrees may have an honours designation, but the designation, in this case, is simply used to denote outstanding performance and does not signify additional study.

Admission into medical programs is quite competitive. Entry into Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) programs after high school may require interviews and mandatory secondary course pre-requisites, such as high-level mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and English. In addition, students must also pass the "Undergraduate Medical and Health Sciences Admission Test" ( UMAT). UMAT is held in July each year and the results are only valid for one year. MBBS programs are usually six years in length and combine theoretical instruction with clinical practice.

Medical programs are also offered on a postgraduate track of four-year duration. The two credentials awarded on this track are the MBBS and, increasingly, the Doctor of Medicine, both of which have equal professional standing. Admission into these programs requires an undergraduate degree, interview, and passing of the "Graduate Australian Medical Schools Admission Test" ( GAMSAT). GMSAT is offered twice a year in March and September, and the results are valid for two years.

After graduation, students are required to complete a clinical internship of at least one-year duration in order to register as general medical practitioners. Registration in medical specialties requires a further three to six years of residency training, depending on the specialty.

Dental education is structured similar to medical education. The Bachelor of Dental Surgery (B.D.S.) (also awarded as Bachelor of Dentistry or Bachelor of Dental Science) is a five-year program that requires certain secondary course-prerequisites and passing of the UMAT for admission. Postgraduate credentials include the B.D.S. and the Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD). Postgraduate programs last three or four years and require an undergraduate degree, interview, and passing of the GAMSAT for admission. Curricula in all programs combine theoretical instruction with clinical practice. Dental graduates must register with the Dental Board of Australia in order to practice as a dentist. The registration needs to be renewed every year. Registration as a dental specialist requires in dental specialties requires additional training.

Teacher Education

The minimum requirement to work as a teacher in Australia is a bachelor's degree at all levels of schooling. Teacher education programs in Australia are offered at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Undergraduate Bachelor of Education programs are usually four years in length, whereas graduate-entry "top-up" Bachelor of Education programs involve two years of study following a bachelor's degree in another field. Alternatively, prospective teachers can earn a two-year Master of Teaching degree (for an overview of programs see the list of accredited programs published by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership - AITSL). Curricula include a practice teaching component. Prior to graduation, all students enrolled in an initial teacher education program must pass a mandatory "Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education Students" ( LNTITE). All graduates must register with the regulatory authorities for teacher education in one of the states or territories.

Documentation Requirements

Secondary Education

Final examination results of the senior secondary school certificate - sent directly by the state and territory departments of education.

VET

Photocopy of the final certificate or diploma - submitted by the applicant

Official academic transcript - sent directly by the institution attended

For study completed at an RTO that no longer operates - academic transcript forwarded electronically by ASQA

Higher Education

Photocopy of the degree certificate (or testamur) submitted by the applicant

Official academic transcript sent directly by the awarding institution

For doctoral degrees - a letter confirming the conferral of the degree set directly by the awarding institution

Sample Documents

Click here for a PDF file of the academic documents referred to below.

Victorian Certificate of Education

Higher School Certificate, New South Wales

Certificate IV

Associate Degree

Bachelor of Behavioral Science (3 years)

Bachelor of Education

Honours Bachelor Degree (3+1 mode)

Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery

Graduate Diploma

Masters Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

2. The survey commissioned by "Universities Australia" included Australian citizens, permanent residents and even some international students in Australia (18 percent of the sample).

3. It should be noted that the "trading name" of a RTO can be different from its legal name. A trading name is the name the RTO uses when issuing the academic documents, whereas the legal name is the registered business name. Both the trading name and the legal name of an RTO are listed in the National Register of Vocational Education and Training.

4. Despite the government's announcement, there is presently confusion about the exact testing requirements with some ElICOS providers maintaining that there are no new compulsory tests under the current regulations. See: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-20/new-english-standards-for-international-students-cause-confusion/9066546

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Jing Guan, Evaluation Documentation Specialist at WES, with Bryce Loo, Research Associate at WES, and Stefan Trines, Research Editor, WENR Both a continent and country, Australia has, as a nation, the world's sixth-largest land mass. The country is entirely surrounded by water, with the Indian and Pacific Oceans on either side.

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Stefan Trines, Quality Assurance Director and Editor at Large, WES

Introduction: Recent Trends in German Education

One of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany is a greater push for the digitalization of education. Compared with other countries, Germany has been somewhat slow in adopting computer-based learning. The German federal government has promoted "digital competencies" as a central concept in education for several years-as recently as 2019, it committed €5billion euros (US$5.8 billion) for the modernization of its internet infrastructure and the increased supply of digital devices in Germany's 43,000 schools. However, the abrupt shift in March of 2020 to online education for close to 11 million school students in Europe's largest country exposed Germany's lack of readiness for digital learning. The crisis resulted in cascading calls across the political spectrum to rapidly advance the digitalization of schools.

In higher education, similarly, digitalization is now increasingly viewed as a means of academic modernization, as well as a way of boosting the already surging mobility of international students to Germany. While the COVID-19 emergency led to a sharp drop in the number of international students in the country-an estimated 80,000 of them left during the early stages of the pandemic -Germany has emerged as a growing international education hub in recent years. It draws increasing numbers of students from countries like China and India, notably to its English-taught master programs.

To further advance this inflow of international students, the German Academic Exchange Service ( DAAD), the country's designated funding organization for international exchange, recently adopted a strategy of "internationalization through digitalization" that explicitly seeks to promote academic mobility via digital learning platforms and webinars on topics like the writing of research proposals, online language tests, virtual recruitment events, and online portals to match students with academic institutions.

In addition to such digitalization drives, the government continues to systematically promote Germany as an international science hub with large-scale funding projects, such as the so-called Excellence Strategy, which aims at ensuring that German universities are internationally oriented research institutions of global stature. As a rapidly aging society, Germany is in urgent need of immigrants to bridge its mounting shortage of skilled workers. Attracting international researchers and students to its universities is therefore viewed as a critical effort to ensure the inflow of highly skilled immigrants and sustain economic growth.

However, other observers attribute the mediocre PISA results not so much to shortcomings of the German education system per se, but to the rapid influx of foreign-educated refugees and immigrants, and the difficulties related to integrating these newcomers due to language barriers and academic incompatibilities. Between 2015 and 2016 alone, Germany took in approximately 1.3 million refugees-an influx of historic proportions that resulted in the largest population increase in Germany in years, with most of the new arrivals being young people in need of education.

Given that most refugees don't speak German on arrival and that Germany has a relatively short history as an immigration country, it thus far managed to incorporate these migrants into educational settings better than expected, despite significant structural and sociocultural barriers. That said, integration problems persist, and the social inclusion of immigrants will likely remain a political issue for the foreseeable future. (For more on this topic, see our related articles on the state of refugee integration in Germany in 2017 and 2019)

International Student Mobility

There were no data for the post-pandemic 2020 summer semester available as of this writing, but it's clear that the pandemic led to a sharp drop in the number of international students in Germany, as it did in other host countries. According to Uni-assist, Germany's main credential evaluation agency, for instance, the number of international applications for the winter semester 2020 was down by 20 percent compared with that of the previous year. Interviews of students from India, the second-largest sending country of international students to Germany, reflect that student mobility is currently hampered by concerns about diminished employment prospects after graduation, logistical hurdles, as well as apprehensions about educational quality, given that German universities have since the pandemic switched to blended learning, combining face-to-face instruction with online courses.

That said, interest in studying in Germany among Indian students remains strong overall, and there's little doubt that Germany will continue to be a dynamic international education hub in the future. The country has a well-articulated and generously funded internationalization strategy that deliberately seeks to attract the world's "smartest minds." As noted, Germany has a growing need to import skilled workers. The country already lacks more than 300,000 tech workers-an acute labor shortage that is expected to depress economic growth by 2035.

Against this backdrop, international graduates make for excellent immigrants. They are relatively young and already familiar with the country; they have German academic qualifications and often speak at least some German. Inbound student mobility has consequently been incentivized with changes in immigration policies in recent years that make it easier to work in Germany after graduation and obtain long-term residency. Not only can international students stay and work in the country after graduation for 18 months, but those with adequate employment contracts and German language skills have pathways to long-term work visas and permanent residency.

Language barriers are Germany's biggest handicap vis-à-vis English-speaking destination countries. However, these barriers are becoming increasingly irrelevant because of the growing availability of English-taught master and doctoral programs. While bachelor programs are still almost exclusively taught in German, international applicants can now choose from more than 1,300 master programs offered in English alone.

What makes these programs highly attractive is the fact that German public universities charge only minimal tuition fees, even for international students-a distinct advantage considering the often-exorbitant costs of study in other international study destinations. No less than 20 percent of all students enrolled in master's programs in Germany are now international students. In PhD programs, international students even account for 25 percent of all enrollments-a trend that is actively promoted by the German government: 49 percent of all international doctoral students in Germany received public scholarship funding in 2018.

Another draw is Germany's formidable reputation for world-class programs in engineering and other technical subjects. Fully 42 percent of international students in Germany are enrolled in engineering programs compared with only about 20 percent of international students in the United States. While a majority of international students in the U.S. are enrolled at the undergraduate level, more than 50 percent of degree-seeking students in Germany study in master or doctoral programs. It should be noted, however, that there are variations by type of institutions and country of origin. The number of undergraduate students of African and Middle Eastern origin is significantly higher, for instance.

China has been the largest sending country of international students in Germany over the past decade; it currently accounts for 13 percent of international enrollments in the country. But while the number of Chinese students continues to rise, a more recent development has been the rapid inflow of students from India, which in 2015 overtook Russia as the second most important sending country. Between 2016 and 2019 alone, the number of Indian students in Germany doubled and now amounts to 7 percent of all international students. Given that the most typical international student from India is a graduate student in a STEM discipline with limited financial means, Germany is in many ways an ideal destination for Indian students. The growing availability of English-taught graduate programs and recent changes in immigration laws have made the country all the more attractive for these students.

That said, Syrian students accounted for an even larger spike in new enrollments, with numbers surging by 275 percent over just three years, primarily driven by the massive wave of Syrian refugees who fled to Germany in 2015/16. Although the integration of these predominantly young refugees into the higher education system proved difficult initially, given their lack of German language skills and other factors, attendance rates are now picking up as many of the refugees are progressing through the preparatory programs and language training courses that are required for international students who lack an adequate command of the German language. The number of refugees enrolled at German universities has more than tripled from 9,000 in 2015 to an estimated 30,000 in 2020.

Student inflows from a variety of other countries, including European countries like Austria, Italy, and France, or Middle Eastern countries with long-standing migration ties to Germany, such as Turkey, have been rising robustly as well. However, much larger growth rates were recently seen for countries like Nigeria, Sri Lanka, or Ghana, illustrating that Germany's international student population is diversifying. If current trends continue, it's not inconceivable that Germany will eventually replace the United Kingdom as the most important international education hub in Europe, particularly considering the U.K.'s Brexit from the European Union.

Outbound Student Mobility

Germany is not only one of the top five host counties of international degree students worldwide, but simultaneously the third-largest sending country of international degree-seeking students globally after China and India, according to UNESCO data. The latest available German government statistics show that 140,000 Germans studied abroad in 2017, about 90 percent of them in degree programs. This means that there are now twice as many German international students enrolled abroad as at the beginning of the century-a swift increase that was driven, in large part, by the Bologna reforms and the European internationalization paradigm of recent years. Changes like the use of a common European credit system and the splitting of Germany's long single-tier university degrees into the Bologna two-cycle bachelor and master structure have facilitated international academic articulation and made it easier for Germans to study in other countries. What's more, German government authorities have made it an official policy goal that 50 percent of all German students acquire some form of study abroad experience.

Most German international students-82 percent-currently study in other European countries with Austria, the U.K., the Netherlands, and Switzerland being the top destinations. The next most popular world regions are North America, accounting for 8 percent of overseas enrollments, as well as the Asia-Pacific region, accounting for 7.9 percent of enrollments. The U.S. and China were the fifth and sixth most common host countries of German mobile students in 2017.

Enrollment Trends in the U.S. and Canada

In the U.S., Germany has historically been among the top 20 sending countries of international students after German students started to head Stateside in large numbers beginning in the 1980s and 1990s. But while the number of U.S.-bound students from other sending countries like China and India has surged exponentially since the start of the new millennium, student inflows from Germany have since leveled off and remained mostly flat over the past two decades, ranging from 9,800 in the 1999/2000 academic year to 10,193 in 2014/15, according to IIE. IIE data show that 9,242 Germans studied in the U.S. in 2019/2020-a number that does not yet reflect the fallout from COVID-19. Most Germans were enrolled at the undergraduate level with business and social sciences being the most popular disciplines.

Of note, there was a measurable drop in enrollments by German students in the early to mid-2000s in the wake of the highly unpopular Iraq war. There has also been an apparent downturn in new enrollments during the Trump administration, suggesting that political factors may play a role in affecting student flows from Germany. Opinion polls by the Pew Research Center show that the number of Germans holding favorable views of the U.S. plummeted drastically from 57 percent in 2016 to merely 26 percent in 2020, mirroring a similar decrease in favorable views during the Bush administration.

This shift in attitudes correlates with a significant drop in the number of U.S. student visas held by German nationals over the past four years. Current data provided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security indicate that the number of active F and M student visas held by Germans declined from 8,787 to 5,866 between December 2018 and September 2020 alone, although much of that decrease is likely attributable to the coronavirus crisis. It remains to be seen how enrollment trends will develop under the Biden administration once the pandemic subsides.

As in the U.S., the number of German students in Canada has been largely stagnant over the past two decades when compared with the rising interest among Germans in pursuing education in European and Asian countries. The overall number of German students in Canada is, in fact, small, amounting to just 2,955 students in 2019, down from a peak of 3,145 in 2008 (according to government statistics).

Transnational Education (TNE)

German HEIs are relative newcomers to providing cross-border higher education. The exporting of academic programs has traditionally been the domain of Anglo-Saxon countries like the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia, which still hold most of the market share. A 2016 study by the British Council found that British HEIs in 2015 offered at least 2,260 TNE programs in 181 countries, with overall TNE enrollments totaling 666,000 students. German universities, by contrast, offered 291 programs in 36 countries, enrolling some 33,000 students, according to the DAAD. Note that these statistics only include government-sponsored initiatives but represent the majority of German TNE ventures.

Through their TNE projects, German universities typically seek to contribute to the modernization of the education system in the host countries. A common model is to partner with universities that remain independent institutions in the home system while being closely associated with and supported by their German "mentor universities." The largest of these German-backed universities is the German University in Cairo, which enrolled 12,673 students in 2020. Other sizable German-backed universities are located in Oman, Turkey, China, Vietnam, and other countries.

The German Education System

Germany did not exist as a modern nation state until 1871, but education in the German realm has a long tradition. The Kingdom of Prussia is said to be the first country in the world that introduced free and compulsory state-run elementary education in the early 18th century. The first German university, the University of Heidelberg, was established much earlier, in 1386.

However, it is the University of Berlin, founded in 1810, that is often considered to have had the biggest historical impact, at least in hindsight. While some historians argue that its influence has largely been glorified, others regard it as the first modern research university in the world and the model university of the 19th century.

The university was established based on the " Humboldtian model of higher education," developed by the Prussian philosopher and education minister Wilhelm von Humboldt. Core elements of this model include the integration of teaching and research-which were hitherto largely separated-and an independent academia free from state intervention. Its holistic approach to education, allowing students to freely choose their own course of study, stands in contrast to the more rigid and hierarchical university models prevalent across most of the world in current times. Although some analysts contend that the Humboldtian model has been largely constructed after his death, there's no question that the model itself has been a central paradigm in German education since the 19th century and has conceptually influenced higher education in much of continental Europe.

That said, the massification of higher education in Germany in the 20th century and other pressures of economic modernization have placed strains on German universities that make it increasingly difficult to maintain the traditional Humboldtian model in practice. While Humboldt's ideals are still held in high esteem and aspects like university autonomy remain important principles, the Bologna Process, most particularly, has resulted in German universities adopting more "schoolified" and rationalized programs.

The creation of a common higher education area in Europe in 1999, codified in the Bologna declarations, brought radical changes to German higher education, such as the previously unavailable Anglo-Saxon-style bachelor and master programs and the new European ECTS credit system. Whereas students in the 1990s were still able to freely pursue their academic interests and take a broad variety of courses in a more relaxed system without overly stringent semester limits, they are now boxed into more structured programs. Credential evaluators and international admissions officers will find the new programs considerably easier to assess than those of the previous less formal system.

Administration of the Education System

When analyzing German education, it's important to understand that the country has a federal system of government that grants its member states a high degree of autonomy in education policy-a structure that's not unlike the federal system of the United States. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Berlin ( BMBF) has an important role in areas like funding, financial aid, and the regulation of vocational education and entry requirements in the professions. But most other aspects of education fall under the direct authority of the education ministries of the 16 individual states, called Bundeslände r in German.

These states vary considerably in size; they range from the smaller city-states of Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen to the large state of North Rhine-Westphalia which has a population of about 18 million. Berlin and Hamburg are simultaneously Germany's biggest cities with 3.8 million and 1.9 million inhabitants, respectively.

Given their autonomy, there can be considerable variation in education from state to state. The length of the secondary school cycle, for instance, varies between 12 and 13 years, depending on the jurisdiction. There are also differences between curricula, types of schools, and so on. However, a coordinating body, the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Culture, facilitates the harmonization of education policies between states.

In higher education, a federal law called the Hochschulrahmengesetz (Higher Education Framework Act) provides an overarching legal framework. In addition, the Conference of University Rectors, which represents most universities, coordinates the development of common norms and standards. What that means in practice is that education laws are similar or consistent in many areas: Academic degrees, vocational and professional qualifications are mutually recognized between the states, so that the system runs smoothly, by and large.

Schools and universities are regulated and funded by the governments of the states (in the case of public institutions). It should be noted, however, that the federal government also provides funding for HEIs, notably in research and development, as well as funding for projects of "supra-regional importance" (such as, for example, the current digitalization effort in schools). Since the state governments are increasingly hard-pressed to support universities amid rising numbers of students, the role of the federal government in higher education funding has expanded significantly in recent years. For example, the government currently subsidizes the states with 19,000 Euros per student to create up to 760.000 additional university seats nationwide over a four-year period.

Universities have a high degree of autonomy and can independently award academic degrees within federal guidelines. That said, final graduation examinations in professional fields like medicine or law are conducted by government authorities of the individual states. The same holds generally true for vocational education, even though the final examinations in this sector are often conducted by government-authorized private industry associations, such as regional Chambers of Industry and Commerce. ( Industrie und Handelskammern). Vocational schools fall under the purview of the states, but the federal government oversees on-the-job practical training, which is an integral part of most vocational programs. Important regulations in this sector are codified in a federal law on vocational education (Berufsbildungsgesetz).

Academic Calendar and Language of Instruction

The school year in Germany runs from August to July. While there are some variations between states, it's generally divided into two terms of 38 to 42 weeks with a winter break in February or March and a longer summer break from July to August or September. At universities, the academic year is split into a winter semester that runs from October to March and a summer semester from April to September. Although each semester is formally six months in duration, classes end several weeks early with the remaining time being dedicated to writing papers and exam preparation, as well as a semester break.

The language of instruction in schools is German. In higher education, the use of English is becoming increasingly common, as noted before. However, while some 13 percent of all master's programs were taught in English in 2019, undergraduate programs and programs in professional disciplines are predominantly taught in German.

Early Childhood Education

Compulsory education in Germany generally begins at the age of six, but almost all children- 95 percent in 2017-attend early childhood education (ECE) between the ages of three and five. This stage is intended to socialize and prepare children for formal education.

Note, however, that there are some minor variations between states. For the most part, ECE institutions are called Kindergartens or "Kitas" ( Kindertagestätten) and have few, if any, compulsory curriculum guidelines. But a dwindling number of jurisdictions, such as the state of Hamburg, not only have Kitas, but also maintain an older and more formalized model of pre-school, which is attended for one year only (age five). These pre-schools are usually directly attached to elementary schools.

Also of note, a few states require children who have been attested to have language learning deficits to undergo language training before enrolling in elementary school. In some jurisdictions, older, school-aged children without adequate German language skills, such as children with a migration background, may be mandated to attend ECE language courses as well, even if that means setting back children already enrolled in elementary programs. While these rules are ultimately set by the states, there were political debates in 2019 whether to make ECE language courses mandatory nationwide for all children without sufficient language skills, a change that would predominantly affect migrant children.

Elementary Education

Elementary education is provided free of charge in public school across Germany. While the majority of children in ECE attend private, non-profit institutions, the scope of private education in the formal school system is relatively small, if growing considerably in recent years. Only about 5 percent of elementary students and 9.5 percent of secondary students were enrolled in private institutions in 2017, according to the World Bank.

Elementary education begins at the age of six and lasts four years (grades one to four), except in a small number of states where it lasts six years. Most pupils learn at the Grundschule (foundation school), where they largely study the same general subjects. While there are some variations between state curricula, they usually include German, mathematics, social studies, physical education, technology, music, and religion or ethics. One noticeable difference is the age at which English is introduced. While English classes don't begin before grade three in some jurisdictions, pupils in some states begin to study English as early as grade one. One state, Saarland, does not offer English in der Grundschule at all. Student assessment and promotion are generally school-based-there are no final graduation exams, nor is a formal final graduation certificate awarded.

The system becomes much more diversified at the end of the elementary foundation cycle, when pupils are assigned to different schools based on their academic ability-a process that can be referred to as "tracking" or "streaming." The mechanism by which pupils are tracked varies by state. Parents in most states can choose either to send their children to general secondary schools, or to enroll them in university-preparatory schools. In some states, school recommendations influence the tracking. In other states, assignments are mandatory based on grade averages. Reassignments may still occur during an academic "observation phase" in grades five and six.

This tracking process is not as rigid as it once was, and students in the vocational track can cross over to the university-preparatory track at a later stage. Some states have also established more integrated "comprehensive" secondary schools in which students in the different tracks study at the same school. However, deciding which school to attend remains an important factor in the academic career of many students.

Lower-Secondary Education (Sekundarstufe I)

Germany's secondary school system is complex. There are three main programs, which are studied in different types of schools: Hauptschule, Realschule, and Gymnasium. However, all, or at least two, of these programs may also be offered at the same type of school in some states (such as, for example, comprehensive schools ( Gesamtschulen), integrated secondary schools, or combined Haupt and Realschulen). In Bavaria, the Hauptschule may be called Mittelschule (middle school).

Haupt- and Realschule programs are general secondary programs, completion of which satisfies compulsory education requirements, which range from nine years to ten years of education, depending on the state. In addition, these programs generally prepare for vocational upper-secondary education, although transfer into the Gymnasium, which provides university-preparatory education, is possible as well.

Hauptschule and Realschule

Hauptschule programs most commonly last five years (grades five to nine). While there are minor curricular differences between states, nationwide standards exist for several subjects with German, mathematics, and a foreign language (predominantly English) as compulsory subjects in the entire country. In addition, students usually study natural sciences (biology, chemistry, physics, or technology), social sciences (geography, history, politics, economics), as well as physical education, and arts or music.

Progression is based on internal school assessment, but the content of the final graduation examination is usually set by the governments of the states, at least in the subjects of German, mathematics, and English. Upon completion of the program, students receive the Zeugnis des Hauptschulabschlusses (certificate of completion of Hauptschule).

Realschule programs are academically more demanding and take an additional year to complete (grade 10). It's possible for students who completed Hauptschule to seamlessly transfer into these programs, which generally comprise the same subjects. There are usually centralized state examinations at the end of the program. Students graduate with the Zeugnis des Realschulabschlusses (certificate of completion of Realschule), sometimes also called Mittlere Reife (intermediate maturity).

Both the Haupt- and Realschule credentials provide access to upper-secondary vocational education, but students who only completed Hauptschule traditionally enter programs in more practical trades, whereas Realschule graduates have a wider range of options. Completion of Realschule also allows students to transfer into the university-preparatory track, although they may have to meet certain minimum grade requirements.

Far more students obtain a Realschule qualification than those leaving school after Hauptschule. The number of students that only complete Hauptschule has drastically declined over the decades. In 1960, 72 percent of all students still attended Hauptschule, or an older type of school of the same level, the Volksschule. In 2017, by contrast, 34 percent attended the Gymansium, 21 percent the Realschule, and only 10 percent the Hauptschule. In general, enrollments are currently shifting strongly in favor of more integrated school forms like comprehensive Gesamtschulen. Between 2007 and 2017, the number of Haupt- and Realschulen in Germany dropped by 45 percent.

University-Preparatory Upper-Secondary Education (Sekundarstufe II)

Upper-secondary education in Germany is called Sekundarstufe II (secondary stage II) and comprises a vocational and a university-preparatory track. The main institution in the university-preparatory track is the Gymnasium, a type of school designed to ensure "maturity" or readiness for higher education. Students who enroll in Gymnasiums after elementary school study largely the same subjects as those in other schools, but they are expected to learn more independently. What's more, an elective second foreign language is mandatory beginning in grade six or seven (mostly French, Spanish, or Latin, but also Russian, Chinese, or other languages if offered by the school). While there are no centralized graduation exams at the end of the lower-secondary stage, the certificate of completion of grade 10 is usually officially equivalent to completion of Realschule or "middle maturity."

The length of the upper-secondary stage is either two years (grades 11 and 12) or three years (grades 11 to 13), depending on the state (see the section on upper-secondary school reforms below). In 13-year systems, grade 11 is an introductory stage, followed by a two-year specialization or "qualification phase." Twelve-year systems begin with the qualification phase, but offer the same curriculum compressed into two years. In some states, the introductory stage is part of the grade 10 curriculum.

In the qualification phase, students can typically choose elective subjects, which they study with greater intensity. These subjects are examined at the end of the program in centralized exams. The concrete combination of subjects, and the name given to them, varies by state: Some have two main subjects studied for five hours a week ( Leistungsfächer), and two or three additional examination subjects ( Prüfungsfächer). Others have five equally weighted core subjects (Kernfächer) studied for four hours. Yet another variation involves mandatory core subjects (German, mathematics, foreign language) and profile subjects chosen from three different subject areas: arts and languages, science, and social sciences.

Progression between grades is based on internal school assessment and generally requires examinations. Students who have a failing grade ( ungenügend) in a compulsory subject must repeat the year. They can have two conditionally passing grades similar to the U.S. grade of D-the grade of mangelhaft -but must usually repeat the year if they earn these grades in three subjects. The grading scale in the upper-secondary stage at Gymnasiums is a 15-point scale that is different from the grading scale used at other stages and types of schools. Both scales are shown below.

To graduate, students must pass a rigorous written and oral final examination, which is overseen by the ministries of education of the states, almost all of which mandate standard content for one uniform examination taken by all students. To further standardize the exams, several states use the same questions in German, mathematics, English, and French. These questions are developed by the Institute for Educational Quality Improvement ( IQB), a joint institution of the states responsible for monitoring the quality of German schools.

The exam is called the Abitur-a name that derives from the Latin verb abire, which can be roughly translated as "to leave." Students are usually examined in four or five concentration or core subjects. In some states, students may also contribute "special learning achievements," such as a paper or project, toward their final grade average, which is calculated based on the Abitur exam grades and the regular class grades earned in the final four semesters. The overall grade average is expressed in a range of 1 to 4 with 4.0 being the minimum average required for graduation.

Upon successful completion of the exam, students receive the Zeugnis der allgemeinen Hochschulreife (certificate of general university maturity), a credential that legally entitles graduates to study at a German university. Since higher education in Germany is also mostly free, this may sound like an egalitarian educational utopia. In reality, however, admission to universities can be highly competitive. The final Abitur grade determines how quickly students get admitted into popular programs that have a limited number of available seats ( numerus clausus). In medicine, for example, students with lower grades had to wait seven years for admission, on average, as of 2019, because more than 40,000 students applied for 10,000 available seats. (See also the section on university admissions below.)

The Push for the "Turbo Abitur": A Reform with Mixed Results
Germany has some of the oldest students in the OECD, partially because of the exceptionally long secondary education cycle in many parts of the country. Abitur programs in West Germany had traditionally been 13 years in length, while education in former East Germany lasted 12 years. However, three out of five East German states adopted a 13-year system after reunification, so that by 2000 most states had long programs. To align these systems with the 12-year paradigm found in most of the world, most German states between 2001 and 2009 began to shorten their Abitur programs by one year to enable students to enter universities and the workforce at a younger age. The drive was called the G8 reforms, referring to a 4+8 system, as opposed to the 13-year G9 system (4+9). To preserve quality standards, the states pledged to maintain the old curricula, but to compress them in the new G8 "Turbo Abitur." Yet these reforms soon ran into resistance in various states. The new programs were often more rigid and offered fewer elective subjects, and they required students to spend considerably more time in the classroom per week-changes that proved unpopular with many students and parents. Political opposition mounted with critics lamenting the "lost childhood" of Germany's students and a loss of educational quality in supposedly overloaded programs. While many education experts disagreed with these notions, the G8 reforms became a political issue and several states reversed course. A number of western states have since returned to the G9 across the board. Others now have hybrid systems that allow schools to choose between G8 and G9, while others kept the G8 structure. This has resulted in a rather chaotic patchwork of different systems in Germany. To provide an overview, the most common models in the 16 different states are shown below. In states that are reverting to G9, the G8 programs are gradually being phased out with current students still being able to graduate under the old regulations. (Also note that some G9 states may allow gifted students to graduate after 12 years, but that is not the standard pattern.)

Baden-Württemberg: Implemented G8 but reintroduced G9 at 44 model schools in 2012

Bavaria: Decided to switch to G8 in 2004 but returned to G9 in 2018

Brandenburg: G8 at gymnasiums but students can attend 13-year programs at integrated schools

Berlin: G8 at gymnasiums but students can attend 13-year programs at integrated schools

Bremen: G8 at gymnasiums but students can attend G9 programs at other schools (Oberschulen)

Hamburg: G8 at gymnasiums but students can attend 13-year programs at integrated schools

Hesse: Gymnasiums can choose between G8 and G9

Lower Saxony: Returned to G9 in 2015 after initially implementing G8

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: G8 (switched from G8 to G9 after reunification, but has since reverted to G8)

North-Rhine Westphalia: Reverted to G9 in 2019 after initially implementing G8-individual schools may be allowed to continue G8 programs upon special application

Rhineland-Palatinate: Kept G9, but allows select schools to offer G8 as whole-day programs

Saarland: G8 at gymnasiums but students can attend 13-year programs at integrated schools

Saxony: G8 (kept its 12-year system after reunification)

Schleswig Holstein: Returned to G9 in 2019 after initially implementing G8

Thuringia: G8-already had a 12-year system before the reforms; Abitur programs at "vocational gymnasiums" are 13 years in length

Vocational Education

Germany is known for its high-quality vocational education system that has been emulated by several countries worldwide, partially because it's considered effective in limiting youth unemployment: In 2020, Germany had the lowest youth unemployment rate in the OECD after Japan.

The German system comprises a variety of different vocational programs at the upper-secondary level. Some of these are similar to programs in the university-preparatory track in that students receive full-time classroom instruction. However, the most common form of vocational education has a strong focus on practical training. Depending on the state, between 79 percent and 97 percent of vocational students in 2018 learned in the so-called "dual system" which combines theoretical classroom instruction with practical training in a real-life work environment. Overall, 47 percent of all upper-secondary students were enrolled in vocational programs in 2018-a high ratio by OECD standards.

Students generally enter the dual system after lower-secondary education. The system is characterized by so-called "sandwich programs," which means that students attend a vocational school on a part-time basis, either in coherent blocks of weeks, or for two or three days each week (at least 12 hours a week, depending on the state). The remainder of the students' time is devoted to practical training at a work place. Companies participating in these dual programs are obligated to provide training in accordance with national regulations, and to pay students a modest salary.

German law does not stipulate formal academic entry requirements for dual-track programs, but companies can select applicants and set their own requirements. In practice, completion of Hauptschule is therefore often the minimum requirement for programs in crafts and trades, whereas the Realschule certificate or an equivalent Sekundar I qualification is typically required for programs in white collar vocations, such as business, banking, or hotel management. However, it's possible to enter vocational programs without a formal academic qualification-more than 50,000 students entered programs in fields like sales or machine operations without having a Hauptschule certificate in 2017. On the other hand, a sizable number of Abitur graduates pursue vocational education as well.

About two-thirds of the curricula at vocational schools consists of theoretical instruction in the chosen field, whereas the other third is made up of general education subjects, such as German, social studies, or English. Programs last two to three and a half years, depending on the specialization. Upon completion of the school component, students receive a certificate of completion of vocational school ( Abschlusszeugnis der Berufsschule).

Students typically also need to pass a final examination, which may test vocational competencies in addition to theoretical subjects. These exams are conducted by state examination bodies, or state-authorized industry associations like physician's associations, lawyer's associations, Chambers of Crafts ( Handwerkskammern), or Chambers of Industry and Commerce ( Industrie- und Handelskammern-IHK). There are 79 regional IHKs across Germany which conduct examinations in about 250 vocations. The final credential awarded is called the IHK- Prüfungszeugnis (IHK examination certificate).

Credentials awarded in the dual system are formal, government-recognized qualifications. In 2019, there were 325 officially recognized vocations with titles that include carpenter, tax specialist, dental technician, and film and video editor. The most popular field of study among men in 2019 was automotive technology; most women studied office management.

In terms of access to higher education, graduates in the vocational track are generally not eligible for admission into university programs, although they may sometimes be admitted based on special entrance examinations, or completion of a probationary study period, depending on the state. In recent years, regulations have generally been eased to allow more students in the vocational track to enter universities.

It should also be noted that students in many vocational programs may concurrently earn a maturity certificate that provides access to a subset of HEIs-the Universities of Applied Sciences. This credential is called the Zeugnis der Fachhochschulreife (University of Applied Sciences Maturity Certificate). It can be earned at a variety of schools, including vocational schools and gymnasiums in some states. In the latter case, students who don't meet all the requirements for the Abitur may opt for the Fachhochschulreife. However, these students must also complete a practical internship to earn the final qualification. Programs in the dual system satisfy the mandatory practical training requirement, but students may have to take additional courses in general subjects to meet the academic prerequisites.

Another exit qualification that may be awarded in the vocational track is called the Subject-Specific Maturity Certificate ( Zeugnis der fachgebundenen Hochschulreife). Earning this certificate requires less foreign language study. It offers access to Universities of Applied Sciences and a specific set of subjects at universities, such as social science subjects.

Continuing Vocational Education (Berufliche Fort- und Weiterbildungen)

Post-secondary vocational education in Germany is generally less standardized than the upper-secondary vocational programs. One traditional pathway leads to the qualification of "master craftsman" or "master craftswoman" ( Meister or Meisterin) in fields like agriculture, engineering technology, or masonry, for instance. Master craftsmen or women can run their own businesses in regulated vocations and train apprentices (journeymen or journeywomen). While many students in this track attend vocational schools, they can also prepare on their own for final examinations that test theoretical knowledge and practical skills, as well as business subjects, law, and vocational pedagogy.

The exams are conducted by chambers of crafts or IHKs. Preparatory programs may last between one and three years with many candidates studying part-time while working. A comparable qualification in business-related fields is Fachwirt (which can be roughly translated as business management specialist). Successful completion of the Meister or Fachwirt examination opens access to university programs in most states.

In addition to these traditional programs, there are a multitude of other part-time education programs that may be as short as three months, or as long as four years, offered by a variety of providers and companies. Students may enroll in these programs to obtain advanced knowledge in their field, improve computer skills, or train in another field. The German government actively promotes further education and lifelong learning, particularly with regard to digital competencies. Retraining programs for unemployed individuals may be paid for by the state, but unlike secondary programs, post-secondary vocational education is usually not tuition free.

Bachelor Professional and Master Professional: Controversial New Qualifications

In January 2020, Germany enacted legislation to further standardize vocational education by introducing new qualification titles. Graduates of initial upper-secondary vocational programs are now categorized under the umbrella term Geprufter Berufspezialist (examined vocational specialist), whereas holders of a Meister or Fachwirt title can now also be awarded the degree of "Bachelor Professional." In addition, holders of some higher level qualifications like the Geprüfter Betriebswirt (examined business administrator), a title earned upon completion of a post-Meister program, may concurrently be awarded the degree of "Master Professional." The new titles are pegged at the same levels as academic bachelor and master degrees awarded by universities in the German qualifications framework.
The goal of these reforms is the strengthening of vocational education. Demographic trends and the increased popularity of university education have contributed to a growing skilled worker shortage in Germany. The federal government has therefore argued that the new qualifications-and their placement at the bachelor and master levels-will make the vocational track more attractive to young Germans, as well as enhance the competitiveness of vocational qualifications outside of Germany. However, these reforms have been sharply criticized, particularly by universities and organizations like the German Association of Engineers. The German Rectors Conference denounced the new degree names as confusing terms that obscure the distinctions between academic and practically oriented vocational education, both of which require different sets of competencies. The president of the conference argued that the new names give the false impression that vocational programs are of academic nature, particularly in other countries, where the degrees of bachelor and master are predominantly reserved for university qualifications. Indeed, the new degree names are likely to confuse some international credential evaluators. It's the position of World Education Services that the vocational qualifications of Bachelor Professional and Master Professional are not directly comparable with academic degrees awarded by universities in the U.S. and Canadian contexts.
International Schools and Other Special Types of Schools in Germany

International schools are not as prevalent in Germany as in some other countries, and factors like the closure of schools catering to the children of U.S. military personnel due to troop pullouts has affected this sector. According to some tallies, Germany in 2009 had the 7th highest number of international schools worldwide, but was only 19th by this measure in 2019, although most of this shift is owed to the rapid growth of international schools in countries like China, India, and the United Arab Emirates.

Another type of international school program offered in Germany is the European Baccalaureate, a multilingual program offered by the European Schools that is recognized as a university entrance qualification in all EU member states. There are also several French or bilingual French-German schools that are formally recognized.

Waldorf and Montessori Schools

Tertiary Education

Despite this marked increase in enrollments, however, tertiary education participation rates in Germany are extraordinarily low for an industrialized country. Only 33 percent of the country's 25- to 34-year-olds had attained tertiary education qualifications in 2019, compared with 49 percent in the Netherlands, 50 percent in the U.S., 52 percent in the U.K., and 70 percent in South Korea.

This low ratio is attributable, at least in part, to Germany's long-standing separation between academic and vocational education, with the latter absorbing many students who in other countries might pursue tertiary education. Structural differences in labor market access in certain fields also play a role: Graduates from secondary-level German vocational programs-such as nursing, for instance-can legally work as entry-level professionals. In other countries, employment in these fields typically requires a tertiary degree.

Finally, it should be noted that participation in tertiary education in Germany remains socially imbalanced in general, despite it being offered free of charge at public institutions and universities having reserved admissions quotas for students from low-income households. Consider that households with at least one parent holding a tertiary degree made up only 28 percent of the German population in 2016, but that children from these households constituted no less than 53 percent of university students. By contrast, only 30 percent of children from households where at least one parent had completed vocational education-53 percent of the population-attended university.

Another related issue in German tertiary education is that some 30 percent of students-particularly those from low-income households-do not complete their programs of study, caused by factors like a lack of academic preparation or motivation, and funding problems. It doesn't help that classrooms are often overcrowded, leading to a deterioration of teaching quality. The rapid growth of university enrollments has financially overburdened German universities, the overwhelming majority of which are government funded and don't charge tuition fees.

Changes to this funding structure have been debated for some time. The OECD in 2016 went as far as calling the German model unsustainable, but solutions, especially those focused on tuition-based funding models, have been elusive. The introduction of tuition fees by seven states in the 2000s turned into one of the more controversial topics in recent German higher education politics. Although the so-called Uni-Maut levied by public universities-€500 (US$591) per semester on average-was modest by international standards, intense political opposition quickly led to the abolition of fees in all states by 2014.

Types of Higher Education Institutions (Hochschulen)

The German higher education system has not only grown over the past decades, it has also diversified. The most important change was the introduction of the Universities of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschulen) alongside the traditional research universities in the late 1960s. In total, there are currently 424 university-level institutions, in addition to a number of HEIs that are not classified as tertiary institutions such as Berufsakademien, sometimes referred to as Universities of Cooperative Education. The latter are more vocationally oriented institutions than Hochschulen.

Universities are mostly large multi-disciplinary institutions that focus on basic research and offer the full range of academic programs, from bachelor degrees to doctorates. However, several universities, especially smaller private institutions, are more narrowly specialized in specific disciplines, such as technical fields, business, or psychology. There were 107 institutions classified as universities in Germany in 2019/2020. In addition, there were 52 universities of arts ( Kunsthochschulen) offering programs in artistic fields like music, fine arts, or theater, as well as 6 pedagogical universities, and 16 theological universities that focus on religious education, but may also offer programs in disciplines like philosophy, social work, or nursing.

The university with the largest enrollment is the FernUniversitat Hagen, a public distance education provider with about 75,000 students who learn at various regional study centers across Germany, as well as in Austria, Hungary, and Switzerland. Other large public universities include the University of Cologne with 54,000 students, the University of Munich (49,000 students), and the Technical University of Aachen (45,900 students). Overall, more than 60 percent of German students attend universities.

Universities of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschulen - FHs) are a group of 213 institutions that offer programs in a limited range of subjects, such as engineering, business, or computer science. Their programs are more practically oriented with curricula that focus on applied research and usually include industrial internships. FHs are generally not allowed to award doctoral degrees, although there have been a few exceptions to this limitation in recent years. A further distinction lies in the admission requirements: Whereas the Abitur is required for unqualified access to universities, programs at FHs can be entered with a University of Applied Sciences Maturity Certificate earned in the vocational track ( Fachhochschulreife).

A special type of FH are the Verwaltungsfachhochschulen (universities of applied sciences in public administration) which train civil servants for state and federal government. There are 30 of these schools offering education in general administration, as well as specific fields like policing, taxation, or public finance.

Private HEIs tend to be smaller institutions focusing on business and technical majors, as well as professional fields like medicine. Many of the theological universities are private as well. Except for some institutions like the FOM University of Applied Sciences, Germany's largest private HEI with 55,000 students, the vast majority of these private universities enroll less than 2,000 students.

Quality Assurance and Accreditation

Germany's HEIs are recognized and regulated by the ministries of education of the states. To become "state-recognized" and have the same standing as public HEIs, private institutions must also be accredited by the Science Council, an advisory body to the federal and state governments. While Science Council accreditation is voluntary, private institutions without state recognition are not allowed to call themselves Hochschulen nor issue formal academic qualifications. Accreditation is granted for three to ten years based on the evaluation of teaching facilities and staff, quality assurance mechanisms, finances, and the mission statement of institutions.

There are 10 accreditation agencies authorized by the Accreditation Council to operate in Germany. Note that agencies from other countries that are registered in the European Quality Assurance Register may be allowed to evaluate institutions and programs in Germany. Two of the agencies authorized by the Accreditation Council are headquartered in Austria and Switzerland.

The accreditation of bachelor and master degree programs is generally mandatory, while other, state-examined programs in professional disciplines are exempted from this requirement. Accreditation is granted for a period of eight years, at the end of which institutions need to apply for re-accreditation. The process is based on the review of self-assessments and on-site inspections by a panel of evaluators that consists of professors and professionals in the field, as well as one student representative, who assess the concept, structure, and curricula of programs.

However, it should be noted that the deadlines for universities to obtain accreditation of their programs vary by state, and that not all programs have been accredited thus far. Program accreditation can be burdensome and expensive for larger universities, so that growing numbers of institutions apply for "system accreditation," an alternative option that allows HEIs to forgo the external review of each individual program by creating internal, institution-wide quality assurance mechanisms that satisfy the requirements of the accreditation agency. As of 2020, 94 HEIs had obtained system accreditation-a considerable increase compared with the number which had done so in previous years. Another option for institutions is to apply for partial system accreditation, that is, the accreditation of several programs within the same discipline (a process also referred to as "bundled accreditation"). A database of accredited programs and institutions is available on the website of the Accreditation Council.

The Excellence Initiative/Excellence Strategy

In 2005, Germany launched the Excellence Initiative, a well-funded federal project to nurture a group of top-tier, globally competitive research universities. To foster competition between HEIs, institutions were financially incentivized to develop "future concepts" for research, research-oriented graduate schools, and "excellence clusters" (regional research networks). Universities that performed best in these categories were then classified as "universities of excellence" and received special funding.

Critics contended that the project divided German universities into winners and losers and shifted funding priorities disproportionately toward research, thereby harming higher education in the country at large. The OECD noted in 2019 that while Germany is among the top spenders on research and development within the organization, spending per tertiary student is below the OECD average and has stagnated amid increased enrollments.

Despite these criticisms, the German government considered the initiation a success and continues the project with some modifications under the name " Excellence Strategy." Proponents point to factors like increased research output, an uptick in independent private research funding for top institutions, as well as their growing attractiveness to foreign researchers.

German Universities in International Rankings

Although German HEIs trail universities in countries like the U.S. and the U.K. in international university rankings, they are consistently well-represented in the most common rankings. For instance, seven German universities are among the top 100 in the most recent 2021 Times Higher Education (THE) global ranking (compared with 11 British institutions, seven Dutch institutions and five French institutions). The ranked German institutions are all public universities, a plurality of them universities of excellence. The three institutions rated highest by THE are the University of Munich (ranked 32nd), the Technical University of Munich (41st), and the University of Heidelberg (42nd). The same universities are ranked highest in both the latest QS ranking and Shanghai rankings, which feature three and four German universities among the top 100, respectively. Unsurprisingly, German universities are dominant in subject-specific rankings in fields like mechanical engineering, such as the EU-funded U-Multirank Project.

University Admissions

Admission into public universities in Germany is generally based on the final Abitur grade, which determines how fast students get admitted into their program of choice. Although all Abitur holders are eligible for admission, those with lower grades must often wait longer to enter. The way the system works is that universities consider the number of semesters that have passed since applicants graduated from upper-secondary school with each semester in waiting increasing the chances of admission. In addition to students who meet the minimum grade threshold in a given academic year, a certain number of students are admitted based on waiting periods. The length of these waiting periods varies by field of study. While programs with enough seats admit students instantaneously without delays, applicants in popular fields like medicine or law may have to wait for several years. Additional entrance requirements are relatively uncommon for students with the Abitur, but some programs also require admissions tests or demonstrated foreign language skills.

It should be noted that while the Abitur or a subject-specific maturity certificate are the most common entrance qualifications, applicants with a vocational Meister or Fachwirt qualification are eligible for admission as well. Depending on the state, applicants who completed an upper-secondary vocational program and worked for a few years after graduation may also be admitted, if usually contingent upon special entrance examinations or completion of a probationary period. To boost tertiary enrollments, most German states have eased admissions restrictions in recent years. A record number of 65,000 students without the Abitur were enrolled in universities in 2018.

Admission requirements at private universities are often less strictly tied to the final Abitur grade and may place greater emphasis on entrance exams, interviews and other criteria, although this varies by institution. Universities of Applied Sciences have lower admission requirements than universities and admit students with the Zeugnis der Fachhochschulreife. In a few states, this certificate can also provide access to regular universities.

Admission requirements for international undergraduate students are fairy stringent in Germany. Applicants from non-EU countries who did not complete any post-secondary study in their home countries are often required to complete a one-year preparatory program ( Studienkolleg), at the end of which they must pass an equivalency examination ( Feststellungspr üfung). Admission into these prep programs requires adequate German language skills and may involve entrance examinations. Even if a prep program is not required, students from all non-German-speaking countries must pass a German language test, such as the Test DaF, unless they seek entry into English-taught programs. The specific admission requirements for 130 countries can be found in a database maintained by the DAAD.

The Tertiary Degree Structure

As in several other European countries, the Bologna Process brought major changes to the German higher education system. Before the reforms, the standard courses of study at German universities were long single-tier programs with a nominal duration of 9 or 10 semesters, although it often took students much longer to graduate. These integrated programs led to the qualification of Diplom-awarded in the sciences, engineering, business, and some social science fields-or the Magister Artium (awarded mostly in the humanities). These credentials could be classified as graduate level qualifications and provided access to doctoral programs. Universities of Applied Sciences, on the other hand, offered shorter four-year programs leading to the Diplom (FH), which usually did not allow for progression to doctoral studies.

After the introduction of the reforms in 1999, almost all Diplom and Magister programs were successively split into undergraduate and graduate cycles and replaced by the new bachelor and master programs. Professional disciplines like medicine or law remain an exception to this structure. Whereas some countries with similar systems-like the Netherlands, for example-switched to the two-cycle structure across the board, Germany maintained long single-tier programs in most professions.

That said, the vast majority of German students are now enrolled in bachelor and master programs, whereas other programs, including state-examined professional programs and non-Bologna compliant programs in artistic fields, make up a comparatively small percentage: In 2018, 49.6 percent of students were enrolled in bachelor programs, 28.3 percent in master programs, 5.6 percent in doctoral programs, and 16.5 percent in other types of programs. Short-cycle tertiary programs below the bachelor's level are very uncommon in Germany. Less than 1 percent of students enroll in these types of programs compared with an average of 17 percent in other OECD countries.

Credit System and Grading Scale

Before the Bologna reforms, universities did not use credit systems, but quantified course and program requirements in weekly hours per semester ( Semesterwochenstunden) with Diplom or Magister programs typically requiring a total of 140 to 170 semester hours on average to graduate. Today, institutions use the European ECTS credit system, which defines one year of full-time study as 60 credit units with one credit representing 25 to 30 hours of study. A three-year bachelor program, thus, requires 180 ECTS credits.

In terms of assessment, German universities continue to use the traditional German grading scale. While HEIs are technically required to use the ECTS grading scale alongside the German scale, it isn't commonly used. Given that the ECTS scale is a relational or rank-based scale that measures how well students perform in comparison with other students, the absolute German grades cannot be directly converted into ECTS grades. While some institutions list ECTS grades in addition to German grades on their transcripts, the ECTS ranking is mostly limited to final degree examinations, if it is used at all (see the sample document issued by the University of Duisburg Essen linked at the end of this article).

The grading scale is largely consistent across public universities, even if private universities and some programs, such as law programs, use alternative scales. It ranges from 1 to 5 and is different from most numerical grading scales in that the lowest number represents the highest grade. At most institutions, a final grade average of 4.0 is required for graduation, but some universities may graduate students with a final grade of 4.3. Of note, there's been a trend toward grade inflation in recent years. Between 2000 and 2011 alone, the number of good and very good grades awarded by German universities in final graduation exams increased by 9 percent, although it should be noted that there are significant variations in grade distributions between academic disciplines.

Bachelor's Degree

Bachelor programs are offered by both universities and FHs and are either three years (180 ECTS credits), three and a half years (210 ECTS), or four years (240 ECTS) in length. The curricula are specialized within the major-there are usually no general education subjects or minor specializations as found in the United States. The programs are divided into subject modules, each comprising several related courses. At the end of the program, students write a thesis, typically worth 6 to 12 ECTS credits. A study abroad period or industry internship may be required, depending on the program. The degree names that have been approved by German authorities are Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Engineering, Bachelor of Laws, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Bachelor of Music, and Bachelor of Education.

Master's Degree

Master degrees have the same names as bachelor degrees (Master of Arts, Master of Science, Master of Engineering, and so on). The length of the programs can vary between one year (60 ECTS), one and a half years (90 ECTS), and two years (120 ECTS), but it should be noted that a combined credit load of at least 300 ECTS in both cycles is required in the case of consecutive programs in which the master program builds directly on the bachelor program. Admission generally requires a bachelor degree in a related discipline with sufficiently high grades, but students with bachelor degrees in unrelated disciplines may sometimes be able to be admitted via entrance examinations. Some programs may also require work experience for admission. Like bachelor programs, master programs are offered by both universities and FHs. They are modularized and conclude with a thesis typically worth 15 to 30 ECTS.

Doktor/PhD

Doctoral degrees are almost exclusively awarded by universities and research institutes-FHs are only in very rare exceptions allowed to offer these programs. There are two types of doctoral programs in Germany: "individual programs" and "structured programs." Traditionally, all doctoral programs were pure research programs without coursework, attendance requirements, or hard deadlines. Candidates in these individual programs, which still predominate, independently prepare a dissertation under the supervision of a dissertation advisor ( Doktorvater or Doktormutter), usually a full professor or other senior researcher. The degrees awarded upon the defense of the dissertation have different Latin names, such as Doktor Rerum Naturalium (Doctor of Natural Sciences) or Doktor Rerum Politicarum (Doctor of State Sciences).

On the other hand, the Bologna reforms call for structured third cycle programs and have led to the introduction of more "schoolified" doctoral programs in Germany in recent years. These structured programs most commonly require at least one year of compulsory coursework and interim assessments in addition to dissertation research. Most have a set length of three or four years (180 to 240 ECTS) and are taught in English, which means that they are more accessible for international students. Admission requires a master's degree or equivalent qualification (Diplom, Magister, state exam), although exceptionally qualified candidates who hold a bachelor's degree may occasionally be admitted as well. Most structured programs lead to the Doctor of Philosophy degree, or PhD ( Philosophiae Doktor). While current comprehensive data on these programs are unavailable, it's clear that they're growing in popularity in Germany. By some estimates, 23 percent of doctoral candidates were enrolled in structured programs in 2015.

Habilitation

The Habilitation is the highest academic award in Germany and is usually required to become a full-fledged university professor. It's a unique qualification that exists in only a few other European and Latin American countries. It involves the defense of an independently prepared postdoctoral dissertation or other major academic work, or collection of published articles, which demonstrate advanced scholarship beyond the doctoral degree. But while the Habilitation is still the most common pathway to professorship in Germany, it is viewed as an outdated model by a growing number of academics and policymakers. It is now increasingly being replaced with a U.S.-patterned junior professorship and tenure track system.

Professional Education

As noted before, programs in licensed professions like medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, or law are long, single-tier programs entered after upper-secondary school. These programs are taught at universities but conclude with government-administered examinations. Instead of earning an academic degree, graduates earn a government-issued certificate of completion of state examination. Medical programs, for instance, conclude with the award of the Certificate of Physician Examination ( Zeugnis der Ärztlichen Pr üfung). Splitting this program into bachelor and master cycles is presently not deemed feasible in Germany, because of concerns about educational quality and questions regarding the employability of graduates with a first-cycle Bachelor of Medicine degree.

Medical programs are mostly taught at medical faculties of larger universities. They last six years, divided into two years of pre-clinical studies in basic sciences and four years of clinical studies, including a one-year rotating internship at a teaching hospital during the final year. Students must sit for three state examinations at different stages of the program; passing the final one allows graduates to apply for licensure as a physician. Postgraduate education in medical specialties requires another four to seven years of clinical training, depending on the specialty. Entry-to-practice programs in dentistry and veterinary medicine last five and five and a half years, respectively, but are generally structured similarly.

Law education is divided into two stages: an initial university program with a nominal length of five years that culminates in the first state exam in law, followed by a two-year clerkship that is accompanied by theoretical seminars and concludes with the second state exam in law ( Zweite Juristische Staatspr üfung). Bachelor of Laws and Master of Laws degrees are also awarded, but these qualifications are more geared toward business law or other specific fields, and do not grant full access to the profession.

Teacher Education

Teacher education in Germany has traditionally been organized like education in other professions: Students attended long, single-tier university programs that combined studies in teaching subjects (typically two subjects) with pedagogical courses and a short teaching internship. These programs prepared students for teaching at specific levels of education (elementary, lower-secondary, upper-secondary, or vocational) and concluded with the first state examination for teachers ( Erste Staatsprüfung für das Lehramt) conducted by the individual states. Programs for upper-secondary school teachers lasted longest (usually nine or ten semesters).

This course of study was then followed by a more comprehensive in-service teaching internship supplemented by methodology seminars over a period of about two years-the so-called preparatory service ( Vorbereitungsdienst)-which concluded with a second state exam. Graduates are entitled to teach a specific combination of subjects, but they can also become qualified in additional subjects by completing further studies and sitting for supplementary examinations ( Zusatzprüfung or Ergänzungsprüfung).

However, most states have now switched to the Bologna structure, splitting the first stage of education into a three-year Bachelor of Education program followed by a two-year Master of Education program. The most common model is a 300 ECTS bachelor and master combination for teachers at all levels, followed by an 18-month preparatory service (see an overview of the requirements in the different states here). That said, aspiring teachers still need to sit for state examinations, and some states have kept the old structure altogether. Despite these differences, graduates can work as teachers in all states-a formal recognition agreement to ensure mobility between jurisdictions was signed in 2013.

The shortages are driven by a variety of factors, including a rising number of pupils due to immigration and rising birth rates, as well as declining enrollments in teacher training programs-a trend that makes it difficult to replace retiring teachers in adequate numbers despite Germany's having some of the highest teacher salaries in the OECD.

WES Documentation Requirements

Secondary Education

Final graduation certificate - sent directly by the institution attended

English language translations of all documents not issued in English

Vocational Education

Official academic transcript (Jahreszeugnisse) - sent directly by the vocational school attended.

Final examination certificate (IHK Prüfungszeugnis) - sent directly by the examining authority

English language translations of all documents not issued in English

Higher Education (Bachelor, Master, Doktor)

Degree certificate - submitted by the applicant

Academic transcript - sent by the institution attended

For completed doctoral programs, a written statement indicating degree conferral - sent by the institution attended

English language translations of all documents not issued in English

Higher Education (Diplom, Magister, Diplom FH, Staatsexamen)

Degree certificate - submitted by the applicant

Academic transcript - sent by the institution attended

Final and intermediate examination certificates (Diplomprüfungszeugnis, Hauptprüfungszeugnis, Vordiplom, Zwischenprüfungszeugnis) - sent by the institution attended

For state-examined programs, all examination certificates - sent by the examining authority

English language translations of all documents not issued in English

Sample Documents

Click here for a PDF file of the academic documents referred to below.

Abschlusszeugnis der Realschule (Certificate of Completion of Realschule)

Zeugnis der allgemeinen Hochschulreife (Certificate of General University Maturity)

Prüfungszeugnis, IHK (IHK Examination Certificate)

Abschlusszeugnis der Berufsschule (Certificate of Completion of Vocational School)

Bachelor of Arts

Zeugnis der Ärztlichen Prüfung (Certificate of Physician Examination)

Master of Science

Doctor of Philosophy

1. In some states, a Realschule qualification that meets the requirements for further education is called erweitertes (extended) or qualifizierendes (qualifying) Realschule certificate.

2. Note that Rhineland-Palatinate has had a special system since 1975, the Mainzer Studienstufe, which is 12.7 years in length to allow students to sit for the Abitur exams a few months early to facilitate seamless university admission.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of World Education Services (WES).

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This overview of current educational trends in Germany features information about the country's education system, student mobility trends, and more.

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Forget ChatGPT - Extractive AI Is the Real Game-Changer for Teachers, Students. Read the article from Jason Dougal at The74.

Context

Singapore is an extraordinary success story. Since becoming an independent republic in 1965, it has transformed from an impoverished island with no natural resources and a mostly illiterate population to a country of 5.8 million people whose living standards match those of the most highly-developed industrial nations. From the very beginning, Lee Kuan Yew, the prime minister who led Singapore to this achievement, understood that an educated workforce would be essential to fulfilling his ambitious economic goals.

In 2009, when Singapore participated for the first time in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the results of Prime Minister Lee's efforts were already clear. That year, Singapore's 15-year-olds were among the top performers in all three subjects. In 2015, the nation was first in the world in all three subjects; in 2018, four Chinese provinces outperformed Singapore, but the small island nation continued to outperform every other nation.

At the end of World War II, Singapore implemented the first in a succession of economic development strategies rooted in improved education and training. Since the 1990s, the nation has focused on boosting creativity and capacity for innovation in its students.

In 2004, the government developed the "Teach Less, Learn More" initiative, which moved instruction further away from its early focus on rote memorization and repetitive tasks and toward deeper conceptual understanding and problem-based learning. Educators abandoned the practice of funneling students into ability-based tracks and began sorting them into three different "bands" in secondary school based on their ultimate educational goal. Although students take most of their classes within their bands, they can take classes in other bands depending on their aptitude and interest in a given subject. The goal is to achieve full subject-based banding, with students freely mixing and matching classes from different bands, by 2024.

Singapore's current priorities for its education system are reflected in the title of its initiative "Every School a Good School." This set of reforms aims to ensure that all schools have adequate resources to develop customized programs for their students; raise professional standards for teachers; encourage innovation; and foster partnerships between schools and communities. In addition, Singapore launched the "Learn for Life" initiative in 2018 to promote greater flexibility in teaching, learning, and assessment. With more opportunities for self-directed learning in and out of school, Singapore hopes to encourage lifelong learning for all Singaporeans, in ways that bring them satisfaction and meaning.

Despite Singapore's strong emphasis on educational equity, there remains a large gap between the nation's highest-performing and lowest-performing students on PISA. This gap, which persists across all three subjects, did narrow somewhat in mathematics and science in the latest round of PISA. In addition, Singapore stands out among OECD countries for its low percentage of low-performing students and high percentage of high-performing students, including a very high percentage of top-performing students with low socioeconomic status. Ten percent of disadvantaged students in Singapore are in the top-performing group compared to an OECD average of three percent.

Governance

Governance Structure

Singapore's education system is highly centralized. The Ministry of Education oversees kindergarten (ages four to five) through higher education and lifelong learning. The Ministry allocates funding for all schools, sets course syllabi and national examinations, oversees teacher credentialing, manages the teacher and principal evaluation and promotion system, and hires and assigns principals and teachers to schools. Schools are grouped into geographic clusters, each overseen by a superintendent, to provide local support for the Ministry's policies and initiatives. The cluster superintendents, who are successful former principals, collaborate with principals in their cluster on how to implement the curriculum and which teaching materials to choose from among a set the Ministry approves and strongly encourages teachers to use. The cluster superintendents also facilitate the sharing of resources and best practices between cluster schools.

While the Ministry sets the framework for the educational system, other entities operate within that framework. Independent or semi-autonomous agencies such as the National Institute of Education (teacher training), the Examinations and Assessment Board (national assessments), and the Institute of Technical Education (vocational education) have clearly defined areas of responsibility and work closely with the Ministry.

Planning and Goals

Singapore articulates clear and comprehensive system-wide goals for education. These goals, which the nation revises regularly, emerge from widespread discussion with partners in the system and with the public, as well as from extensive benchmarking of other leading education systems. Singapore structures policy initiatives around its education goals and creates benchmarks to measure progress. For example, in 2013, Singapore held a National Conversation to gather input on a vision for the 2030 education system strategic plan. Goals included improving character and citizenship education, strengthening digital literacy, building more knowledge and understanding of the history and cultures throughout Asia, expanding supports for disadvantaged students, and building more adult education opportunities. In 2022, Singapore launched a year-long initiative to gather public input as part of developing their Forward Singapore road map. Forward Singapore will prioritize equity while reexamining six key pillars of society: empower (economy and jobs), equip (education and lifelong learning), care (health and social support), build (home and living environment), steward (environmental and fiscal sustainability), and unite (Singapore identity).

In addition, Singapore's leaders monitor educational research and benchmark best practices from around the world so that the system can continue to match the performance of the world's best.

Education Finance

The Ministry of Education directly funds all schools based on the number of pupils. In addition, all schools receive a set grant (called an Opportunity Fund) to use for their low-income students and students from ethnic minority groups. Although this supplemental funding is distributed by the Ministry, schools can choose how to spend it. The Ministry also provides funding directly to students from low-income families in the form of subsidies, called Financial Assistance Schemes, for educational materials and activities and funds for school meals. In addition, the Ministry in 1970 created the Education Fund, which collects contributions from Singapore residents to both support all students and low-income students through scholarships and by providing textbooks, meals and uniforms for students who need these but do not otherwise qualify for financial assistance.

Accountability

School Accountability

Schools in Singapore conduct annual self-evaluations of their practices and outcomes using the Ministry-developed School Excellence Model, which includes nine criteria for performance. Schools then develop improvement plans based on the results. Additionally, each school is visited by a Ministry-led team of evaluators once every six years; the team typically includes consultants from the Ministry and respected educators, such as university professors and successful school leaders. The visit is intended to validate the self-evaluation, provide feedback to the school and offer support for improvement.

Improvement efforts are organized through Singapore's school cluster system. Cluster superintendents meet regularly with principals to monitor their improvement efforts. High-performing schools are eligible for awards. The Ministry annually awards schools that demonstrate outstanding achievement in a single year or over a period of years. The highest award, the School Excellence Award, is given to one school each year.

Teacher Accountability

Singapore uses the Enhanced Performance Management System (EPMS) to conduct annual teacher evaluations. EPMS assesses teachers' performance based on 16 different competencies, including their work in the classroom and their interaction with the greater school community. Teachers first conduct a self-appraisal, and then supervisors evaluate them against the EPMS. These evaluations are qualitative and consist of written feedback rather than numeric scores of specific indicators. Teachers base their professional development plans on EPMS feedback. Principals, alongside the School Staff Developer (in charge of professional learning) and the Cluster Superintendent, co-construct a "Current Estimated Potential" for each teacher using the results of the EPMS. This estimate, or snapshot of the teacher's short-term career trajectory, is shared with the teacher and used to help them articulate their career goals. Teachers can earn rewards based on EPMS results, including honors and salary bonuses. The Ministry also selects teachers for awards and recognition at the national level.

Foundation of Support

Supports for Young Children and Their Families

Singapore has several policies in place to support families with children. Working mothers are entitled to 16 weeks of paid maternity leave if their child is a Singapore citizen and they have worked at their company for at least three months. Otherwise, they are entitled to 12 weeks of maternity leave. Fathers are entitled to two weeks of paternity leave. Working parents also receive six days of paid childcare leave per year if their child is under 7 years of age.

In 2008 the government adopted the Enhanced Marriage and Parenthood Package, which includes a "Baby Bonus," providing cash awards for each child, and a Child Development Account (CDA), providing dollar-for-dollar matching of parent contributions to an account that can be used for health care, childcare, and other purposes. The government also makes an initial grant contribution to each child's CDA.

Singapore provides universal health care to citizens. The primary form of support is government subsidies, which cover 80 percent of the cost of care in hospitals and clinics. These subsidies are supplemented by the "3Ms"-Medisave, a mandatory savings program; Medishield, catastrophic health insurance; and Medifund, an endowment to support health care for low-income families. In 2013, the government set up Medifund Junior, which provides support for low-income children, and extended the fund's benefits to include primary care, dental services, prenatal care, and delivery.

In 2016, Singapore piloted KidSTART, which partners with hospitals and community organizations to provide supports for low-income families, including home visits, developmental screenings and referrals, and parent education, from pregnancy until children reach age 3. KidSTART is now a permanent program.

Childcare for children up to age 4 is privately run in Singapore, but the government has taken steps to ensure care remains affordable for all families. In 2009 Singapore created the Anchor Operator scheme (AOP), which provides subsidies to participating centers with a requirement that they cap fees. The government expanded the AOP in 2014, and in 2016 added the Partner Operator scheme (POP) to subsidize additional centers. The government also sets aside 30 percent of childcare slots for low-income families and directly subsidizes their fees. Parents also can use funds from Child Development Accounts to pay for childcare.

Supports for School Aged Children

All students in Singapore receive an Edusave account, to which the government contributes funds so that it can invest in their future. Families can draw on these accounts for any type of educational expense; disadvantaged students receive additional funding. The Ministry of Education also provides financial assistance for students from low-income families. The aid supports school fees and other expenses for students in government or government-aided private schools. Financial aid for independent schools is also available.

These supports are available in the context of a broader safety net for children. The government's Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) administers ComCare, which provides cash grants to low- and moderate-income families on a sliding scale. It also covers long-term assistance needed for care and school-related expenses for children of disabled parents. The MSF also oversees the National Council of Social Service, an umbrella group of 450 private organizations that provide services to Singapore citizens. Services include school-based social work and support for students at risk of dropping out of school.

Learning System

In Singapore, children ages three through six can attend either a public or private kindergarten or a childcare center. Formerly, the Ministry of Social and Family Development oversaw childcare centers while the Ministry of Education oversaw kindergartens. But in 2013, the government created the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) to coordinate oversight of all early childhood education.

Most childcare centers and kindergartens in Singapore are privately run but licensed by ECDA. A subset of centers caps their enrollment fees in exchange for government subsidies, part of a national effort to increase access to childcare for low- and middle-income Singaporeans. Beginning in 2013, the government opened a small number of public kindergartens to model quality programming and further expand access to early education. In 2017, the Prime Minister announced plans for a fourfold increase in the number of public kindergartens by 2025. To ensure public kindergartens are accessible for all families, the Ministry of Education reserves one-third of the total slots for students whose families earn under a certain income level.

ECDA regulates programs for children ages 4-6 as well as programs for younger children. Data from program inspections are not publicly available. ECDA established the Singapore Preschool Accreditation Framework (SPARK) to accredit centers. Accreditation is voluntary, but there are incentives to participate, including access to government subsidies and to professional development for staff. As of 2017, 40 percent of centers in Singapore had attained SPARK certification. Of these, about 10 percent have also attained SPARK commendation, a mark of especially strong teaching and learning practices.

ECDA has developed the Nurturing Early Learners Kindergarten Curriculum Framework as suggested guidance for children ages four to six. The government does not assess learning outcomes for students in kindergarten or childcare; the first nationwide screening of children's literacy and numeracy skills takes place in the first month of primary school. A new program-called Mission I'mPossible 2-establishes interdisciplinary school-based teams to screen children in childcare for developmental issues starting at two months old.

Primary and Secondary Education

System Structure

In Singapore, the system includes six years of primary school, followed by four to six years of secondary school, and one to three years of postsecondary school. The curriculum for primary schools is common for all students in years one to four. For years five and six, students can take individual courses at the foundation or standard level. Foundational level courses are designed to provide more support for students. As they enter secondary school, students, their parents, and their teachers jointly agree on one of three bands or "streams" they will join: Express, Normal (Academic), and Normal (Technical). All streams offer the same course of study, but Express is accelerated and Normal (Technical) offers more applied work. In most cases, students' scores on the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) are the primary determinant of the stream they will join, but parents and students can advocate for different streams if they demonstrate accelerated learning or need more help. Singapore is piloting and implementing a system under which students choose streams for specific subjects, rather than their overall course of study, a practice known as subject-based banding. For example, a student could pursue a technical stream in mathematics, but an express stream in English. Subject-based banding currently exists in all primary schools, and the goal is to have full subject-based banding in all secondary schools by 2024.

In addition to these options, Singapore has four specialized schools for students who perform poorly on the PSLE. These schools offer foundational coursework in mathematics and literacy, alongside vocational offerings leading to skill certificates and extensive social supports. There are also specialized independent schools that focus on the arts, sports, and mathematics and science. These schools receive public funding and use the MOE curriculum, but have more flexibility in their program offerings.

Students who want to apply to university stay in secondary school for an additional two years to take A-level courses, as part of the Integrated Program. Those who do not do that have multiple postsecondary options: Polytechnics, the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), Junior Colleges, a Polytechnic Foundation program and a small set of Arts Institutions. Students choose their postsecondary school based on their secondary school stream as well as results from the General Certificate of Education (GCE) examinations, described in more detail below. Polytechnics offer three-year diploma programs. Graduates may pursue university education after they earn their Polytechnic diploma without taking A-level exams, if they so choose. ITE offers shorter technical or vocational education programs, through National ITE Certificate (Nitec) aligned courses and work-based learning. Students graduate from ITE with a Nitec or Higher Nitec qualification and can then continue their vocational studies at a polytechnic or at university. They can also stay at ITE and earn a technical or work study diploma, which also allows a pathways to slect university programs. Junior Colleges offer two- or three-year pre-university education, preparing students for the required examinations to enroll in universities or for entry into Polytechnics.

Standards and Curriculum

The Ministry of Education oversees the development of the national curriculum, which includes "Desired Outcomes of Education." The desired outcomes are student excellence in life skills, knowledge skills, and subject discipline knowledge organized into eight core skills and values: character development, self-management skills, social and cooperative skills, literacy and numeracy, communication skills, information skills, thinking skills and creativity, and knowledge application skills.

The primary school curriculum includes ten subject areas: English, mother tongue language (available for Chinese-, Malay- and Tamil-speaking students), mathematics, science, art, music, physical education, social studies, and character and citizenship education. A coding class was added to the curriculum in 2019. And in 2021, the Ministry introduced an updated character and citizenship education curriculum which focuses on mental health and cyber-wellness and on the establishment of peer support structures within every school, among other topics. For primary students who qualify as gifted, Singapore offers individualized enriched curriculum opportunities.

Secondary education varies depending on school and program type. Students in the express and Normal (academic program) are required to take English, mother tongue language, mathematics, science, and humanities (geography, history, and English literature). For students in the Normal (Technical) program, compulsory subjects include English, mother tongue language, mathematics, computer applications, and social studies. There are electives available for both the Technical and Normal program as well.

The Ministry of Education has been very involved with the implementation of its primary and secondary curriculum. During the shift from rote learning to the current model emphasizing student engagement and creativity, Ministry officials were very "hands-on" in schools. They met regularly with school leaders and developed extensive professional learning opportunities for teachers around the new curriculum. However, in recent years, the Ministry has taken a step back, encouraging schools to consider the curriculum as a framework which they should adapt to their students' needs. The Ministry also encourages secondary schools to differentiate themselves through theme courses or special programs designed to attract students with shared interests.

Assessment and Qualifications

Teachers perform continuous assessment of their students at all levels of education. On a day-to-day basis, this assessment is informal and based on student work in and out of the classroom. Before 2019, all students in primary school took school-based exams throughout the year and at the end of each year. Since then, Singapore has eliminated mid-year exams. Students in Primary 1 and 2 have no exams and do not receive grades. By removing these exams, the government hopes to shift focus away from grades and competition and toward learning for its own sake.

At the end of primary school, all students take the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) in four subjects: English, math, science, and mother tongue. Students take exams at one of two levels, based on the level of subjects they took in years five and six. In 2021, the Ministry began to update the PSLE scoring process. Going forward, students will be graded based on individual performance in subjects rather than benchmarked against each other. These scores will be translated to Achievement Level tiers, which will help students determine their stream for lower secondary education, as well as which school they will attend. Students send their examination scores to up to six lower secondary schools, ranked in order of preference. The schools then choose their students based in large part on their PSLE rankings. That said, the Ministry also allows some schools to admit students based on their talents in academic areas, sports, or co-curricular activities without factoring in PSLE results, to provide greater diversity in student talents and interests. Since 2018, schools have been able to offer up to 20 percent of their places to students through this process, called direct school admission. The Ministry of Education helps place those students who are not accepted into their schools of choice.

At the secondary level, student take subject-based exams, depending on their band. After four years of study, students take O-level exams in the express and N-level exams in the Normal (Technical) program. Students in the Normal (Academic) program can take the N-level exams after four years of study or the O-level exams after five years. Students who wish to study at university take A-level exams after an additional two years of study.

Starting in 2027, the N- and O-level exams will be replaced by a new comprehensive Singapore-Cambridge Secondary Education Certificate (SEC). Students will have the option of an additional year in secondary school to take more rigorous courses.

Learning Supports

Struggling Students

Despite Singapore's strong emphasis on equitable funding, the most recent results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) exposed a large gap between the nation's highest- and lowest-performing students. However, the gap has been narrowing in mathematics and science, and educators hope to address academic disparities through early diagnosis and intervention of learning issues. Schools screen students at the beginning of first grade for reading and numeracy skills; those who need extra help (approximately 12-14 percent) are taught in small learning support programs to keep them on pace with their peers. As part of this program, the Ministry funds learning specialists at each school who work with these groups of students.

Students who are still struggling when they reach lower secondary school are offered extra time and support to complete their studies, and teachers may recommend they join the Normal (Technical) stream for most subjects. If students show improvement, they can transfer into a faster-paced band. They can also take courses in different bands if they are only struggling with a particular subject.

Special Education

Whenever possible, the government encourages students with special needs to enroll in mainstream schools, either initially or after having met certain benchmarks in special education. Currently, about 80 percent of all students with special needs attend mainstream schools. To help facilitate their integration, learning support specialists known as Allied Educators help students with conditions such as dyslexia or autism. As of 2018, there was at least one Allied Educator in every mainstream primary and public school, a 40 percent increase over the previous five years. The Ministry has also provided specialized training in special education to a designated group of general education teachers within each mainstream school, to create a strong support system for students with special needs; about 15 percent of teachers in mainstream schools had completed this training by 2019. In addition, since 2020 the Ministry has provided all teachers in mainstream schools with access to online professional learning focused on supporting students with special needs.

In 2019, the Ministry implemented two peer mentoring interventions to support students with special needs in mainstream schools. Circle of Friends allows students with social, emotional or behavioral difficulties to meet with their teacher or Allied Educator along with a group of six to eight of their peers. Over five to eight sessions, the students work together to find solutions for the student in difficulty. Facing Your Fears is a similar program designed to support students suffering from anxiety. In this intervention, groups of two to four students meet with facilitators and Allied Educators to learn self-management strategies over 10 weekly sessions.

For students who need more intensive or specialized assistance, Singapore has 19 government-funded special education schools run by 12 social service agencies. These schools serve populations with highly specific needs: the deaf, the blind, students with autism, or those with the most severe cognitive challenges. Special needs education is available through the postsecondary level, where students with intellectual disabilities are prepared for the workforce through special training programs. The government continues to invest in special education and plans to open seven new schools by 2027. These schools serve less than 2 percent of the total student population.

The Ministry allocates extra funds for special needs students at 150 percent or 300 percent of the base per student cost, depending on whether they attend mainstream or special schools. The Ministry increased spending for special schools by 40 percent from 2015 to 2020 and has pledged to continue this increase. The National Council of Social Services also contributes funding to special schools, specifically for additional social supports.

Digital Platforms and Resources

The Student Learning Space (SLS) provides a library of curriculum-aligned, Ministry-curated resources (e.g., lesson plans, videos, assessments) for all grade levels and subjects. The Ministry assigns teams of teachers to work full-time creating these resources, which are continually updated based on feedback from teachers and students (as is the design of the SLS itself). Singapore announced plans for the SLS in 2013, piloted it in 2017, and expanded it to all schools in 2018. Every student in grades 1-12 has an account to access the SLS. Using templates, teachers create lessons by compiling SLS resources or using a mix of SLS resources and their own materials. Students can also access SLS resources on their own, independent of assignments. Teachers can choose to share the lessons they have created with their peers within the SLS.

In 2020, after students shifted to periodic home-based learning in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Singapore decided to make home-based learning via SLS a permanent feature of the education system. Starting in 2021, secondary school students will have up to two days a month of online learning, and all secondary school students will be provided with a device. Singapore plans to pilot online learning strategies in primary schools to determine the best approach to building these skills for younger students. The Ministry believes that students will benefit from having self-directed learning time at home that complements in-person instruction.

Career and Technical Education

Development of the System

Technical and vocational education gained importance in Singapore at the end of World War II when industrialization created a demand for skilled workers. After attaining independence in 1965, Singapore began investing heavily in vocational education in order to support the country's very ambitious economic development plans. The Ministry of Manpower worked with economic agencies and industry groups to identify critical workplace needs. Those needs, as well as projections of future needs, were used to inform curriculum planning for vocational education. Singapore created polytechnic institutions in the 1960s as the primary vocational training route for Singaporeans.

Singapore founded the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) in 1992, at a time when vocational education was viewed as a "last resort" for weak students; the five existing polytechnics were not desirable educational options. Singapore wanted to revolutionize vocational education. Spread across a set of state-of-the-art campuses, ITE was designed to be a world-class example of how vocational and technological skills could be translated to a knowledge-based economy.

Today, ITE is filled with simulated and real-world workspaces for students to demonstrate their job skills in a wide variety of high-growth industries. Since 1995, enrollment in vocational education has doubled, and vocational students now make up over 60 percent of the cohort who go on to postsecondary education, with about one-third of those students heading to the ITE and two-thirds to polytechnics.

Recently, Singapore has taken further steps to strengthen its vocational education opportunities for youth and adults. Following the recommendations of the ASPIRE (Applied Study in Polytechnics and ITE Review) commission, in 2016 the government launched SkillsFuture, a national lifelong learning effort. ASPIRE envisioned a coherent workforce-development system, beginning in lower secondary school and extending throughout adulthood. For young people, SkillsFuture includes strengthened education and career guidance, "enhanced" internships, more overseas market immersion opportunities, and the development of individual learning portfolios. For those entering the workforce, it includes apprenticeships, known as "Earn and Learn" programs, and credits toward course fees for work skills-related instruction. And for adults, it includes monetary awards for skills courses, subsidies for mid-career professionals pursuing additional coursework, and fellowships. Anchoring the system is a skills framework and set of qualifications, overseen by the SkillsFuture Council, a body led by the deputy prime minister and including leaders from industry, labor, and government. The framework outlines a body of skills in 34 industry sectors.

Governance and System Structure

Singapore's career and technical education (CTE) offerings take place primarily at the postsecondary level. At the primary and secondary levels, the emphasis is mainly on career exploration and guidance. A career guidance curriculum has been mandatory since 2014, and the Ministry of Education has created a web portal that enables students to examine their own strengths and interests and explore careers that match them. In addition, students pursuing the Normal (Technical) route in secondary school take coursework that prepares them for entrance exams at the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), Singapore's primary postsecondary CTE institution.

CTE Programs

ITE offers two-year programs leading to a National ITE certificate (Nitec), with the option of an additional advanced program leading to a Higher Nitec certificate. Starting in 2022, the ITE will introduce a new curriculum that allows students to achieve a Nitec and Higher Nitec in a total of three years instead of four. The new curriculum, which will be phased in over time, is designed to prepare graduates with deeper industry-relevant skills for employment and sufficient foundational skills to allow for lifelong learning. ITE programs are offered in six broad areas: Applied and Health Sciences, Business Services, Design and Media, Electronics and ICT, Engineering, and Hospitality. A technical diploma program (similar to an apprenticeship program) was recently added to the ITE program in Culinary Arts and Engineering, as was a work-study diploma that is offered in a range of areas. ITE requires all students to enroll in data analytics courses and to participate in a three- to six-month internship. The ITE has a reputation for producing highly-skilled graduates, and salaries for ITE graduates have become quite high in recent years. In 2018, 76 percent of ITE graduates found employment within six months of completing school, leading more students to see vocational education as a strong choice for future success.

Another route for secondary graduates who want to pursue technical training is the polytechnics, which offer three-year degree programs in technical fields. Polytechnics now offer nearly 150 diploma programs, and, like the ITE, have worked to remain closely connected with industry, growing and changing alongside Singapore's economy. Students receive a combination of experiential and classroom-based learning. Up to 40 percent of graduates of postsecondary vocational education pursue a university degree. In many cases they are able to transfer enough credits to complete a bachelor's degree in two years.

Recent Reforms

In 2020, Singapore's government announced steps to upgrade the SkillsFuture program with the goal of serving a minimum of 15 percent of the country's working age labor force per year . Most notably, the plan included another round of financial credits for all adults ages 25 and older to use towards continuing education, plus an additional credit for skills training or retraining for adults ages 40 to 60. These credits can be used in addition to any credits issued since 2016. Individuals must use the new credits by 2025, however. Credits apply to more than 8,000 courses offered by polytechnics, ITE, and universities. SkillsFuture also updated its funding framework to prioritize subsidies for courses that teach in-demand skills and provide career advancement opportunities.

The government has also set ambitious goals to more than triple the number of work-study placements by 2025, double job placements for mid-career workers to 5,500 by 2025, and increase the capacity of reskilling programs for mid-career workers. SkillsFuture also introduced several new mid-career transition programs to help workers upskill during the Covid-19 pandemic, some of which have since been made permanent offerings.

Teachers and Principals

Teacher Recruitment

Only one institution-the National Institute of Education (NIE)-is authorized to prepare teachers, and it offers both a master's degree and a bachelor's degree route into teaching. In this way, Singapore limits its teacher recruitment only to those students qualified for the country's rigorous research universities. Each year, Singapore calculates the number of teachers it will need, and opens only that many spots in the training programs. The selection process is competitive: teaching is a highly-regarded profession in Singapore and students in teacher-education programs receive a stipend during their training. On average, only one out of eight applicants is accepted. Typically, successful candidates have scored at the middle or above on Singapore's challenging A-level exams. The many other steps in the application process include tough panel interviews that focus on the values, skills, and knowledge that make for a good teacher, as well as intensive reviews of the candidate's academic record and contributions to school and community.

Teaching salaries in Singapore are largely commensurate with those of other professions. Indeed, the Ministry of Education monitors teacher salaries in relation to other professional salaries and adjusts them to ensure they remain competitive. The maximum salary for a lower secondary teacher is twice the GDP per capita. Teacher salaries increase with years of experience. Successful teachers can earn retention bonuses every three to five years as well as performance bonuses, which can be up to 30 percent of their base salary. Eligibility is determined through annual evaluations that also serve as a basis for coaching and mentoring between teachers.

Teacher Preparation and Induction

The National Institute of Education (NIE) is housed in Nanyang Technological University, one of the most prestigious institutions in Singapore's higher education hierarchy. All primary and secondary teachers are trained at the NIE. During their training, teacher candidates receive a monthly stipend equivalent to 60 percent of a starting teacher salary, and their tuition is covered by the Ministry of Education. Once they have completed training, teachers must commit to three full years on the job.

The undergraduate teacher-education program is a four-year program that includes 22 weeks of practical experience in schools. The graduate program is a 16-month program that includes 10 weeks of practical experience. Students entering the graduate program first attend the Introduction to Teaching program run by the Academy of Singapore Teachers (AST), a professional learning organization run by teachers. Then, to help them gauge their true interest in teaching, prospective candidates spend a few months to a year working in schools as untrained contract teachers before beginning their coursework.

Both undergraduate and master's programs are guided by the Teacher Education Model for the 21st Century, a framework that states the values, skills, and knowledge (V3SK) needed for teachers. The curriculum for the undergraduate route includes academic studies-the content the teachers will teach-as well as education studies, curriculum studies, and service learning. Undergraduate students also have opportunities to participate in practicums in other countries. By 2026, teacher candidates and in-service teachers at the NIE will be offered courses on using artificial intelligence (AI) in the classroom under the AI@NIE initiative. AI@NIE is a five-year plan to integrate artificial intelligence into Singaporean classrooms based on research conducted by an NIE task force. AI is already being incorporated into classrooms via text-to-speech, speech evaluation, and other instant feedback tools such as grading of writing and math assessments.

After graduation from either the undergraduate and graduate programs, all beginning teachers take part in a two-year induction program led by the AST and funded by the Ministry of Education. During this period, teachers have a reduced teaching load in order to attend classes and work with a trained mentor.

In 2019, early childhood educator training programs were merged under the National Institute of Early Childhood Development (NIEC), in close collaboration with NIE. NIEC offers certificate-level and diploma-level pre-employment training for postsecondary students as well as continuous education courses for mid-careerists. All students are offered training awards, including full sponsorship and allowance to further incentivize people to join the program. Prospective early childhood teachers take courses and complete practicums and internships. To teach at a public Ministry Kindergarten or Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) preschool, educators must have an early childhood diploma qualification or participate in a nine-month sponsorship program as a trainee teacher. To teach at an ECDA infant or toddler site, "educarers" must have an early childhood certificate.

Teacher Career Progression

Singapore's well-known three-track career ladder is a key component of its teacher development system. Once teachers at the primary and secondary level have demonstrated their eagerness and readiness to take on a new role (generally no sooner than three years into the job) they may choose among three career tracks: the teaching track, the leadership track, and the specialist track. In the teaching track, teachers can work their way up to become Principal Master Teachers. In the leadership track, teachers can be promoted from a leadership position within the school all the way up to the position of Director-General of Education. In the specialist track, teachers are focused on research and teaching policy, with the highest-level position being Chief Specialist. Teachers are not automatically promoted to the next level in any track. Moving along to new roles and responsibilities requires teachers to complete required training or mentorship, as well as demonstrate through the Educator Performance Management System (EPMS) that they have the requisite knowledge, skills, and competencies to do the job well. The EPMS includes an annual evaluation in three areas: Professional Practice, Leadership Management, and Personal Effectiveness. Teachers are expected to set and meet personal goals for their work and to demonstrate improvements in a rubric of competencies during observations of their teaching.

The EPMS is also used to determine how well a teacher fits into a given track. Principals and School Staff Developers observe all teachers for three years in order to determine which career path would best suit them. After teachers choose a career path based on their EPMS score, observations, and their own preference, they may make a lateral move if they feel the pathway does not suit them.

For the first three years of teaching, all teachers receive annual raises. After that, while all teachers may receive annual cost of living increases, substantial raises mainly come with promotion along the career track. Within each track there are 13 stages which offer salary increases independent of teachers' specific job descriptions that must be earned based on the principals' recommendation. In addition, annual performance bonuses for superlative work can equal between 10 and 30 percent of a teacher's salary. The Ministry of Education has also introduced the CONNECT Plan, a long-term retention plan similar to a pension that allows eligible teachers to receive payouts at service milestones (typically every three to five years) and upon retirement; teachers who resign forfeit their accumulated balance.

A similar three-track ladder exists in early childhood teaching. ECDA and SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) developed a Skills Framework for Early Childhood Care and Education that highlights the 13 occupations for early childhood educators, falling along three tracks: Leader, Teacher, and "Educarer." Educators can progress within each track and move laterally between them. To achieve promotion along any of the tracks, educators must receive ECDA certification and acquire relevant competencies and professional qualifications. Educarers work with children ages two months to four years in kindergarten and childcare centers while teachers work with children ages four to six. Leaders serve in leadership roles in both kindergarten and childcare centers. In the educarer and teacher track, educators can advance to senior educarer and senior pre-school teacher, respectively. Leaders can advance to pinnacle leader. As teachers advance through and between the tracks, their salaries increase respectively.

Teacher Development

Teachers have access to several types of professional development opportunities. They can improve their practice through courses at NIE or at AST, where offerings range from in-service training to online classes on a variety of subjects related to teaching. Teachers can participate in as many as 100 hours of government-funded professional development per year. The Ministry and NIE also offer scholarship opportunities for teachers seeking master's and doctoral degrees in Singapore or abroad, either full- or part-time.

In addition, the career ladders are a key component of Singapore's teacher development strategy. Career ladders ensure that teachers can stay in the profession while taking on new roles and responsibilities and provide the structure for their peer-to-peer mentoring, collaboration, coaching, and development systems. Further, the career ladder guarantees that curriculum development is led by those who know teaching and learning best. For these reasons, the career ladder is not only crucial for Singapore's strategy to recruit and retain teachers, but also a key element of its professional growth strategies and its approach to overall teaching and learning.

Principal Recruitment, Preparation and Development

Singapore prioritizes developing skilled principals who can ensure that their schools offer high-quality and equitable learning opportunities. In their third year on the job, in consultation with their principal, teachers can choose the leadership track of Singapore's three-track career ladder. If they continue to demonstrate the right combination of skills and if the role is available to them, they can advance to department head and vice principal. In this way, all principals start out as teachers and then serve in two administrative roles before advancing to school leadership. Department heads and vice principals usually participate in the Management and Leadership in Schools Program run by the NIE, which aims to proactively prepare them for the next stage of the leadership track. Vice principals on the verge of being promoted to principal must participate in a two-day simulation test and interview process during which they respond to real-world scenarios. Those who pass muster then go on to the Leaders in Education Program at the NIE, which incorporates coursework, fieldwork, mentoring, and visits to leaders of other industries and other countries. Both the Leaders in Education Program and the Management and Leadership in Schools Program include training in management theory and practice.

Singapore balances both mandates and positive incentives for professional development. Cluster superintendents, themselves former principals, design professional development and collaborative learning opportunities for principals in their cluster. They also evaluate their principals using the Enhanced Performance Management System, working with each principal to set personal goals for improvement and designing a professional learning plan that helps the principal meet those goals. Principals who have served a minimum of six years are permitted to take one-year sabbaticals at full pay to make international study visits, conduct research, write books, or pursue advanced degrees.

Singapore also supports its principals through an international school leader exchange program, Building Educational Bridges, which focuses on building leaders' capacity to innovate by learning more about international education systems' leadership practices. Principals can apply for Ministry funding to cover the cost of this two-week program, offered through the NIE.

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Singapore is an extraordinary success story. In less than 50...

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Bryce Loo, Senior Research Associate, WES

Introduction

The United States of America entered the 21st century as the world's sole superpower after the fall of the Soviet Union in late 1991. Certainly a lot of superlatives can be attributed to the U.S.: the third most populous country in the world with 327.7 million people; the largest economy; the most powerful military, among others. The U.S. also has the second largest higher education system ( China overtook the U.S. in this regard roughly around 2001), and it is the top destination for globally mobile students.

Domestically, income inequality is among the worst of the major advanced economies. Furthermore, the bitter 2016 presidential election, in which businessman Donald J. Trump defeated former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, exposed deep fissures in American society politically, racially, culturally, and regionally-and has caused some to call into question the strength of American democracy.

Overview of the United States

The U.S. is a large federal republic located in North America between Canada to the north and Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea to the south. Federalism is a critical feature of American government and politics. Compared with many countries in Europe, for instance, the U.S. has a weak federal government and lacks a tradition of vigorous government intervention.

There are 50 states and one federal district, the District of Columbia or Washington, D.C., home of the nation's capital. The last two states to be admitted to the Union (a moniker for the union of the states that forms the nation) are separated geographically from the others: Alaska shares a border with Canada and is otherwise surrounded by the Pacific and Arctic Oceans; and the state of Hawaii is composed of a group of islands in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The remaining 48 states, all contiguous, are often collectively called the Continental United States.

Additionally, the U.S. has several overseas territories, all located in the Caribbean Sea and the South Pacific Ocean. There are five main inhabited territories: Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa. (There are numerous largely uninhabited islands that are U.S. territories as well.) The official status of each territory and its relationship with the U.S. varies. In general, however, locals are U.S. citizens- with the exception of American Samoa- and may freely travel to and within the U.S. However, they do not vote in general presidential elections (unless they move to one of the states or Washington, D.C.) and have only nonvoting representation in Congress. All territories have their own territorial governments and exercise a certain degree of autonomy. NOTE: This country profile largely focuses on the 50 states and the District of Columbia, though many descriptions provided also apply to U.S. overseas territories.

Student Mobility and Transnational Education

The U.S. is and, for a long time, has been the top destination of internationally mobile students worldwide. Far fewer U.S. students go abroad for their education - either for a degree or short-term credit - though the number of such students has increased steadily over time.

Inbound Mobility - Postsecondary Education

In the 2016/17 academic year, the U.S. hosted 1,078,822 international students, making it, as mentioned earlier, the top host country of globally mobile students worldwide. The country surpassed the one million mark during the previous academic year. International student enrollments over the past decades have soared. There are now twice as many international students in the U.S. than there were in the 1980s: The number of international students increased by 621 percent during the three and a half decades leading up to the 2015/16 school year alone.

However, since 2000, the U.S. has been progressively losing market share of students to other countries, both well-established destinations (such as Australia and Germany) and emerging and rising destinations (such as Canada and China). Additionally, the U.S. faces increasing threats to its dominance of the international student market, not least from its own political and cultural climate, as the country is increasingly seen as unwelcoming to immigrants and foreigners. The latest data show that new international enrollments dropped by 3.3 percent in 2016/17 and that the total number of international students slightly decreased between 2017 and 2018.

The U.S. receives students from all over the world, but China and India particularly dominate the market, according to data from the Institute of International Education's recent Open Doors Report. Together, the two countries send about half of all the international students that are in the U.S.; Chinese students alone account for about one-third of all international students, as of 2016/17. South Korea has been the third-largest sending country consistently since the beginning of the 2000s, but its numbers have been declining steadily for years. Saudi Arabia and Canada round out the list of the top five sending countries. The U.S. has long been the top destination for Canadian students seeking degrees abroad.

Most international students in the U.S. are degree-seeking students, as opposed to short-term exchange students. Historically, graduate students outnumbered undergraduate students. Now, however, undergraduates make up the largest segment of international students, thanks in large part to the rise of Chinese undergraduates. In 2016/17, there were 439,019 undergraduates and 391,124 graduate students, according to Open Doors. In addition, there were 72,984 non-degree students, including short-term exchange students and students in intensive English programs (IEPs).

The reputation and diversity of its higher education system, along with opportunities to work in the country, are among the top reasons that students are drawn to the U.S. A WES report from October 2016, Improving the International Student Experience, found the "availability of a desired program" to be the most important draw to the U.S. overall, with 59 percent of survey respondents citing it as their top reason. However, students from different countries or regions of origin cite different priorities. Chinese students, for example, are more attuned to reputation-of both the overall higher education system and of specific institutions. Reputation is frequently measured through international university rankings (such as the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Ranking). This has been a consistent finding of WES research.

Career-related factors are also a tremendous draw of U.S. higher education for many. International students usually have short-term opportunities to work, although they are limited, during and immediately following coursework. There are some opportunities to stay longer in the U.S. to work, largely through the H1-B visa program, and for a select few, to work toward permanent residency. (More about work opportunities for international students in the U.S. will be described below.)

The dominance of the U.S. among host nations of international students, however, is slowly eroding. As mentioned, the U.S. has gradually lost market share, even as absolute growth has continued. Other nations are catching up, often with the aid of proactive government-led strategies, increasingly offering high-quality education programs in English and very often at a substantially lower cost. The current political climate in the U.S. has likely had an impact and will continue to, particularly under the administration of President Trump. In numerous forums, U.S. institutions are beginning to report declines in both applications and enrollments of international students. The anti-immigrant rhetoric coming from the White House and other parts of society, along with the denigration of certain groups of people such as Mexicans and Muslims, may scare away some students.

Additionally, there are reports of increases in denials and delays in the issuance of U.S. student visas. Proposed changes to U.S. immigration policies, including allowing international students to stay and work in the U.S. after graduation, may also pose problems for recruitment. Furthermore, some students are sensitive to issues of safety, real or perceived. Mass shootings and the protracted debate on gun violence in the U.S. often garner international attention, as do hate crimes aimed at certain groups. For example, the shooting of two Indian nationals in a bar in Kansas in 2017 gained media attention in India, possibly causing some Indian students and parents to reconsider applying to U.S. institutions.

The Student Visa System

To receive international students, U.S. institutions must be enrolled in SEVP. To become SEVP-certified, institutions must submit a quantity of paperwork and then DHS must do a site visit. Once certified, they may enroll students under specific visa programs.

There are three main types of student visas:

F-1 visas: Generally for full fee-paying students seeking to undertake academic studies in the U.S. This is the most common visa type for students attending U.S. universities and colleges.

M-1 visas: Generally for full-time fee-paying students in vocational programs in the U.S., attending a vocational, technical, or trade institute.

J-1 visas: An exchange visitor visa. This visa program encompasses a wide variety of students and others, including short-term exchange students (to earn credit at their home institutions), or under certain U.S. or foreign government scholarship programs, whether for degrees or short-term exchange. One of the most famous programs covered by the J-1 visa is the Fulbright Program, a U.S. government scholarship program for foreign students. The J-1 visa program also differs from the others in that it is largely managed by the U.S. Department of State (the U.S. equivalent of the ministry of foreign affairs), though institutions still use SEVIS to track students.

Dependents (spouses and children) accompanying the student travel under a corresponding visa with the number 2 -that is, F-2, M-2, or J-2. Students from Canada and Bermuda do not need visas, though they need corresponding student paperwork (described below).

In the vast majority of cases, international students must be enrolled full time, except during summer and other school breaks.

As stated earlier, international students have limited opportunities to work during and after their studies. These opportunities are generically known, respectively, as pre-completion work training and post-completion work training. The amount of time that they are allowed to work depends on their visa type, field of study, and, for J-1 visa holders, the level of study. Students can generally work at any time on campus for up to 20 hours a week during the school year and take on more hours during school breaks. When and where they work off-campus varies, though most are not allowed to work during the first year of their program.

There are limited opportunities for students to stay in the U.S. after completing their allowed post-completion work training. The most popular route is the H-1B visa, a temporary work visa for skilled workers that is valid for six years. Afterwards employers can sponsor H-1 visa holders for permanent residency, but the Trump administration is trying to make this process more difficult, and it remains to be seen what potential future changes in immigration policies could affect the H1-B visa.

Outbound Mobility - Postsecondary Education

The number of outbound students-U.S. nationals who go abroad for education-is substantially smaller than the number of inbound students. According to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS), the outbound mobility ratio, that is, the percentage of students studying abroad out of the total postsecondary population of the country, is only 0.3, whereas the inbound mobility ratio is 4.7.

UNESCO's numbers, however, reflect only degree-seeking students, not short-term exchange students, often called "study abroad" students in the United States. In general, much more is known about such students because their participation is much easier to track, as IIE's Open Doors Report does via participating U.S. higher education institutions. It's much more difficult to track degree-seeking students abroad with as much certainty.

That being said, UNESCO reports that the number of degree-seeking U.S. students abroad stood at 68,580 in 2017-an increase of 56.7 percent over the year 2000, when there were 43,756 U.S. degree-seeking students enrolled abroad. The most popular destination among this group, by far, is the United Kingdom, at 15,378. The U.S. is the sixth top country of origin of international students in the UK. The next-largest number of U.S. students goes to Canada, with 8,355 students.

The third top destination, according to UNESCO, is the Caribbean island nation of Grenada, with 4,543 American students. A large number of American (and Canadian) students attend mostly for-profit medical schools in several English-speaking Caribbean nations, including Grenada, Barbados, and Dominica. These institutions will often take students who were not admitted to U.S. medical schools but who hope to obtain a residency position back in the U.S. once done. The next few top destinations for U.S. degree-seekers are mostly Western European, like Germany and France, or major English-speaking countries, like Australia.

According to an IIE report from 2013, roughly the same number of bachelor's-level and master's-level U.S. degree-seekers pursue their degrees abroad. In the 2011/12 academic year, there were about 42 percent each studying toward one of these degrees, plus another 16 percent enrolled at the doctoral level. There were, of course, important differences among destination countries. For example, graduate students (master's and doctoral levels) outnumbered undergraduates in the UK, while more than 80 percent of U.S. degree-seekers in New Zealand were undergraduates. The largest numbers of students studied in the humanities and social sciences (over 45 percent), but substantial numbers pursued the natural sciences, business, and other disciplines.

While there is relatively little research on U.S. degree-seekers abroad, cost is likely the top push factor. U.S. higher education is among the most expensive in the world, making an increasing number of U.S. students to seek lower-cost options abroad. Some research also indicates that the experiential aspects of studying abroad, such as immersion in another culture and traveling opportunities, are important to many American students as well.

As stated previously, there are considerably more U.S. students going abroad on short-term educational exchanges for credit at their U.S. universities in study abroad programs. According to the IIE's Open Doors Report, in 2015/16, there were 325,339 American students studying abroad on a short-term basis, usually no longer than a full academic year. That number was up 3 percent from the previous academic year and has more than doubled since 2000/01.

As with degree-seekers, the UK has been and continues to be the top destination for U.S. study abroad students, with 39,140 students in 2015/16. In general, Western European countries continue to dominate, with Italy, Spain, France, and Germany being the other top destinations. However, non-European destinations, most notably China, Australia, Costa Rica, and Japan have also become more popular. Changes in particular destination countries, particularly regarding safety (real or perceived) can affect the popularity of the country. Mexico, for example, was also once a major destination but became less popular in recent years because of perceptions related to violent drug-related crime. Numbers are now rebounding somewhat.

More U.S. students study abroad for short-term visits, a semester or less, than in longer programs. In 2015/16, only 2.3 percent of U.S. students studied abroad for a full academic year, and only one-tenth of a percent did for a full calendar year. The largest segment of students, 38 percent, went for a summer term, of which the majority went for only two to eight weeks. Nearly 32 percent of students went for one semester. Short-term study tours, often just a few weeks in duration and usually led by home institution faculty, have become increasingly popular.

In terms of fields of study, the largest segment of U.S. short-term students abroad is in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields (25 percent in 2015/16). This segment has grown steadily over time, from about 16 percent in 2005/06. The next largest segments are students in business and the social sciences.

The vast majority of students studying abroad are enrolled at the undergraduate level (86.4 percent). In terms of racial and ethnic background, white students dominate, at 76.4 percent of the total in 2015/16. In 2014, 74 percent of U.S. students abroad were white, even though they made up only 58 percent of the total U.S. higher education enrollment. There have been many calls to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of U.S. students studying overseas. Women have represented the majority of Americans studying abroad for some time now, accounting for 66.5 percent of such students in 2015/16.

Mobility at the High School Level

Mirroring trends at the higher education level, there has been a steady increase of students coming to study in the U.S. for secondary-level study, mainly in high schools. According to a 2017 report from IIE, there were 73,019 international secondary school students in the U.S. in 2013. That number rose to 81,981 in the fall of 2016. Despite the upward trend, the ratio of international students to total secondary school students in the U.S. remains modest.

Similar to their higher education counterparts, high school students can come to the U.S. on an F-1, M-1, or J-1 visa and may only attend an SEVP-certified school. F-1 visa students can attend a U.S. public high school, 9th through 12th grades only, for no more than 12 months and must pay out-of-pocket for the full cost of education. If they attend private schools, F-1 students may stay longer than 12 months and earn a high school diploma. They pay the tuition fees set by the school. Students coming on short-term exchanges through a sponsoring program come on J-1 visas. F-1 visa students outnumber J-1 students ( 59,392 F-1 students versus 22,589 J-1 students in 2016).

According to the IIE report, the majority of F-1 students come from Asia, with most coming to seek U.S. high school diplomas. Seventy-eight percent of F-1 students in 2016 were from Asia. China, South Korea, and Vietnam are the top sending countries, with Mexico, Japan, and Canada rounding out the top six. In particular, parents from these countries often want to send their children to receive a U.S. high school diploma in order to more seamlessly transition into U.S. higher education. Private high schools take in the vast majority of F-1 students (roughly 94 percent annually from 2013 to 2016).

By contrast, the majority of J-1 students, 67 percent in 2016, come from Europe. These students are more likely interested in the experience of educational and cultural exchange, rather than gaining access to U.S. universities and colleges.

Very little is known about U.S. high school-age students who are studying outside of the country, whether for short-term exchange or high school equivalent diplomas. No organization tracks this type of data on a national scale. Some exchange organizations track and report data on U.S. students who participate in their programs, though this does is far from a complete picture. One umbrella organization, the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel (CSIET), reports data from its member organizations. For the 2016/17 academic year, they report that 856 U.S. high school students went abroad on exchanges. This is down from years past, from a high of 2,282 U.S. students in 2006/07. No data are available on where students go.

Transnational Education

Transnational education (TNE) has grown tremendously worldwide in recent years, and the U.S. has been an important contributor to this trend. TNE generally involves students staying home or going to a third country and receiving a degree from another country through an international branch campus (IBC) of a university, or through any of a wide variety of joint- and dual-degree programs and other cross-border activities.

The U.S. supplies one of the largest numbers of IBCs worldwide, along with Australia and the UK. An article from NAFSA notes that, as of April 2017, there were 78 U.S. IBCs out of a total of 249 globally. While U.S. IBCs are all over the world, there are large IBC clusters known collectively as education hubs at which U.S. colleges and those of other countries are represented. Some of the most prominent hubs are in the Gulf States of the Middle East, notably Doha, Qatar; Dubai; the United Arab Emirates; and Bahrain. The Qatari government has funded multiple U.S. universities -Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Texas A&M, and Virginia Commonwealth-to open IBCs in its hub in Doha, known as Education City. Asian countries, notably China, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Korea, also host a large number of IBCs, including U.S. campuses.

Far more common than IBCs are smaller-scale forms of TNE, based on international partnerships but not a standalone physical campus. For definitions and examples of various types of transnational partners, see the WENR article "Opportunities Beyond Borders: Models of Transnational Education for U.S. Institutions."

In Brief: The Education System of the United States

Administration of the U.S. Education System

The federal governmental system of the U.S., along with a historical distrust of a strong central government, has resulted in the nation's highly decentralized education system. The country's long-standing belief in free market capitalism and unfettered private competition, as well as limited government intervention has also shaped the education system.

The United States Constitution makes no explicit mention of education, but the 10th Amendment to the Constitution states that all powers not specifically delegated to the federal government are delegated to state governments. As a result, the 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia and the territories, are directly in charge of their own education systems, resulting in tremendous diversity of education nationwide.

Role of the Federal Government

While the federal government is not directly in charge of education at any level nationwide, it does play a role in a variety of ways. The person most directly responsible for education policy at the federal level is the Secretary of Education, who is in charge of the Department of Education. The Secretary and Department of Education are part of the executive branch of government and thus answer directly to the President of the United States. The Secretary of Education is appointed by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate (one of the two houses of Congress).

The U.S. Department of Education describes its roles in the following ways:

Establishing policies on federal financial aid for education, and distributing as well as monitoring those funds.

Collecting data on America's schools and disseminating research.

Focusing national attention on key educational issues.

Prohibiting discrimination and ensuring equal access to education.

The Education Department is responsible for executing most of the federal education laws and the president's education policies. One of its biggest roles is the dissemination of federal funding to states and individual schools and institutions for various purposes, including "financial assistance to eligible applicants throughout the nation."

To carry out its mandates, the department runs multiple centers and offices. Among some of the most important are:

Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, the Education Department runs the enormous Federal Student Aid program, which provides low-interest loans and grants to students across the country who are pursuing higher education.

The president and his or her immediate advisors and cabinet (which includes the Secretary of Education)-often metonymically referred to as the White House (for the building that serves as the president's residence and office); or "the administration"-can shape federal education policy and direct the Secretary and Department of Education to carry out his or her vision.

Congress is the lawmaking body of the U.S. government and is composed of two houses: the House of Representatives and the Senate. Congress has the ability to pass legislation related to education.

Finally, the federal courts, with the U.S. Supreme Court as the final arbiter among all courts, can "[settle] public policy debates that are directly and indirectly related to education." The courts have provided policy guidance and settled important issues on a variety of issues.

The Role of the States

Because states are ultimately responsible for education within their jurisdictions, most state constitutions include provisions for how education is to be administered. According to the U.S. Department of Education, state governments are generally responsible for the following:

Developing curriculum guidelines and performance standards

Providing technical assistance to school districts and schools

Licensing private elementary and secondary schools to operate within their jurisdictions

Licensing or certifying schoolteachers and administrators

Administering statewide student achievement tests

Developing accountability plans and reporting on student performance to the U.S. Department of Education

Defining minimum requirements for high school graduation

Distributing state and federal funding to school districts

Establishing the minimum number of school days per year

In most states, a state board of education is in charge of educational policymaking, usually at the discretion of the state legislature. Members of the state board of education are either elected or appointed by the governor or legislature.

The state department of education typically implements all education-related policies within the state. The leader of the department may be called "superintendent, commissioner, director or secretary of education," according to the Education Department. The top administrator may be elected or appointed by the governor or state board of education. Education is one of the largest budget items among all states and territories.

The Local Level

Each state in the U.S. is divided into smaller administrative units known as counties (singular: county), with the exception of the state of Louisiana, in which they are called parishes (singular: parish). The other type of local government is municipal government, that of individual cities and towns. Counties usually include both multiple municipalities and more rural areas in which the county provides all local services.

Local school districts are generally responsible for carrying out state education policy at a local level. They are often granted a good deal of autonomy in terms of budgeting and teaching of the curriculum, and they are responsible for hiring and supervising teachers and for raising funding, usually through local property taxes. Many school districts delegate responsibilities to individual schools as well.

Typically, a local school board, usually composed of elected members (but sometimes they are appointed by other local officials), governs and makes policies for the school district. The executive head of the school district, in charge of day-to-day operations, is usually called the superintendent and is usually appointed by the local school board. In some cases, there may also be a superintendent at the county level in charge of overseeing all school districts within the county.

The head of each individual school at the K-12 level is known as a principal, though the name of this position may vary some among private schools.

The Academic Calendar

The school year usually runs from mid-August to mid-September to anywhere from mid-May to mid-June at schools and higher education institutions alike. There is typically a one- to three-week break that encompasses the Christmas (December 25) and New Year holidays, usually called winter break. There is usually also a one-week break sometime during the spring, often (but not always) the week before the Easter holiday in March or April, called spring break.

Higher education institutions use different models to sequence their programs. The semester system divides the academic year into two halves known as semesters, which are usually 15 or 16 weeks long. There is a fall semester that runs from the start of the school year to winter break, and the spring semester begins after winter break and runs until the end of the school year. Most institutions offer an optional summer semester, which may be shorter and more intensive than the fall or spring semester.

The quarter system, on the other hand, divides the academic year into three divisions known as quarters, typically 10 weeks long, with the fourth quarter often an optional summer quarter. Winter break is usually between fall and winter quarters, and spring break is between winter and spring quarters.

Overview of K-12 Education

Elementary and secondary education in the U.S. are often collectively referred to as K-12 education, a kind of shorthand that refers to the grades through which students progress. The "K" refers to kindergarten, typically housed in the elementary school system. Thus, K-12 education is 12 years long for most students, plus kindergarten. As part of K-12 education, an elementary school typically enrolls students from kindergarten or sometimes first grade through the fifth or sixth grades. Students then move on to a lower secondary school known usually either as a middle school or a junior high school. The last four or sometimes three years of school are usually known as high school, or sometimes senior high school.

Since education in the U.S. is so highly decentralized, various models of K-12 education exist. The chart below shows some of the most typical models:

For example, in some states, elementary schools enroll students from kindergarten to fifth grade, after which students will spend sixth through eighth grades in middle school and then ninth through 12th grades in (senior) high school. In other cases, students go to middle school for just the seventh and eighth grades, with the years before spent in elementary school and the years after in (senior) high school. In some cases, particularly in smaller, rural schools, students may go to the same school from kindergarten through 12th grade, or in some other combination.

K-12 education is virtually universal. All students are guaranteed a free public education through the 12th grade. In 2014, there were more than 50 million children enrolled in public K-12 education. According to UNESCO's Institute of Statistics (UIS), this translates into a net enrollment ratio (NER) of 93.7, meaning that roughly 93.7 percent of elementary and secondary age children were enrolled in the age-appropriate level of school. Most students in the K-12 system study at public schools - only about 10 percent of students were enrolled in private schools in 2015/16, most of them at sectarian or parochial institutions (schools affiliated with a faith tradition, such as Catholic schools, Baptist schools, Lutheran schools etc.).

The minimum compulsory school age varies by state and ranges from age 5 to age 7, though children generally enter kindergarten at age 5. The main reason for the differences in mandatory starting age has to do with different state regulations. According to the Education Commission of the States, which maintains a database of various state education policies, 15 states plus the District of Columbia require students to attend kindergarten. The remaining 35 states do not. Five states do not require their school districts to make kindergarten available to students as either half- or full-day kindergarten: Alaska, Idaho, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. The rest require that either be made available.

The maximum mandatory age of education also varies per state, usually from 16 to 18 years of age, or in some cases, students can drop out earlier if a certain grade level is completed. Most states mandate the offering of free public education to students until they reach a certain age (if not complete), with most ranging from ages 19 to 22.

Admission into public schools is usually automatic based on residency. While private schools and some so-called magnet schools for gifted students (see below) may have additional admission requirements, there are generally no admissions tests at public secondary schools. High-demand schools may assign seats by lottery.

English is the main language of instruction in virtually all schools, with the exception of some territories, notably Puerto Rico, where Spanish predominates. State policies also vary regarding instruction in other languages, generally to English language learners (ELLs) who are recent immigrants.

Elementary Education

Elementary schools typically teach students from kindergarten through either grade five or six. (As mentioned, students will begin anywhere from age 5 to 7, depending on differences in state policies, particularly regarding whether kindergarten is compulsory or even offered).

Kindergarten is traditionally structured as an early childhood education program, a "pre-primary" program, but it is often housed in elementary schools. Public kindergarten is free. Some kindergartens, however, are stand-alone programs, and there are a number of other institutions that provide different forms of preschool education, including day care centers and nursery schools. Pupils can enroll in some preschool programs at the age of 3, but typically they start kindergarten at age 5. Programs can be either a full day or a half day.

Kindergarten is a concept originally developed in Germany-the term is German for "garden of children"-that was brought to the U.S. in the 19th century. Traditionally, kindergarten programs were meant to be developmental rather than academic, emphasizing learning through play (following the model of education theorists such as Maria Montessori), with some early citizenship education (following the model of John Dewey). However, starting in the latter half of the 20th century, kindergarten became more academic and incorporated more set curriculum and instruction, as parents wished for their children to acquire academic skills earlier than the first grade, when academic instruction was traditionally introduced. Today, kindergarten curriculum often focuses on very basic reading and numeric skills and other areas such as basic science, art, and music.

Beginning with the first grade, all students receive full-time academic instruction. Usually, elementary school students receive instruction in their core subjects from the same teacher for the entire year, but may be instructed by specialist teachers in subjects such as art, music, physical education (PE), and computer science.

States determine the curriculum, and districts, schools, and individual teachers decide how to implement it. Typical core subjects are language arts (reading, writing, grammar, and spelling in English), mathematics, science, and social studies (geography, state history, U.S. history, world history). Students may also receive instruction from their regular teacher or specialist teachers in art, music, drama, PE, computer science, and other subjects. They often also visit the library on a weekly basis.

Secondary Education: Middle School and High School

Typically, middle school or junior high school (lower secondary education) encompasses sixth through eighth grades, seventh and eighth grades, or occasionally seventh through ninth grades. Sixth grade usually starts around age 11.

High schools mostly run from 9th grade to 12th grade. Some such schools run 10th grade to 12th grade. Ninth grade usually starts around age 14, and students usually graduate around age 18. In some cases, middle school and high school are combined into one school, running from sixth or seventh grade until 12th grade.

Curriculum

The typical curriculum at both the middle school and high school levels comprises English, mathematics, science, social studies, fine arts, and physical education (PE. Mathematics courses are typically sequential, with algebra starting in the eighth or ninth grade. According to the Department of Education, a typical high school (9th through 12th grade) curriculum includes the following year-long courses:

Four years of English

Four years of history or social studies

Three years of mathematics

Three years of science

Two years of foreign language

Two years of the arts

Four years of technical, vocational, or business education

One year of computer science

Two to three years of other subjects

Just as with elementary education, states determine the general core curriculum and high school graduation requirements. School districts, schools, and teachers then decide on implementation. Either the state or the school district selects the textbooks.

In many parts of the country, foreign language learning, including American Sign Language (ASL) does not start until high school. By far, the most common foreign language to study is Spanish, with almost 70 percent of K-12 students learning this language. French, German, Chinese, and Latin are the next most common. Chinese, in particular, is rising in popularity.

During middle school and high school, students can often select one or several electives per year. The types of electives offered vary widely. Some electives may be specialized offerings related to core subjects, particularly at the high school level. For example, in lieu of or in addition to a standard English class, students may be able to take a course in American literature, British literature, or women's literature. Other electives may focus on student interests and abilities, such as visual art, music, drama, debate or the school newspaper. Some are also meant to teach practical life skills. For example, a once common elective class, home economics teaches students how to cook, sew, and perform other household tasks, but has become less common.

In many middle schools and high schools, there is a short class usually known as homeroom, typically at the very beginning of the school day. The length of homeroom varies from school to school but is usually much shorter than other classes. The purposes of homeroom can also vary, but they are usually designed to record daily school attendance, give daily announcements to students, and generally provide a place for students to receive guidance from a specific teacher. Usually, a teacher of any subject can serve as a homeroom teacher. Students may or may not be given a grade for homeroom, and it may or may not appear on transcripts or other student academic records.

Extracurricular and co-curricular activities are usually offered at most middle and high schools and are often make up a large part of students' school experiences. Extracurricular activities mostly take place outside of regular class time and do not provide credit toward graduation. Sports and theatrical productions (such as plays or musicals) are among the most common. Other extracurricular activities, such as chess, science projects, or foreign language study, may be organized by student clubs. During the college admissions process many universities and colleges look favorably at student involvement in out-of-class activities.

Credits

Most high schools nationwide use a credit system to measure students' progress toward graduation. The main credit system in use is the Carnegie credit system. A Carnegie credit, sometimes also called a unit, represents 120 hours of instruction per year. It generally also represents one hour of class time five days a week for one school year. The instruction time that goes into one Carnegie credit can be divided up in a variety of other ways. Most credits are assigned per year, with 0.5 credits for a semester-long course, but some school districts award credits on a semester basis.

High School Graduation Requirements and Specialization Tracks

The states set minimum graduation requirements for all high schoolers in their jurisdictions. Typically, states require a minimum number of credits or units, usually in the Carnegie system. In most cases, a minimum of six or seven credits earned per year is the standard during high school. Most states specify the number of credits that must be earned in certain areas of study. The following four core areas of study are used in almost all the states:

English/language arts

Social studies

Science

Mathematics

Most states have requirements in other areas as well, such as arts, PE, or foreign language. Below is an example of the high school graduation requirements of the state of Minnesota:

In practice, to earn a high school diploma in Minnesota, students must take four years of English, three years of mathematics, 3.5 years of social studies, and so forth. There are no minimum requirements in areas like foreign language, PE, technology, or other areas, but they can be taken as electives, depending on what each high school offers. To graduate, a student must have earned 21.5 credits, which equates to roughly five classes per year, if evenly spaced. In some cases, though, students will take more classes in their first three years of high school and fewer in their fourth year.

In addition to completing stipulated course requirements and earning a certain number of credits, some states require students to pass a high school exit examination. For an overview of individual state requirements, or to compare requirements, visit the website of the Education Commission of the States (ECS).

In most states, high school students are placed into specialization tracks (tracking), usually based on a combination of aptitude (usually determined by statewide standardized exams) and students' post-graduation plans. The three tracks below are the most common:

General track: Curriculum is designed for students to meet the minimum state graduation requirements.

Vocational track: Curriculum meets the state graduation requirements and includes courses in specific vocations.

Academic or college-preparatory track: Curriculum exceeds the state graduation requirements and prepares students to meet university admissions requirements, typically those of the state's public universities, through additional coursework in certain areas such as English, mathematics, or foreign language. Advanced Placement (AP) courses, described below, may be part of this track.

Some high schools also offer an honors program, which typically includes more rigorous coursework that follows the academic or college-preparatory track, for "high-achieving students." In some high schools, honors courses are given more weight in the calculation of the overall grade point average (GPA). For example, an institution may equate an A in an honors course to a grade of 5.0, instead of 4.0, thus allowing honors students to achieve higher than a 4.0 GPA. This distinction can benefit them in the university admissions process.

Advanced Placement

Advanced Placement (AP) is a formal program offered by the College Board in the U.S. at high schools nationwide (and in U.S. high schools around the world). Students take rigorous, college-level courses usually at their own high schools that count both towards high school graduation and potentially for university or college credit. At the end of the school year, students take the AP examination in the subject they studied. Students must pay for the exams. In most examinations, students are scored on a 5-point scale. A score of 5 is generally considered equivalent to a grade of A, a score of 4 is equivalent to a B, and so forth. A score of 3 is usually considered the minimum passing score.

U.S. universities and colleges vary in their policies on accepting AP coursework, but many do, usually with a score of 3 or higher. Most AP courses satisfy general education requirements or sometimes foundational courses in certain fields of study.

In 2017, a total of about 2.7 million students in the U.S. took a total of almost 5 million AP exams. There are 40 courses and examinations available, in areas such as the arts, English, history and social studies, math and computer science, the sciences, and world languages and cultures. All of them are listed on the College Board's website. In 2017 the most popular courses, as denoted by the number of examinations taken, were English Language and Composition, U.S. History, English Literature and Composition, U.S. Government and Politics, Calculus, and Psychology. Pass rates are relatively low. Only 27.4 percent of students who took English Language and Composition, for example, scored higher than 3 in 2017.

International Baccalaureate

For more on IB, including curriculum, see the WENR article "The Major International School Curriculums."

Special Education at all Levels

Education provided to children with disabilities-including physical, mental, emotional, and developmental disabilities-is known in the U.S. as special education and is guaranteed by federal law to children in the K-12 public school system. Students can receive special education in both school and non-school settings, such as medical institutions. The primary federal law guaranteeing special education is the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)". According to LD Online, a website that assists educators who work with learning disabled students, special education must generally "meet [students'] individual needs (that result from having a disability); and help the child learn the information and skills that other children at the school are learning."

IDEA denotes 14 categories of disabilities for which students may receive special education:

Autism

Deaf-Blindness

Deafness

Developmental Delay

Emotional Disturbance

Hearing Impairment

Mental Retardation

Multiple Disabilities

Orthopedic Impairment

Other Health Impairment

Specific Learning Disability

Speech or Language Impairment

Traumatic Brain Injury

Visual Impairment Including Blindness

Most special education students are schooled in regular public schools, as opposed to special institutions, and most learn in mainstream classrooms, often with classroom aids. Some see special education teachers during at least part of their day. In some cases, at the secondary level, special education for some students may be its own track.

Types of K-12 Schools

In addition to standard public schools, parents in many parts of the country have the option of enrolling their children in other types of schools. Some are public schools with specialized curricula. There are also more than 34,000 private schools nationwide.

STEM subjects

Fine and performing arts

International Baccalaureate, International Studies

Career and technical education (CTE) and

World languages (immersion and non-immersion)

Among the stated goals of magnet schools are the ability to increase educational choice in geographical areas and to provide better educational opportunities to minority and low-income students. Many magnet schools use a lottery system to admit students to a limited number of spots.

Charter schools are public schools established and run by private entities, such as nonprofit or for-profit organizations or even parent groups. According to the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, these institutions can exercise the "freedom to design classrooms that meet their students' needs." Charter schools are granted the flexibility to deliver instruction in whatever way they see fit but are held accountable for improved student achievement. These schools have been somewhat controversial, and evidence that supports their effectiveness in raising student achievement relative to that of regular public schools is mixed.

Homeschooling

Homeschooling is legally recognized nationwide and regulated by the states. In the majority of cases, parents do the teaching, but sometimes a teacher or tutor is hired. There are a variety of reasons why parents choose to homeschool. Among the most common reasons are concerns about the quality, safety, or social environment of local public schools; as well as the desire to provide instruction at a pace appropriate for the student; and, often, the desire to provide a religious-based instruction.

It's difficult to determine the exact number of homeschooled students because different states require different reporting measures, however, it was estimated in 2012 that about 3.4 percent of the entire K-12 student population in the U.S. was homeschooled. The vast majority of homeschooled students were white and from middle- or upper-income households.

State policies regarding homeschooling vary greatly in terms of everything from "notification of intent to homeschool" to the required qualifications of homeschool teachers, recording attendance, or student assessment. Many states allow homeschooled students to attend some public school classes or to participate in co-curricular or extracurricular activities, such as sports. An increasing number are participating in online education. To view policies by state, visit the "Homeschooling Regulations by State" page of the journalism organization ProPublica.

Few states, if any, award accredited high school diplomas to homeschool graduates. However, a parent's certifying that the student has completed the program is usually recognized as being formally equivalent to high school graduation. It might, however, be more difficult for home-schooled children without an official high school diploma to pass muster with employers, enlist in the U.S. military, or gain admission to higher education programs, even though universities increasingly accommodate homeschoolers and have set official admissions policies for them. Both Yale University and Stony Brook University, for example, list specific requirements for homeschoolers, which are usually met through standardized tests like the SAT and an in-depth evaluation of the homeschool curriculum, as well as other criteria like letters of recommendation.

Secondary Grading Scales

There are no mandatory national grading scales in the U.S. As a result, there is considerable variation between grading scales used by high schools throughout the country, even though most use a 100-point scale. One variation is listed below. However, it should be noted that many institutions also use pluses and minuses or different numerical ranges, including varying minimum passing grades.

Most schools also calculate a student's GPA, which allows the school to measure overall achievement for each student. GPAs are frequently reviewed in the higher education admissions process. Many schools provide more than one GPA, for example, for unweighted and weighted courses (including extra points for honors/AP courses). The majority of GPAs are calculated on a 4.0 scale. To calculate a student's GPA, each letter grade is converted into a number on that scale, usually as follows:

Some institutions may give weight to pluses and minuses as well. For example, an A- is usually weighted as 3.67. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, honors and AP classes may be weighted higher, for example, with an A being equivalent to a 5.0. Then, all numbers are averaged. A GPA of 4.0 indicates that the student received A grades in all classes. A cumulative GPA of 3.3 shows that the student is mostly a B+ average student.

Higher Education

Types of Institutions

With more than 4,500 accredited degree-granting higher education institutions nationwide, the U.S. higher education system is extremely diverse. There are many different types of higher education institutions (HEIs) in the country. There are no nationally standardized definitions of "university" or "college," and the name of an institution alone may not indicate exactly what type of institution it is. That said, a university, at minimum, offers bachelor's programs and at least some master's programs.

In addition, there are various big, multi-disciplinary state universities and a large number of private universities that offer master's and doctoral programs. There are also mono-disciplinary, special focus institutions that offer programs in professional, vocational, and arts fields at different levels of education.

The following describe some of the many types of institutions in the U.S.:

Community colleges (also called junior colleges)

Liberal arts colleges

Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)

Tribal colleges

Hispanic-serving institutions

Master's colleges and universities

Doctoral-granting universities

Special-focus HEIs

By international standards, the number of private institutions in the U.S. is high. In 2015, only 35 percent of accredited degree-granting institutions were public, whereas private nonprofit and private for-profit institutions accounted for 37 percent and 28 percent, respectively of all institutions. Two-year colleges make up the largest group of institutions in the U.S., accounting for 1,113 institutions and 32 percent of all enrollments in the fall of 2014.

In-Focus: The Role of Community Colleges
Community Colleges (or junior colleges) play an important role in the U.S. education system and have greatly expanded access to education since their inception at the beginning of the 20th century. Hailed as "people's colleges," community colleges were While this clear-cut distinction never fully materialized, two-year community colleges certainly have proven to be a highly successful model and today enroll a large portion of U.S. students. According to the American Association of Community Colleges, there were Over time, many community colleges began to adopt more vocationally oriented programs beyond general programs in liberal arts and sciences. In recent years, the number of applied, career-oriented programs offered by two-year institutions in fields like allied health has been growing strongly, partly because of changes in Community colleges are usually open admission or open access-applicants need only have a high school diploma or its equivalent to be admitted-and charge, on average, tuition than universities. This makes them an important vehicle for educational and social mobility for lower-income groups, minorities, and immigrant populations. Community colleges are also a popular option for older adults who want to upgrade their education and skills. One of the most famous alliances of universities in the world, the Ivy League is a group of eight historic private universities in the northeastern United States. They include some of the most prestigious universities in the world. The eight universities (in alphabetical order), along with their city and state, are listed below: labor demand The Ivy League was The name Ivy League, however, signifies meaning that goes far beyond athletics. The name has become synonymous with prestige and privilege as well as strong academics. These universities have groomed many U.S. presidents and other major U.S. and world leaders, as well as leading intellectuals, artists, and Nobel laureates, among others. And there is little doubt that they are top universities, some of the best ranked in the world. However, the Ivy League has received plenty of criticism. For one, this elite group does not include some other top universities in the country, including private universities outside of the Northeast or any public universities. In international rankings, some other universities such as Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and public universities such as the University of California, Berkeley, rank as high as most of the top Ivy League institutions, and well above a few of them. This has led to other, more informal groupings (which are not always agreed-upon), such as the "Public Ivies," a list of top U.S. public universities such as the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the College of William and Mary in Virginia. And there are also more fundamental criticisms concerning the perpetuation of and . formed as an athletic association in the 1950s. The term Ivy League was first used when these eight institutions were among the first to be part of the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletics Association) Division I in major sports such as basketball and (American) football. To this day, the Ivy League remains an athletic association, a smaller group within a larger group of NCAA Division I schools. . While many vocational programs conclude with formal degrees like associate of applied sciences degrees, the number of sub-degree vocational credentials awarded by public community colleges is also growing and has increased by 109 percent between 2002 and 2012 alone. 1,103 community colleges in the U.S. in 2016 (980 public institutions, 35 tribal institutions and 88 independent colleges). These institutions enrolled 7.1 million students in formal credit-bearing programs and another five million in non-credit bearing programs (continuing education, certificate programs, etc.). initially designed to provide a low-cost, publicly-funded higher education alternative for broader segments of society while simultaneously freeing up traditional universities from providing general education, allowing them to concentrate more on advanced study and research.
The Ivy League

Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island)

Columbia University (New York, New York)

Cornell University (Ithaca, New York)

Dartmouth College (Dartmouth, New Hampshire)

Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

Princeton University (Princeton, New Jersey)

The University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut)

For-Profit Institutions

One of the fastest-growing segments of U.S. higher education in recent years has been for-profit education. Private for-profit institutions, sometimes known as proprietary schools, generate revenue for their owners or shareholders; they span a wide range of institutions, from career colleges and trade schools to accredited universities awarding master's and doctoral degrees. Some for-profit institutions are large, nationwide institutions run by publicly traded corporations, while others are small and privately owned. They include some of the largest and smallest post-secondary institutions in the country. The University of Phoenix, headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, is one of the largest institutions in the country in general, as well as among for-profit institutions. It has more than 60 campuses spread over 21 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

For-profit institutions capitalize on the long-held American belief in free market economics, and apply such principles to education. Proponents believe that such institutions can more quickly and adeptly address student needs and innovate as needed. They tend to provide scheduling options that are more flexible, such as part-time, night, weekend, and online programs and classes, as well as accelerated programs. Some also run traditional, full-time, classroom-based programs. Together, these institutions enroll almost half of all non-degree students in the U.S. (In 2014/15, nearly 43 percent of certificate-level students below the Associate's degree level studied at for-profit institutions.)

Proprietary institutions are known for attracting significant numbers of low-income, minority, and first-generation college students, many of whom are considered to be unprepared for college-level study. Many institutions are open access. A majority of the revenues of for-profit institutions indirectly derives from federal student aid, largely through loans taken out by students, as well as some federal and state grants. This trend of low-income, underprepared students taking out large loans for an often expensive education has made these institutions vulnerable to criticism and increased scrutiny by the federal government. For-profit dropout rates are high, as is the number of students attending these schools that default on their federal student loans. Additionally, there are questions regarding how well these institutions prepare students for good-paying careers.

Despite such shortcomings, enrollment in for-profit postsecondary education has grown tremendously over time, though it has decreased recently. In 1970, there were only 18,333 students enrolled in for-profit institutions. By 2010, there were over 2 million. From 2000 to 2010 alone, the number of students in this sector grew by almost 350 percent. Since 2010, however, the number has dropped down to about 1.2 million in 2016. Most of this decline was due to federal regulatory pushes against these institutions, causing two major for-profit companies, Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute, to close, "leaving thousands of students stranded without degrees and in debt."

The administration of Democratic President Barack Obama was skeptical of for-profit institutions and sought to regulate them more to curb abuses. Republican administrations, on the other hand, are usually more amenable to for-profit institutions, since Republicans are more likely to believe in market-based approaches to education. The administrations of Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were generally positive toward for-profit education. Republican President Donald Trump and his Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, are both generally in favor of the privatization of education, including for-profit post-secondary education.

University and College Governance

As with K-12 education, states are in charge of overseeing all post-secondary education within their jurisdictions. States usually set the general framework for higher education within the state, particularly in regard to public institutions, and license or charter institutions to operate. However, universities and colleges have, in general, a high degree of autonomy and self-governance.

Various models of governance in higher education have emerged over time. In some states, major public universities such as the University of Michigan function with almost full autonomy. Others are more subject to supervision from the state government. Virtually all post-secondary institutions, public and private, have a board of trustees or board of regents who govern the institution. For public institutions, this board is usually appointed by the governor or state legislature, though in some states, they are popularly elected. At private institutions, board members are appointed by the governing board. Community colleges are more likely to be locally run, featuring a board of local members that is either appointed or elected.

Most institutions have a chief executive typically called the president or sometimes chancellor who is in charge of running the institution. This individual is usually hired by the board. The board usually assigns the day-to-day operations of the institution to the president, who usually hires other senior administrators.

In some states, particularly those that are larger, public universities may be part of a university system. This usually produces another layer of governance between the state government and the individual institution. The university system typically has a board appointed by the state authorities and a chancellor in charge of running the system. As the American Council on Education (ACE) notes, system officials "oversee campus budgets, set policies such as admissions standards, coordinate degree programs, and facilitate credit transfer and articulation between the state's public colleges and universities." They also represent their interests to the state and sometimes federal government. Still, even within a university system, universities still have a considerable degree of autonomy.

Funding

Funding of U.S. higher education institutions is highly complex, and many institutions make use of a variety of sources of revenue. However, there are some key differences between public and private institutions. Additionally, there is one major trend that has emerged over the last several decades among all types of institutions, but particularly public universities: the growing dependence on student tuition dollars as a source of revenue.

Private institutions, which receive little or no direct government funding, have long relied on student tuition and fees for revenue. Nonprofit private institutions, relative to public institutions, have tended to enroll students from higher income households. For-profit institutions often enroll lower income students who rely heavily on federal student aid. (For a discussion of for-profit education see the section For-Profit Institutions.) However, many institutions, particularly private nonprofits, increasingly offer "tuition discounting," a common term for institutional financial aid, to students who cannot or who are unwilling to pay the full price of tuition.

Both public and private (particularly nonprofit) institutions have developed various other forms of revenue aside from student fees (and, by extension, federal and state student aid) and state appropriations (for public institutions). Other common sources of revenue are private gifts (often from alumni), investments and holdings, and research grants from government, nonprofit, and industry sources.

One area of tremendous discussion in terms of revenue streams is endowments, which are non-taxable financial gifts from private sources to universities "meant to be invested to grow the principal and provide additional income for future investing and expenditures." They can allow an institution to have a steady source of funding for years. Endowments have made some of the most prestigious universities in the U.S., such as Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, incredibly wealthy (and thus open to criticism). Harvard University's endowment value in 2017, for example, was $36 billion, according to Money magazine.

Accreditation and Quality Assurance

States are responsible for authorizing universities and colleges to operate within their jurisdictions. Accreditation, however, is a voluntary process for institutions. Unlike in other countries, where accreditation is often provided by governments or state-authorized organizations, accreditation bodies in the U.S. are private nonprofit organizations.

The process is peer-driven and meant to provide some quality assurance across the extremely varied higher education system in the United States. Additionally, building trust in higher education institutions among employers, and among institutions themselves for the purpose of admitting students and transferring credits, are among other important public benefits, as detailed by Judith Eaton, president of the Council of Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). Perhaps one of the most important reasons for seeking accreditation, from the institutions' viewpoint, is that it is required to be eligible for student aid at the federal level and usually also at the state level. Accreditation is mandatory for federal student aid under Title IV of the Higher Education Act.

The two main entities overseeing accreditation organizations are the Department of Education and CHEA, a non-governmental body representing more than 3,000 member institutions. To be recognized, accreditation agencies must meet certain standards and criteria that the Education Department and CHEA have issued.

There are three types of accrediting agencies: regional, national, and specialized programmatic agencies. All are member-based and largely funded through member dues.

Seven regional agencies provide accreditation in six regions to entire institutions and their programs, to fulfill requirements for receiving federal student aid. Some also provide accreditation to institutions in other countries. All seven are recognized by the Department of Education, and all but one by CHEA. (Note: Sometimes regional accreditation agencies are counted as six, because the western states have two separate agencies, one for Community Colleges and the other for universities.)

National accreditation agencies also accredit entire institutions and either focus on faith-based institutions (which accredit a modest number of institutions in total), or career-focused institutions (which accredit a substantially larger number of institutions).

Finally, specialized or programmatic accrediting agencies accredit specific programs, freestanding schools that offer professional focuses within an institution, and sometimes institutions that have a single programmatic focus. As a report from the Congressional Research Service notes, many "prospective employers require graduation from a program accredited by a certain programmatic organization, and licensure requirements for some fields in certain states require recognized programmatic accreditation."

Accreditation cycles vary by accreditor, but accreditation is often granted for periods of five years. While each agency outlines its own process, the typical process involves the following:

1. Self-study: The institution under review must analyze its own performance and prepare a report.

2. Peer review: Faculty and staff from peer institutions review the self-study report.

3. Site visit: A team of volunteers from the accreditation agency, usually from peer institutions, visits the institution to check performance against the self-study.

4. Decision issued by the agency: A commission within the agency, usually made up of individuals from peer institutions and sometimes members of the public, review all evidence before making a decision.

For a list of all accreditation agencies and their recognition status by both the Department of Education and CHEA, see the CHEA directory.

University Rankings: The U.S. Dominates

While international university rankings are often an unreliable and heavily criticized proxy for measuring the quality of academic institutions, it should be noted that U.S. universities have dominated global rankings since their inception and continue to do so today, although other countries like China are increasingly rising in the rankings.

In the current 2018 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, for instance, fully 41 of the 100 top-ranked universities are U.S. institutions. The four highest ranking U.S. institutions are the California Institute of Technology and Stanford University (both ranked third after Britain's University of Oxford and University of Cambridge), MIT (fifth), and Harvard University (ranked sixth).

The picture in other rankings looks similar. In the current 2018 QS World University Rankings, 32 U.S. institutions are among the top 100 with MIT, Stanford, and Harvard ranked as the top three institutions worldwide. In the most recent Shanghai Ranking ( ARWU), 48 U.S. institutions are included among the top 100, with Stanford and Harvard ranked as the best universities in the world.

Enrollment Trends

In the fall of 2015, there were more than 20 million students enrolled in U.S. institutions of higher education, according to the 2016 Digest of Education Statistics. The vast majority were enrolled in degree-granting programs, 73 percent at public institutions. During that same year, 4.5 million degrees were awarded.

Since about 2011, however, enrollment in U.S. higher education has declined slightly and is projected to largely remain flat through at least 2027. In 2011, enrollment hit a peak of over 21 million, but then declined to under 20 million in 2016. The Digest of Education Statistics forecasts the numbers to remain around 20 million for at least a decade. Among the reasons cited for the decrease in enrollments are declining birth rates, lower numbers of high school graduates, rising tuition fees and increases in employment rates after the Great Recession of 2007-2009.

Credit Systems at the Higher Education Level

There is no nationally consistent higher education credit system used throughout the U.S., however, most institutions use the "study hour"-a system loosely adapted from the Carnegie unit system. Academic study is generally quantified in credit hours or credit units (often simply called credits or units). Credits are used for the following purposes:

To measure student progress toward graduation: To graduate, students must accumulate a certain number of credits. In bachelor's degree programs, for example, students typically need to earn at least 120 semester credits or 180 quarter credits.

To determine the enrollment status of students. Students must be enrolled in courses equivalent to a certain number of credits to be considered a full-time student. This threshold is typically 12 credits per semester at the undergraduate level. Students enrolled in fewer classes than that threshold are classified as part time.

To determine pricing of tuition and additional fees. Many institutions charge tuition per credit, or they provide cost estimates to students on a per credit basis.

One credit unit is usually defined as three hours of academic study per week (one hour of in-class instruction and two hours of homework). Three credit hours, thus, typically require 135 hours of study per semester (45 hours of classroom instruction and 90 hours of preparation time or homework). The chart below shows the most common credit allocation formula for programs using the semester schedule:

HEIs using the quarter system have a slightly different credit allocation method. Because of the shorter terms, credit hours in these systems represent less academic work than in the semester system. Five credits in the quarter system typically represent the equivalent amount of study as three credits in the semester system. A bachelor's degree in the quarter system therefore typically requires the completion of 180 credits.

Some institutions follow entirely different credit systems. (Carnegie-based systems and the study hour in general have come under scrutiny in recent years, with many advocating assessment of actual student learning in place of hours of learning.) In any case, whether an institution uses the study hour system or a different one, student transcripts from the institution will typically include an explanation of their credit system on the back side of the transcript or on an information sheet.

Undergraduate Education

There are two main degrees offered at the undergraduate level in the U.S.: the associate degree (students are supposed to complete in two years) and the bachelor's degree (four years). In general, U.S. undergraduate education follows the liberal education model (sometimes also called the liberal arts model). Unlike in many other education systems worldwide, most undergraduate students have to take a sizeable amount of general education courses in addition to courses in their major field of study. This model prepares students for the workforce through in-depth study in specific fields while simultaneously emphasizing academic breadth (in having a good grasp of various fields of knowledge). The liberal education model, thus, focuses on developing students' critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and collaborative skills.

Admissions Requirements

Requirements for admission to undergraduate programs vary tremendously. Some institutions and programs, particularly community (or junior) colleges and associate degree programs operate under open admissions. For these programs, students only need to have a high school diploma or its equivalent, and perhaps meet a certain age threshold, such as 17 or 18 years of age. These schools admit most or all students who meet these basic requirements.

On the other end of the spectrum, elite, highly selective universities may admit only a small number of applicants who must meet a wide range of requirements. For example, Vanderbilt University, a highly selective private institution in Nashville, Tennessee, had an acceptance rate of only 10.9 percent of first-year applicants for the fall 2017 semester. Most institutions are somewhere in between, with most HEIs requiring much more of prospective students than just a high school diploma.

Many institutions use a holistic admissions model, that is, they look at each student as a whole person, including not just academic or intellectual ability, but also their capacity for growth, leadership, and general fit with the institution and its culture. As a result, institutions may require or evaluate any of the following criteria as part of its admission decision:

The student's high school transcripts, which may include a review of the student's coursework, grades, GPA, and class rank.

Standardized test scores. Unlike many other countries, the U.S. does not have a standardized nationwide high school exit exam or university admissions exam. As a result, many institutions turn to one of several privately developed standardized exams. By far, the two most common are the SAT, developed by the College Board; and the ACT, developed by American College Testing, from which it derives its name. Some institutions may require a specific score on either exam. However, many institutions no longer require such exams, or have made them optional.

Involvement in extracurricular or co-curricular activities, such as sports, music, the school newspaper, clubs, or community service. In some cases they also look for demonstration of leadership.

Recommendation letters from teachers, school counselors, employers, or other adults who are not relatives.

One or more essays or personal statements, usually following a specific prompt and instructions.

An interview.

A portfolio of the student's best work, especially for programs in the visual arts, or an audition, to apply to music or dance programs.

Associate Degrees

The associate degree is a two-year program offered mostly at community and junior colleges and postsecondary technical and vocational institutions, though some four-year universities and colleges offer them as well. There are generally two streams associated with the associate degree: The first allows students to transfer into a four-year program to complete a bachelor's degree. (These programs can be academic or vocational.) The other stream is more applied and vocationally-oriented and designed to prepare students for immediate entry into the workforce. (These programs are often considered terminal.)

In the transfer stream, students usually take most or all of their general education requirements for the successive bachelor's program; and if students know their intended major, they can also take some foundational courses in that discipline before they transfer. Most four-year institutions will consider an associate degree as equivalent to two years of education toward the bachelor's degree. Other universities may deem an associate degree as meeting all general education requirements, thus allowing students to focus on taking major (and minor) classes.

However, to allow for a seamless transfer of credits, the two-year institution and the four-year usually need to have an articulation agreement between them. Accepting credit for a student's prior work varies tremendously from institution to institution. Some universities may not accept credit for all the courses completed in associate programs, and instead require students to fulfill additional credit requirements at their institution.

There are four main types of associate degrees:

Associate of Arts degree (AA): general education courses with a focus in a specific humanities or social sciences discipline. This degree is designed for transfer into a Bachelor of Arts program.

Associate of Sciences degree (AS): general education courses with a focus in math, science, technology, or a health-related field. This degree is designed for transfer into a Bachelor of Science program.

Associate of Applied Sciences degree (AAS): a vocational or technical program with a focus on a specific occupation. Some AAS degree programs allow for transfer into a bachelor's program (particularly a Bachelor of Science program), while most are considered terminal degrees.

Associate of Applied Arts degree (AAA): a vocational or technical program with a focus on a specific occupation. Some AAS degree programs allow for transfer into a bachelor's program (particularly a Bachelor of Arts program), while most are considered terminal degrees.

An associate degree is typically earned after completing 60 semester credits or 90 quarter credits.

Bachelor's Degrees

Students may start a bachelor's program at a university or four-year college directly after high school, or they may transfer in after earning an associate degree.

Bachelor's programs are usually four years long, but may be five years in length in fields like engineering. Some institutions offer accelerated programs for students to finish in less than four years. A bachelor's degree is typically completed with at least 120 semester credits or 180 quarter credits. A cumulative minimum GPA of at least 2.0 (out of 4) is usually required for graduation.

Students take general education courses (GE) and courses in their major. Some institutions also require students to choose an additional minor field of study; in others, a minor may be optional. The ratio between GE courses and major courses varies from institution to institution (and sometimes from program to program within an institution), but typically, GE courses make up about one-quarter to one-half of a student's course load.

Institutions design their GE requirements in various configurations. The two main models are a core curriculum, in which all students take the same or most of the same courses, or "an elective or distributive format," in which students select from a range of pre-approved courses in set subject areas. Some institutions require or strongly encourage students to take all GE courses in their first two years, while some integrate GE courses with major (and minor) courses throughout the entire four-year curriculum.

Many institutions, usually those that are less selective or open access, provide remedial or developmental courses to students, often in math and English. Many institutions test students' math and English skills, or they may look at high school grades and SAT or ACT scores to determine math and English ability. Scores below a certain threshold may require students to complete remedial courses in those subjects. The courses do not count toward the student's degree but are required for the student to advance. The courses are not free.

Students may declare their major when they enroll or by the end of their second year, and they can change their major if they wish. At some institutions, most major courses are taken in the third and fourth (and sometimes fifth) year of the program, while in others, introductory major courses can be taken in the first year. For most programs, there are foundational courses that all students in the major must take. Students can then select from a broad range of courses that fulfill certain subject or thematic areas, based on students' interests and career objectives. Some majors require or offer concentrations in a specific branch of a field of study. For example, a student studying for a bachelor of science in biology may concentrate in cellular biology, botany, or zoology.

Some institutions offer cooperative (or co-op) programs, which allow students to incorporate work experience into their academic studies. These programs are usually five years long (instead of four) and include two semesters of internship or work experience.

The two most common bachelor's degrees awarded are the following:

Bachelor of Arts degree (BA): usually awarded in the arts, humanities, and some social sciences. Example: Bachelor of Arts in Spanish literature.

Bachelor of Science degree (BS): usually awarded in the natural sciences, mathematics, technology, engineering, medical fields, and some social or behavioral sciences. Example: Bachelor of Science in biochemistry.

Higher Education Grading Scale

As in the school system, grading practices in higher education are not uniform across the country and vary by institution, even though grading practices are more standardized at the higher education level. Below is the most common grading scale HEIs use. As in secondary education, most higher education institutions calculate a GPA for students so they can measure students' academic performance.

Graduate Education

Admissions Requirements

The general minimum admission requirement for master's degree programs is the bachelor's degree. To be admitted to a doctoral program, students typically need to have earned a master's degree; but some doctoral programs will accept high-achieving students who have completed only a bachelor's, particularly in a related discipline. These students are often awarded a master's on their way to completing the doctorate. Requirements for professional programs at the graduate level may be a bit different (see the section on Professional Education below).

Admissions at the graduate level is usually more decentralized than at the undergraduate level, and academic departments have more say in the admissions process itself. In some cases, the faculty selects candidates for admission after reviewing their application, which typically includes the following:

Test scores. The most common exam for both master's and doctoral academic programs is the GRE (Graduate Record Examination), developed by Educational Testing Service (ETS), which tests students in three areas. Some professional programs require other exams that are typically specific to the professional field of study. These are described under "Professional Education."

Letters of recommendation from professors, employers, or other academic and professional connections

A personal statement or essay

A curriculum vitae (CV) or resume, to see an overview of the student's academic and professional background

Sample work, such as a writing sample or portfolio

An interview or an audition (for a performing arts program) may also be part of the admissions process.

Master's Degrees

Master's degree programs are typically one to two years long. More people pursue master's degrees than other graduate-level programs. While there are often required core courses, most programs allow students to customize their coursework based on their career objectives and interests.

Master's programs can be either research-oriented or practice-oriented, though most incorporate both theory and practice. Research-oriented programs usually culminate in a thesis or major research project. Practice-oriented programs may do the same, or they may require or allow students to do a culminating internship or field experience, and submit a paper that reflects on their experiences. In some programs, students may take a comprehensive exam in lieu of completing a thesis, project, or internship.

Most master's programs typically require a minimum of 30 credits (45 credits on the quarter system), but programs in business administration and other professional disciplines may require 60 credits or more, including the final paper or project. To graduate, students need a minimum GPA of 3.0 (out of 4).

Most master's degrees allow students to continue on to pursue doctoral studies, but some can be considered terminal.

These are the two most common master's degrees:

Master of Arts (MA) degree: usually used for disciplines in the arts, humanities, and some social sciences. Example: Master of Arts in English Literature.

Master of Science (MS) degree: usually used for disciplines in the natural sciences, mathematics, technology, engineering, medical fields, and some social orbehavioral sciences. Example: Master of Science in Chemistry.

However, there are numerous other possible master's degree titles, depending on the specialization. Common ones include the Master of Business Administration (MBA); Master of Divinity (M.Div), a theology degree; Master of Education (M.Ed); Master of Fine Arts (MFA); and Master of Music (MM). Master's-level degrees in specific professional fields are discussed below (under Professional Education).

Doctoral Degrees

Doctoral degrees, or doctorates, are terminal degrees in academic fields or fields of professional practice. Programs usually involve at least four years of study beyond a master's degree, or five to seven years after a bachelor's. This section focuses on research doctorates, generally those for academic fields.

For research doctorates, students generally take coursework lasting one to two years (for those who begin programs after a master's degree), usually in the form of seminars and colloquia. Students usually must pass their course requirements with an A- average in order to proceed. Once their coursework is completed, students must pass comprehensive examinations, which can be written or oral. These are often known as qualifying exams. The passing of these exams signals formal doctoral candidacy.

Students then work on original research and write a dissertation based on a proposal approved by supervising faculty. The dissertation reflects original research and is expected to contribute knowledge and theory to the field. The final step is the defense of the dissertation in front of the student's doctoral advisor and a doctoral committee composed of other faculty members. If the committee members consider the defense satisfactory, they will formally sign the candidate's dissertation, signifying completion of the degree. Most universities publish successful dissertations, with most now available in online databases.

The most common research doctorate is the Doctor of Philosophy, or PhD. This degree can be awarded in any variety of academically oriented fields, not exclusively the field of philosophy. A PhD is usually required to be a professor or other academic position, though in some disciplines, a master's level degree suffices, particularly if it is considered the terminal degree in the field. Some research doctorate holders go to work in research institutes, government, and private industry.

Professional Doctorates

Professional doctorates include entry-to-practice qualifications without research component in licensed professions, such as the Doctor of Medicine or Juris Doctor (discussed below). However, there are also more research-oriented doctorates awarded in professional disciplines, including the Doctor of Education (EdD.), Doctor of Business Administration (DBA), Doctor of Psychology (DPsych.) and Doctor of Public Health (DPH), among others.

The difference between research doctorates and professional doctorates is that research in the latter has a more applied and practice-oriented focus. Professional doctorates are therefore also referred to as "Applied Doctorates." Research is geared toward finding solutions to practical problems and designing better practices in the field. The overall structure of both programs, however, is the same. Students enter professional doctoral programs most typically on the basis of their master's degree. The programs usually involve the completion of doctoral level coursework, the passing of comprehensive exams and the defense of a dissertation, though some students complete a different type of research project instead of defending their dissertation.

Education in Licensed Professions

Entry-to-practice programs in licensed professions like medicine, dentistry, or law are postgraduate programs entered on the basis of a bachelor's degree. Below we describe medicine and law as examples; programs in dentistry or veterinary medicine are structured similarly to medical programs.

Medical Education

Formal education for medical doctors in the U.S. begins at the graduate level after students complete their bachelor's degrees. Students can obtain a bachelor's in a variety of fields so long as they take certain courses that help ensure their success on the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test), usually required for admission to medical schools, and that meet prerequisites for medical schools.

Graduates must pass the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE), under the auspices of the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) and the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME). The exam is a three-step process; typically, steps 1 and 2 are taken while students are in medical school, and step 3 is taken during residency (described below). The results are forwarded to the individual state medical boards, which determine based on their own state requirements if the student has passed. It is these state agencies which grant medical licenses for practice.

During the final year of medical school, students apply to the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), which matches them with a residency program anywhere in the country by March of that year. Residency training provides medical school graduates with "supervised, hands-on training," usually at a teaching hospital, and lasts anywhere from three to eight years, depending on the specialty. Individuals going through a residency program are called residents; in the first year they are typically called interns.

Some joint degree programs combine an MD with another graduate-level degree, usually in a shorter amount of time than it would take to pursue them separately. For example, an MD-PhD program allows a student to obtain both degrees simultaneously, obtaining a PhD in a medically focused discipline such as biochemistry or immunology.

Legal Education

Unlike in many countries, legal education in the U.S. begins at the graduate level. Undergraduate students who wish to enter law school traditionally major in business, economics, English, history, philosophy, and political science, but can pursue any area of study they choose. The American Bar Association (ABA), however, encourages prospective law students to "develop [their] research and writing skills." Some institutions offer a pre-law major that is generally interdisciplinary, but it is not required to be admitted to law school.

Law schools generally require many of the same components as other graduate schools. The main examination usually required is the LSAT (Law School Admission Test) from the Law School Admission Council (LSAC). The test usually takes half a day to complete.

Law school graduates are generally awarded the Juris Doctor or Doctor of Jurisprudence (JD) degree, a first professional degree. Most JD programs are three full-time years in length, or about 90 credits. There is no standard law school curriculum, as LSAC explains, yet offers this: "F irst-year curricula usually include courses in civil procedure, constitutional law, contracts, criminal law and criminal procedure, legal method, legal writing and research, property law, and torts." After the first year, the curricula can vary substantially based on the type of law school as well as students' specializations. .

The next step after receiving a JD is to apply for admission to the bar in the state where the graduate wishes to practice. Bar admission usually involves two parts: the demonstration of competence, which is achieved through holding a JD from an American Bar Association-approved law school; and passing the state bar examination. The examination lasts two days: The first day is an item test and the second day an essay exam. Most law students take the bar exam shortly after graduation.

Nursing Education

There are many ways to become a nurse in the U.S. Some nursing occupations (such as the Certified Nursing Assistant, or CNA) only require some training after students complete high school. More advanced positions require at least a graduate level degree. The type of position dictates the type of education and training required, as shown in the table below.

Teacher Education and Training

Like most professions, the teaching profession is regulated at the state rather than the national level, but there are some common practices. There are two types of teacher certification: traditional and alternative.

Most teachers are certified using the traditional method, within which are two main routes:

Earn a bachelor's degree in education (particularly for elementary education) or in a subject content area (for example, English, mathematics) with a focus on education, depending on the state's requirements. This tends to be a faster method and usually works best when students know fairly early on in their postsecondary education that they want to become teachers.

Earn a bachelor's degree in another subject and then complete a post-bachelor's program, either a certification program or a full master's degree. This is the typical method for individuals who discover late in their undergraduate program or later that they wish to teach.

Both routes are sometimes known as Teacher Preparation Programs (TPPs). Most states require that students pass an entrance examination in reading, writing, and math in order to enter a post-bachelor's TPP, regardless of the intended subject or level of teaching. The most common of the examinations required is Praxis, developed by the Educational Testing Service (ETS).

Many states impose other, specific additional requirements-either in the form of coursework (typically included in TPPs) or examinations-that future teachers must complete in order to be eligible for a teaching certificate. Once they meet all the requirements are met, future teachers can apply to the state agency for their certification in the state where they wish to teach.

Student teaching is a common part of TPPs. Regulations vary by state regarding the length and type of student teaching required of prospective teachers. According to a study by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), about half of all states require at least 10 weeks of student teaching with a "cooperating teacher," an ill-defined term for a current teacher, either explicitly required or assumed to be experienced, under whom the student teacher works. Individual TPPs then set their own requirements and parameters for student teaching in compliance with state regulations.

There are alternative routes by which individuals can be educated, trained, and certified to be teachers. One method, depending on state regulations, is to immediately start teaching and earn certification in the process. This uncommon method is usually used in schools and subjects that urgently need teachers, where teachers who have been certified via the traditional methods are in short supply.

Once certified and teaching, teachers are generally required or expected to continue professional development, and many go on to eventually earn master's degrees. After three years of teaching experience, teachers may work toward the completely optional National Board Certification (from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards), which can help teachers advance in their careers, earn higher salaries, and more easily transfer to work in another state.

Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET)

TVET in the U.S. is usually referred to as Career and Technical Education (CTE). It is not standardized compared with vocational training systems in other countries. CTE is delivered in various different forms and by various different institutions. For example, there are thousands of small proprietary career colleges, most of them offering sub-degree, certificate-level programs in specific vocations. In addition, CTE is delivered by community colleges or through work-based apprenticeship programs. Private institutions constitute the majority of providers in the CTE sector (more than 75 percent of accredited CTE institutions participating in federal financial assistance programs were private in 2008).

At the secondary level, CTE can be offered in specialized high school courses, or in programs at secondary-level career academies that combine career training with college preparatory curricula.

At the post-secondary level, community colleges offer a multitude of applied, career-oriented two-year programs leading to degrees like the Associate of Applied Science, Associate of Applied Arts or Associate of Applied Technology, as well as sub-degree certificate programs. Four-year institutions offer some of these programs as well. Though most programs include some general education coursework, they are primarily focused on applied technical training in specific vocations and may include an internship component.

In addition, there are programs that straddle secondary and post-secondary education. So-called Tech-Prep programs, for instance, combine two or more years of secondary education with two years of post-secondary education, concluding with the award of an applied associate degree as well as a high school diploma.

Furthermore, apprenticeship programs provide CTE through part-time classroom instruction that augments practical training at a workplace. More than 500,000 trainees were enrolled in formal apprenticeship programs registered with the federal government in 2017. Formal apprenticeship programs last between one and six years.

CTE in the U.S. is highly decentralized. Licensing and training requirements vary widely between states. Different states have different education and licensing requirements for different occupations, so that training and certification obtained in one state may be difficult to transfer to another.. While there have been some initiatives in recent years to homogenize the system, such as the "National Career Clusters Framework," the decentralized nature of vocational training and licensing continues to pose a challenge for the development of a more standardized CTE system in the U.S. (For more on vocational education in the U.S. and a comparison to the German system, see " Could Germany's Vocational Education and Training System Be a Model for the U.S.? " in the current issue of WENR.)

WES Canada Documentation Requirements

Secondary Education

Graduation Certificate/Diploma - submitted by the applicant

Academic Transcript - sent directly by institution attended

Higher Education

Academic Transcript - sent directly by the institution attended

For doctoral degrees - Official letter or degree conferral form confirming the award of the degree - sent directly by the institution attended.

For further details, see the WES Canada website.

Sample Documents

Click here for a PDF file of the academic documents referred to below.

High School Diploma

Associate in Arts

Associate of Applied Science

Bachelor of Arts

Bachelor of Science

Master of Arts

Doctor of Medicine

Doctor of Philosophy

1. China is already the world's largest economy when measured by purchasing power parity.

2. See WES reports How Master's Students Choose Institutions: Research on International Student Segmentation and Improving the International Student Experience: Implications for Recruitment and Support.

5. United States Network for Education Information (USNEI). (2008). "Organization of U.S. Education: State Role I - Primary and Secondary Education," Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-org-us.html

6. USNEI. (2008). "Organization of U.S. Education: The Local Role." https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-org-us.html

8. USNEI. (2008). "Organization of U.S. Education: The School Level." https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-org-us.html.

10. The two outliers from this are Alabama, which only mandates public education be available until age 17, and Texas, which mandates until age 26.

11. Christina More Muelle. (2013). "The History of Kindergarten: From Germany to the United States." Retrieved from Florida International University (FIU) Digital Commons, http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/sferc/2005/2005/1/.

13. USNEI. (2008). "U.S. Credit Systems." Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-evaluation.html

14. USNEI. (2008). "U.S. Primary and Secondary Qualifications." Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-structure-us.html

17. See USNEI, "Organization of U.S. Education: The School Level," https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-org-us.html

20. For a good discussion of these criticisms, see Tressie McMillan Cottom. (2017). Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy. New York: The New Press.

21. USNEI. (2008). "Organization of U.S. Education: Tertiary Institutions." Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-org-us.html.

22. USNEI. (2008). "Structure of the U.S. Education System: Associate Degrees." Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-structure-us.html.

23. USNEI. (2008). "Structure of the U.S. Education System: Bachelor's Degrees." Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-structure-us.html.

24. USNEI. (2008). "Structure of the U.S. Education System: Master's Degrees." Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-structure-us.html.

25. USNEI. (2008). "Structure of the U.S. Education System: Research Doctorate Degrees." Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-structure-us.html.

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Education in the United States of America

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A comprehensive examination of the education system in the United States: Includes an overview of the education system, a guide to institutions and qualifications, and a look at mobility trends among inbound and outbound students.

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Opportunity for all: strong schools with great teachers for your child

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Opportunity for all: strong schools with great teachers for your child

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Schools White Paper delivers real action to level up education

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Schools White Paper delivers real action to level up education

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Any child who falls behind in maths or English will get the support they need to get back on track, as part of a pledge the Education Secretary will make to every parent in the country today (Monday 28 March), as he launches the first Schools White Paper in six years.

Schools will identify children who need help, provide targeted support via a range of proven methods such as small group tuition, and keep parents informed about their child's progress.

The Parent Pledge will support the government's Levelling Up mission for education, previously set out in the Levelling Up White Paper, for 90% of primary school children to achieve the expected standard in Key Stage 2 reading, writing and maths by 2030.

In 2019, only 65% of children achieved this standard, with the covid pandemic exacerbating challenges despite the incredible work of parents and teachers during this time.

A second ambition for secondary schools aims to see the national average GCSE grade in both English language and maths increase from 4.5 in 2019 to 5 by 2030.

The Schools White Paper sets out a series of new measures to support the delivery of these ambitions, including:

Schools will offer a minimum school week of 32.5 hours by September 2023

Ofsted will inspect every school by 2025, including the backlog of 'outstanding' schools that haven't been inspected for many years

By 2030 all children will benefit from being taught in a school in, or in the process of joining, a strong multi-academy trust, which will help transform underperforming schools and deliver the best possible outcomes for children

At least £100m to put the Education Endowment Foundation on a long-term footing so they can continue to evaluate and spread best practice in education across the country

If achieved, the wider benefits of pupils in 2030 meeting the Key Stage 2 and GCSE ambitions are estimated to be worth at least £30 billion each for the economy.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said:

Rt Hon Robert Halfon MP, Chair of the Education Select Committee said:

Other plans in the White Paper to deliver on the missions for children's attainment at the end of primary and secondary include:

500,000 teacher training and development opportunities by 2024

£30,000 starting salaries to attract and retain the best teachers

Payments to recruit and keep talented physics, chemistry, computing and maths teachers working in disadvantaged schools

A register for children not in school to make sure no child is lost from the system

Every school to have access to funded training for a senior mental health lead to deliver a whole school approach to health and wellbeing

Oak National Academy becoming a government body with sole focus on supporting teachers to deliver the very best lesson content

Up to 6 million tutoring courses by 2024 and action to cement tuition as a permanent feature of the school system

The school system working as a whole to raise standards with trusts responsible for running schools while local authorities are empowered to champion the interests of children

The SEND and alternative provision green paper will launch tomorrow (Tuesday) and build on the Schools White Paper by setting out a national vision for more inclusive culture and practice in mainstream schools, helping the workforce to adapt to every pupil's needs.

John Jolly, Chief Executive of Parentkind, said:

Dame Rachel de Souza DBE, the Children's Commissioner said:

Local authorities are to be permitted to establish trusts and gain the legal power to request their non-academy schools join a trust, where that is the right approach for local schools.

The government plans to support schools that have received two consecutive Ofsted judgements of below 'Good' to join strong trusts - a significant step up from the current requirement for Inadequate local authority maintained schools to do so. The initial focus will be on schools in the 55 Education Investment Areas, as these are the locations where the most support is required area-wide.

The government will make £86 million available to grow and strengthen multi-academy trusts over the next three years, with a particular focus on Education Investment Areas. Across a subset of 24 priority Education Investment Areas - including all previous Opportunity Areas - which have some of the highest rates of disadvantage in the country, a further £40 million of additional funding is to be provided for bespoke interventions to address local needs, such as high absence rates.

As part of a review to launch in the summer looking at accountability and regulation of trusts, the department will consider how best to hold trusts accountable against a new strong trust definition, focused on the quality and inclusivity of the education they provide, how they improve schools and maintain their local identity, how they protect value for money for the taxpayer and how they develop their workforce.

Sir Hamid Patel CBE, Chief Executive of Star Academies, said:

At the heart of the White Paper is an unwavering commitment to improving the life chances of all our young people. High-quality teacher development, a knowledge-rich curriculum and personalised intervention are recognised as crucial to success. Renewed parent partnerships centred on children will help to create the conditions in which their talents can flourish.

Sir Dan Moynihan, Chief Executive of Harris Federation, said:

Leora Cruddas CBE, Chief Executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, the sector body for academy trusts, said:

The evidence is clear that the quality of teaching is the single most important in-school factor in improving outcomes for pupils. CST strongly supports the focus on evidence-informed professional development. There is no improvement for pupils without improvement in teaching, and no improvement in teaching without the best professional development for teachers. We believe School Trusts have the capacity and can create the culture and conditions where professional development can be most effective.

CST supports the ambitions of this White Paper and the proposal for all schools to be part of a group in a strong trust. We particularly welcome the recognition that strong trusts will be solely accountable for school improvement. We look forward to working with ministers on the proposed regulatory review.

Director of Children's Services at Kent County Council, Matt Dunkley, said:

Kent County Council very much welcomes the government's ambitious reform agenda and the commitment to a stronger, fairer school system. We support the focus on helping each child meet their potential with the right support at the right time. We agree that putting evidence at the heart of school improvement activity is vital. We know this approach works as we have started to see the benefits from our jointly-funded project with the Education Endowment Foundation that is embedding evidence-informed practice in over a third of our schools and academies so far. We look forward to Local Authorities now having new opportunities to work with schools and academies to build further on this.

Streamlining of the current fragmented school system is well overdue, and we appreciate the proposals to match Local Authorities' responsibilities as system leaders with the appropriate powers to meet those responsibilities. The creation of a unified school system that works for all children, enables schools to benefit from collaboration whilst maintaining their own identity, autonomy and accountability to their local community is the ambition, and the prize at stake here.

Updated data published today shows pupils continue to make progress following the pandemic with the support of the education recovery programme, now worth nearly £5 billion. By Autumn 2021, the average primary school pupil was 1.9 months behind in maths compared to 2.8 months in the summer, whilst the average primary school pupil was 0.8 months behind in reading, compared to 0.9 months behind in the summer.

The new tools and interventions set out in the White Paper will make sure every teacher, school and trust in the country is focused on identifying children who remain at risk of not meeting their potential, and providing them the right combination of academic, pastoral and specialist support they need to thrive.

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Schools White Paper delivers real action to level up education

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Any child who falls behind in maths or English will get the support they need to get back on track, as part of a pledge the Education Secretary will make to every parent in the country today (Monday 28 March), as he launches the first Schools White Paper in six years.

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The Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration

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The Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration

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The Australian school system has a serious design flaw. Can it change before it’s too late?

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The Australian school system has a serious design flaw. Can it change before it’s too late?

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was trembling. Not because I was about to do something risky or scary - quite the opposite. This was a situation I had been in many times before, but I was nervous about what was going to happen next.

I was on the Concert Hall stage at the Sydney Opera House looking at an audience of about 2,000 people. Not to perform music, thankfully. I'd been invited to speak about why Australia should abolish its private schools. Typical symptoms of performance anxiety include dry mouth, sweaty hands, trembling knees and racing heartbeat - I experienced all these and more. Even my vision had changed thanks to the bright spotlights turned towards me.

Standing alone, I caught sight of the beautiful white birch panelling of the Concert Hall's interior. It reminded me of my home country. For the Finns, the birch is a sacred tree. Birch trees play an important part in the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic.

Suddenly I felt more comfortable.

It was time to do what I'd come to do - to tell the audience why Finnish parents don't ever need to worry about finding a good school or paying for their children's education, and why Australians wouldn't need to do so either if they didn't want to.

Imagine that.

This episode happened in September 2012 during my second visit to Australia. I'd enjoyed many conversations and debates with Australians over the years, but that day at the Opera House became my most memorable public talk to that point. It still is the highlight of my working life.

Six years later I returned to Sydney with my wife, our two young boys and six large suitcases. Sydney would be our next hometown after living in Finland, Croatia, Italy and the US. Our boys had gone to kindergarten in Helsinki and both my wife and I worked on education issues in Finland and internationally.

You may consider us an education family.

We certainly considered our new home to be an education nation. Its schools and teachers are admired by students and educators overseas, and I had met scores of Australians who speak to and teach others about education and how to make it better. Not so long ago, Australian education was highly ranked internationally. But that is not so any longer. One reason I had moved to Sydney was to join a group of colleagues and educators to figure out how to fix that situation.

The first thing my wife and I realised was that there is a wide range of all sorts of schools, especially in Australia's urban areas, so that parents can choose the right one. As a newly arrived family, our first task was to find schools for our boys: a primary school for our older son and a preschool for the younger. Back home the solution would have been a no-brainer: the nearest neighbourhood school or kindergarten in Helsinki. Private schools don't exist in Finland: most children attend their nearest public school. Which means that parents never pay for their children's school education, never drive their kids to school nor pack lunchboxes every morning while worrying whether they can provide enough good food to keep their kids going through the day.

A primary school in Espoo, Finland, where private schools do not exist Photograph: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images

In Sydney, everything was different. Most early childhood education providers in our neighbourhood promised innovative programs to teach early reading and maths so that our son would be prepared and ready to go to kindy at the age of five, whereas in Helsinki, children in early childhood education are allowed to develop and learn at their own pace and start primary school at the age of seven. Finnish schools are expected to be ready to welcome all children as they are rather than expecting them to be ready for school.

The price of what was on offer in Sydney was far beyond what we could afford. Daily fees for early childhood education and care were about the same as we'd paid in Helsinki for a month. And so we did what so many other Australian parents do - wait a year until the public kindy would become an option for our youngest boy.

Australian public primary schools still serve families and children in their own communities. As in Finland, Australian children have the right to attend a public school in their own neighbourhood. But things are changing thanks to evolving supplies and demands. Today over 30% of Australia's primary school children choose not to use that right, instead attending one of the many independent schools that are increasingly available - especially in cities and larger towns.

"Which school did you choose for your boys?" So many new colleagues and friends asked me this before we had even arrived. Given that I think school is an essential part of building a strong and cohesive local community, our boys attend the local public school. Sometimes I tell those curious about this that I am doing a social experiment with my own children by sending them to a public school in Sydney and then writing a piece about it. But frankly, I don't need further evidence to know the public school down the road is the best option for my boys.

In pursuit of excellence, an odd dogma has become common in Australian education policy across the past two decades: if education could only act more like a marketplace, excellence would prevail.

Emphasis on school choice and the subsequent competition between schools isn't a homegrown Australian idea; it's been influenced by the global education reform movement dominant in the UK and the US since the 1990s. But it seems like Australia has stronger faith in the power of a marketplace than many other countries. Public policies at federal and state levels encourage parental choice in pursuit of individual educational excellence by offering attractive financial support to non-government schools.

Go figure. During the past decade, according to the 2021 Report on Government Services, combined commonwealth and state government funding for private schools increased by more than six times that for public schools. At the same time, private school fees have tripled since 2000. As a result, the proportion of students in government schools has declined and the independent school sector has been slowly growing.

Everybody wants to be excellent. Schools pursue excellence, and parents seek excellent education for their children. Consumers in the marketplace are happy when they get bang for their buck. The 2021 Australia Talks National Survey found that 92% of parents at independent schools were satisfied with the education their child was receiving. And yet research shows that public schools do as well as private schools after differences in students' socioeconomic backgrounds are considered.

Transforming Australia's school education systems is not only mission possible; it's a moral obligation for a country that calls itself an education nation

But happy clientele in the education marketplace doesn't guarantee a good education for every child. The cost of the pursuit of individual excellence in Australian education - rather than a systemic excellence that would provide high-quality education for all - has been gradually eroding equity of education. As is often reported, many international organisations, including Unicef and the OECD, rate Australian education as unequal and highly segregated, leaving too many children behind. At the same time, the overall average performance of Australian students compared with their peers in other countries has been slipping during the past two decades.

When colleagues overseas ask what I think about Australia's school system, I tell them that it does offer world-class education, but not for everyone. I have seen thousands of schools around the world. But some of the best schools I've found are here.

Why, then, is our educational performance not what it used to be just two decades ago? The main problem, as I see it, is neither curriculum, quality of teachers nor leadership in schools. It lies elsewhere. And understanding that problem is key to better education - not just for some but for the entire nation. To borrow (possibly apocryphal) inspiration from Albert Einstein: if I had an hour to solve Australia's education problem, I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions. Einstein is also claimed to have said that no problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.

In other words, we need a new way of thinking.

We have one of the world's most examined, researched and reviewed school systems, but when it comes to taking the evidence and respective recommendations seriously, we find ourselves in the same old debates and confrontations over and again. As international experts have reminded Australia's education system leaders, we have now lost a decade due to inability to learn from ourselves and from others about how to build a more equitable school system for all children.

Education is a complex social system, and complex systems are not easy to understand. Not necessarily because they are structurally complicated - complex systems often have simple design - but because the interaction between their parts is unpredictable.

Sydney has a concrete example of such simple complexity: the Opera House, which is among the most fascinating buildings of the 20th century. Its ingenuity is in its simplicity, yet it was extremely complex to construct. Look at the Opera House carefully, and you'll see fundamental design principles inspired by organic nature and experiential character, or form and function: simple complexity. In this respect, the Sydney Opera House and a racing bicycle have one thing in common: remove a part, and it won't work as it was designed anymore.

As I see it, the Opera House represents a metaphor for a modern education system. The Finnish education system is a Nordic design, with simple and practical form and function. Compared with Australia's education system, it looks deceptively simple when the core purpose is exposed: the learning, wellbeing and happiness of all children for common good. Many have tried to discover the secret of Finland's school system, but very few have succeeded. The secret lies in its design.

The funding structure for Australian schools is an outlier among developed nations. Photograph: courtneyk/Getty Images

So let's start with a design question: what is the leading idea in education system design?

Today two of three Australian schools are public. Alongside these public schools - which cater to over 80% of Indigenous students, disadvantaged children and children with greater special educational needs - a privately managed, fee-charging and largely government-funded school sector has been steadily growing for two decades. From the system design point of view, this hybrid system sees schools operate under a wide range of regulations, funded jointly by parents and two separate levels of government using fiscal arrangements that are hard to understand - even for experienced education-system leaders. In this respect, the Australian school system is an outlier among other advanced nations.

At the outset the Australian education sector looks like a marketplace, evolved on the assumption that parental choice is the best driver of whole-system improvement, just as consumer choice works in a real marketplace by pulling prices down and lifting quality up. Therefore, insisting on parents' freedom to choose their children's education facilitates the opening of new kinds of schools and encourages "healthy" competition among schools to better serve families' diverse individual needs. Market mentality also dominates politicians' responses to parents' concerns about quality of education. In January 2020 the then-federal minister of education Dan Tehan urged unhappy parents to "shop around" to ensure they get good value for money.

That Australian educational performance shows no sign of improving despite continuous national recommendations and international advice demonstrates that school systems have a design error that increases inequity across both the public and private schooling sectors. An inconvenient truth is that significant financial resources added to education from both state and federal budgets have not made Australian education any fairer. This is linked to the second dimension of the challenge: the structural problem of Australian education.

Many other education systems suffer from structural failures - I have worked with several governments around the world in this space. Using an international lens offers a comparative perspective that is often helpful. In the big picture Australian education is an outlier also in a sense that schools in different parts of the country are more socially segregated than in most other rich countries. Currently, Australia's school system concentrates disadvantaged students in disadvantaged schools (that is: where more than half of students come from disadvantaged homes), which has unintended implications for student learning.

Much political and public debate focuses on excellence. And Naplan has been held up as the basic driver of improved educational excellence since 2008, annually testing the basic knowledge of all year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students and linking their scores to public school scorecards through the My School website. Naplan has been researched and reviewed and a constant topic of public and professional debates since its inauguration. And, against initial expectations, research has found convincing domestic and international evidence that too strong a focus on externally determined and narrow academic learning outcomes is associated with deteriorating performance.

What's lost in these debates is a sharper focus on equity and its linear relationship with excellence.

The main finding is this: there can be no national educational excellence without stronger equity of outcomes. Australia should accept - as many nations acknowledged a decade ago - that equity and excellence are inseparable. What's surprising is that there are still some people who refuse to accept that educational equity is something to worry about.

It is paramount to understanding the state of education that we see education as a system of interrelated elements. When we fail to see it this way, we often also fail to understand why it doesn't work as well as it should. Rather than ask whether the system's design and structure are adequate to produce expected outcomes (say, excellence and equity) when we consider stagnated or declining school systems performance and student learning, we pay attention to those who work on the frontline of schooling - teachers and principals. Perhaps teachers are not prepared to teach well enough? Maybe the curriculum is outdated? What if the problem is that we don't have enough data about how teachers teach and what students learn? These and other similar questions distract from broader structural aspects that need reform.

Consequently, Australia's education system has latterly evolved in a piecemeal fashion, with frequent fragmented education reforms adding new layers to the work of schools without removing any unnecessary functions.

Let me be clear. Of course it is necessary to upgrade education by improving its integral parts. We need to fix problems related to the teaching profession, including teachers' workload, teaching conditions and remuneration. We must redesign curriculum systems so that all Australian children better understand the world around them and their own potential. And high-quality early childhood education and care must be accessible to all children before they go to school. These and other measures are all necessary - but they are not enough to guarantee each and every child a fair go.

So if the problem is more about the system's design and structure than fixing its parts, what should be done next?

First and foremost, we need a genuinely wide and majority consensus (and understanding) that the current structure should be redesigned so that policies and practices can be created to reduce prevalent inequities.

Our complicated hybrid system is an offspring of an inherited colonial education model and a cocktail of more recent and haphazard reforms in the 21st century that were mandated without considering the commonly agreed purpose of schooling.

This is a global phenomenon. When new governments take office, new education reforms often follow. Only states with less politicised education systems and more sustainable political systems - such as Finland - have the luxury of not responding this way. Where education is overly politicised, governments often want to leave their mark by rushing to introduce education reforms without deeper contemplation of their possible side effects.

Instead of making schools better, teachers are asked to do more on top of all their previous duties. Through this, Australian schools have become crowded places - like a Christmas tree decorated to the point that we can't see the tree anymore.

In principle, fixing Australian education is not that difficult, and there have even been moments in the past when this could have happened.

I first visited Australia in 2012. That February, just minutes before boarding my flight to Melbourne, I received an email from an Australian colleague. Attached was the 300-page document now known as the Gonski review, released to the public that very day. My maiden trip to Australia couldn't have started more optimistically.

The purpose of that trip was to meet with state and territory education-system leaders, speak to teachers about international trends in education and address politicians at Parliament House in Canberra. The newspaper I bought at Melbourne airport had this headline: "Surplus before schools as Gonski report decries student advantage." If Australia followed Gonski's recommendations, I concluded, it would be on a good course towards realising the goals of the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (2008).

Australia has one of the most researched and reviewed education systems in the world, says Sahlberg, and good recommendations have been left unimplemented. Photograph: courtneyk/Getty Images

A decade has passed since the Gonski review, and its recommendations - never fully implemented - are now part of history. Much of the momentum to make those sorely needed structural changes, especially regarding funding, was watered down by political speculations and ideological confrontations. Education reforms continued to ignore evidence from abroad and research from Australian scholars. Many educators were left disappointed and some remain upset, for good reason. Somehow it feels that we are back to square one.

Disappointment has gradually turned into frustration: is it really true that the Australian education sector can't be changed? Much of the rest of the world has now chosen different directions and some countries are making early progress, such as Scotland, Sweden and some American states.

Can Australia change course before it's too late?

The simple solution requires us to stop doing things that are not linked to improved teaching and learning. Keeping consequential school accountability, standardised testing and a narrow focus on academic curriculum in the driver's seat of education policy is not just unnecessary, it's also harmful to building the professional trust in teachers and schools that is one condition for moving forward.

More complicated, but equally crucial, is to accomplish bipartisan political consensus on the values and principles upon which school education is based. This includes a shared understanding of the purpose of education and how it serves to create a stronger national sense of "common good". This is not a radical ask. All high-performing education systems have succeeded not because one side won an ideological confrontation but because all have reached out to one another for agreement. Too often, political decisions fail to address that "common good" in favour of privileges for some.

Back to the Sydney Opera House.

The idea of this place being designed by a Danish architect was hard for many Australians to accept. Construction was an engineering nightmare: nothing like this had been built before. The final cost was more than 10 times the original estimate, and many people thought the whole project was ridiculous and unnecessary. The decade-long political fiasco of its construction almost ruined the original idea of the building, ending with lifelong damage to many relationships and erosion of public trust in bureaucracy and politics. Isn't this a bit like trying to build a new Australian education system?

We have an alternative education system envisioned in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration and inspired by the Gonski review but it's widely rejected and misunderstood. Many seem to believe that this country has such a unique history and culture that restructuring its education system is too complicated. And, just as it happens with arts and design, when politics becomes the main driver of decisions, things begin to go wrong.

Of course, today, the Sydney's Opera House is a Unesco world heritage site, one of the world's most famous and admired structures.

Photograph: Griffith Review

The solutions that will fix the Australian education system are within our reach and - unlike the Opera House's construction budget - do not require more and more financial investment. What is needed, more than money, is the imagination and political courage to implement the bold new ideas that would successfully convert yesterday's failures into new opportunities for tomorrow. Australia built an Opera House in Sydney that many thought would be impossible. Similarly, we can rebuild a school system that offers good education and a fair go for all.

Transforming Australia's school education systems is not only mission possible; it's a moral obligation for a country that calls itself an education nation. Both history and science underscore that trust in teachers as professionals is the way to educational equity and excellence.

That evidence is clear - and the road ahead should be too.

This is an edited extract from Griffith Review 75: Learning Curves, out now. Pasi Sahlberg is professor of education policy at the University of NSW. He is the author of Finnish Lessons: What the World Can Learn from Educational Change in Finland

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The Australian school system has a serious design flaw. Can it change before it's too late?

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was trembling. Not because I was about to do something risky or scary - quite the opposite. This was a situation I had been in many times before, but I was nervous about what was going to happen next. I was on the Concert Hall stage at the Sydney Opera House looking at an audience of about 2,000 people.

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Doing a VET subject in years 11 and 12 can help with a job and uni. Here’s what you need to know about VET in the senior years

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Doing a VET subject in years 11 and 12 can help with a job and uni. Here’s what you need to know about VET in the senior years

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Doing a VET subject in years 11 and 12 can help with a job and uni. Here’s what you need to know about VET in the senior years

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Around 45% of secondary students do VET for employment reasons, while 30% do it for further study.

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Defunding private schools is not on, but we can make education fairer

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Defunding private schools is not on, but we can make education fairer

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Opinion

Associate professor David Hastie

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The high volume of non-government schools in our nation is internationally unique, and it is now irresistibly enmeshed in the loose, writhing threads of the Australian social contract. This scenario was never planned.

Regardless of one's beliefs about how our education systems should run, it is time we all recognised that there can be no return to the ascendancy of the old order - the total dominance of a comprehensive, free, compulsory and non-sectarian state schooling system. Devised 140 years ago, this model had to be highly centralised to achieve the urgent goal of basic elementary education, for a population that was mostly illiterate, mainly rural and torn by vicious religious divisions.

Too big to fail: parents have voted with their feet to support private schools. Credit:Louie Douvis

State schooling was tweaked postwar to introduce compulsory secondary schooling, but the design of public education has remained essentially the same: totally centralised from head offices in capital cities, and underpinned by an enduring narrative that all schools, and their communities, are fundamentally disadvantaged and cannot run themselves.

But now more than 1.4 million children in Australia are enrolled in faith-affiliated non-government schools that run themselves. That's 40 per cent of secondary students. In the eastern capital cities, it is almost half of senior secondary students.

More than 90 per cent of these schools are affiliated with religion, mostly Christianity, but there is a growing number of high-quality Islamic-affiliated schools, and a stable and highly influential Jewish school presence. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 2020-21, during COVID, total state school enrolments fell from 65.6 per cent to 65.1 per cent, the largest single annual drop in enrolments since records began.

Advocates for a strong public education system - and I am one - need to face the truth. Such mass social commitment by so many families to non-government schools is electorally irrevocable.

Because of the "partial voucher" funding structure devised under the Whitlam government, whereby a reduced percentage of public funding proportionally follows the student, regardless of which school they attend, public or private, the fiscal benefit of funding non-government schools is economically irreversible.

To "defund private schools", as columnist Jenna Price suggested in this masthead, would cause the imminent collapse of the federal budget, and the collapse of state education that would be unable to house the extra enrolments, or the states' economies if they were to produce the massive new infrastructure.

The general quality of education and care most non-government schools produce is indisputable, as is their appeal. Critics of non-government schooling regularly argue private schools are not as good as everyone thinks, but follow the money: parents are not dupes. The non-government school sector's share of enrolments has grown for 30 years straight. It is now too big to fail.

None of this was intended as our social design, and - disturbingly - no master plan exists for a new order that weaves government and non-government schooling into a coherent national identity. In the absence of such a vision, we are seeing unintended consequences: pressure on the quality of education in many state schools, and faith-based schools watching on frustrated as what they most abhor at the heart of their credos grows steadily: social inequity and social division.

More than 1.4 million children in Australia are enrolled in faith-affiliated non-government schools. Credit:Edwina Pickles

For inequity has never been our way, and is never the mission of teachers. But many educators are now part of an unintended structure that produces inequity and social fragmentation.

This has nothing to do with ideology, but rather a simple metric: our high level of school choice - according to the OECD, the highest in the world - means parents can vote with their feet. When enrolments jump from state to non-government schools in postcodes with lower social capital,they take a proportion of public funding and higher social capital families with them. This drain is driving many state schools into a spiral of decline and disadvantage. It is a burden that educators of religious faith are frustrated by, and bear heavily.

I know of no religious schools that don't seek to counterbalance global and local social injustice through their own co-curricular education. But the current structure is creating a force field of its own.

A decade of Gonski "sector blind" funding has not provided a solution because the problem is not about how schools are funded, but rather redefining why they exist, and co-exist in the tapestry of a nation. The much-needed school reform agenda, now under way, also fails to identify this crisis of incoherent identity.

It is little understood, furthermore, that virtually all of the many national policy reform and review committees relating to education - including the powerful quarterly ministerial council - are disproportionately representative of state schooling: less than 20 per cent of the membership of such committees represent non-government schools, which is less than half of their presence in the real population.

This is a structural archaism from the settlement of Federation in 1900: states have full technical responsibility for education, including its purpose and identity. But since Commonwealth intervention to fund non-government schools 50 years ago, state ministers are disconnected from the education of large swathes of their population. Again, it is nothing to do with ideology, but a structural blindness.

It is little wonder that most leaders and education bureaucracies appear exclusively focused on the lesser, more tangible mechanics of education, such as NAPLAN. It is far easier to merely focus on the how, when the why is - for want of a better term - a spiritual issue. We need to agree about the essential spirit of Australian education - its deep heart and purpose, and its intimate connection with the deep heart and purpose of our nation. Until we decide on these matters, together, no amount of tweaking NAPLAN will forge our future.

How a society organises school-age education becomes the foundation of that society. I believe the current approaches are a blueprint for division, including increasingly bitter arguments between those for or against religion in our national identity, with schools becoming their ideological battle grounds.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has signalled a "university accord" - a rethinking of the entire way our tertiary systems run. Something similar is needed for school education. The first step is dull but necessary: immediately alter the sector membership of national education policy committees to better reflect the population. Next, find a way for state ministers to be incentivised to care about what happens in non-government schools. Then non-government schools need to be incentivised to care about what happens in state schools, and visa versa, to find and create points of co-operation between students and teachers across the sectors.

State schools and non-government schools are passing like ships in the night, but in local reality, they are colliding. How to re-envision the future of Australian schooling and its relationship to our social contract is a complex and large project, but an urgent one for the quality and harmony of our nation.

It is far too late, and would be far too ugly, to reimpose a bland institutional uniformity. But it is not too late, as a diverse, plural democracy, to reach hands across the divide and come to a consensus around a common vision.
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Associate professor David Hastie is deputy vice-president of Alphacrucis University College.

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Defunding private schools is not on, but we can make education fairer

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Opinion Associate professor David Hastie Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size The high volume of non-government schools in our nation is internationally unique, and it is now irresistibly enmeshed in the loose, writhing threads of the Australian social contract. This scenario was never planned.

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A day in the life of Singaporean teacher

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A day in the life of Singaporean teacher

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Time for Learning: A Day in the Life of a Singaporean Teacher

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教育地圖-學制教改-fu2

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chat.openai.com.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dZ_lvDgevk

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In the Age of AI (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

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有了AI, 老師還需要教什麼？

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有了AI, 老師還需要教什麼？

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(中文資料)

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Finland Education (Australia, ABC News)_2020

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Finland Education (Australia, ABC News)_2020

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xCe2m0kiSg

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Why Finland's schools outperform most others across the developed world | 7.30

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aheDzMrKuEM

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HOW WE DO SCHOOL FINLAND : Ep 1 What's so Special?

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Learning to Teach in Practice: Finland's Teacher Training Schools

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National core curriculum for basic education

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National core curriculum for basic education

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The national core curriculum for primary and lower secondary (basic) education was introduced for grades 1-6 in all schools beginning on 1 August 2016. The curriculum was introduced for the higher grades of basic education in steps: the new curriculum was adapted by grades 7 on 1 August 2017, by grades 8 in 2018 and by grades 9 in 2019. The Finnish National Agency for Education introduced the National core curriculum for primary and lower secondary (basic) education in 2014. Education providers have drawn up their own local curricula based on the national core curriculum.

The national core curriculum provides a uniform foundation for local curricula, thus enhancing equality in education throughout the country. The curricula of each municipality and school steer instruction and schoolwork in more detail, taking local needs and perspectives into consideration. If necessary, the local curriculum may also revised later. The aim is that the curriculum serves as an active and flexible support for teaching and school activities.

The national core curriculum is mostly comprised of the objectives and contents described for different subjects which are connected to the description of the policies on underlying values, conception of learning and school culture. The purpose of the curriculum is to enable a reform of school culture and school pedagogy which will improve the quality of the learning process and enhance learning outcomes.

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National core curriculum for primary and lower secondary (basic) education

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The national core curriculum provides a uniform foundation for local curricula, thus enhancing equality in education throughout the country. The curricula of each municipality and school steer instruction and schoolwork in more detail, taking local needs and perspectives into consideration.

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From New Zealand Curriculum to school curriculum

Curriculum design and review is a continuous, cyclic process.

The process involves making decisions about how to bring the national curriculum to life in a manner that addresses the particular needs, interests, and circumstances of the school and community. The design and review process requires a clear understanding of the intentions of The New Zealand Curriculum and of the values and expectations of the community.

Above all, it clarifies priorities for student learning, the ways in which those priorities will be addressed, and how student progress and the quality of teaching and learning will be assessed.

Curriculum change should build on existing good practice and aim to maximise the use of local resources and opportunities.

Curriculum is designed and interpreted in a three-stage process: as the national curriculum, the school curriculum, and the classroom curriculum.

The national curriculum provides the framework and common direction for schools, regardless of type, size, or location. It gives schools the scope, flexibility, and authority they need to design and shape their curriculum so that teaching and learning is meaningful and beneficial to their particular communities of students.

In turn, the design of each school's curriculum should allow teachers the scope to make interpretations in response to the particular needs, interests, and talents of individuals and groups of students in their classes.

All New Zealand students should have the opportunity to receive a rich and balanced education that reflects the national curriculum.

The principles should underpin and guide the design, practice, and evaluation of curriculum at every stage.

The values, key competencies, and learning areas provide the basis for teaching and learning across schools and within schools. This learning will contribute to the realisation of a vision of young people who will be confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners.

Key considerations:

The relationship between The New Zealand Curriculum and the school curriculum

The New Zealand Curriculum sets the direction for teaching and learning in English-medium New Zealand schools. Note that it is a framework rather than a detailed plan.

This means that while every school curriculum must be clearly aligned with the intent of this document, schools have considerable flexibility when determining the detail. In doing this, they can draw on a wide range of ideas, resources, and models.

Schools are required to base their curriculum on the principles of The New Zealand Curriculum, to encourage and model the values, and to develop the key competencies at all year levels.

In years 1-10, schools are required to provide teaching and learning in English, the arts, health and physical education, mathematics and statistics, science, the social sciences, and technology.

Principles

The principles are the foundations of curriculum decision-making. They embody beliefs about the nature of the educational experience and the entitlement of students; they apply equally to all schools and to every aspect of the curriculum. Schools should be able to clearly demonstrate their commitment to the principles and to articulate how they are given affect in teaching and learning.

Values, key competencies, and learning areas

The New Zealand Curriculum identifies values to be encouraged and modelled and to be explored by students, key competencies that students will develop over time and in a range of settings, and learning areas that describe what they will come to know and do. Schools need to consider how each of these aspects of the curriculum will be promoted and developed in teaching and learning. They can do this in different ways.

Schools may, for example, decide to organise their curriculum around one of these three aspects (values, key competencies, or learning areas) and deliberately weave the other two through their programmes. Alternatively, they may decide to organise their curriculum around central themes, integrating values, key competencies, knowledge, and skills across a number of learning areas. Or they may use another approach or a combination of approaches.

The values, competencies, knowledge, and skills that students will need for addressing real-life situations are rarely confined to one part of the curriculum. Wherever possible, schools should aim to design their curriculum so that learning crosses apparent boundaries.

Values
Every school has a set of values. They are expressed in its philosophy, in the way it is organised, and in interpersonal relationships at every level. Following discussions with their communities, many schools list their values in their charters.

The New Zealand Curriculum identifies a number of values that have widespread community support. These values are to be encouraged and modelled, and they are to be explored by students. Schools need to consider how they can make the values an integral part of their curriculum and how they will monitor the effectiveness of the approach taken.

Key competencies
The key competencies are both end and means. They are a focus for learning - and they enable learning. They are the capabilities that young people need for growing, working, and participating in their communities and society.

The school curriculum should challenge students to use and develop the competencies across the range of learning areas and in increasingly complex and unfamiliar situations. Opportunities for doing this can often be integrated into existing programmes of work.

Use opportunities provided by the ways school environments and events are structured.

There will be times when students can initiate activities themselves. Such activities provide meaningful contexts for learning and self-assessment.

In practice, the key competencies are most often used in combination. When researching an issue of interest, for example, students are likely to need to:

set and monitor personal goals, manage time frames, arrange activities, and reflect on and respond to ideas they encounter (managing self)

interact, share ideas, and negotiate with a range of people (relating to others)

call on a range of communities for information and use that information as a basis for action (participating and contributing)

analyse and consider a variety of possible approaches to the issue at hand (thinking)

create texts to record and communicate ideas, using language and symbols appropriate to the relevant learning area(s) (using language, symbols, and texts).

When designing and reviewing their curriculum, schools will need to consider how to encourage and monitor the development of the key competencies.

They will need to clarify their meaning for their students. They will also need to clarify the conditions that will help or hinder the development of the competencies, the extent to which they are being demonstrated, and how the school will evaluate the effectiveness of approaches intended to strengthen them.

With appropriate teacher guidance and feedback, all students should develop strategies for self-monitoring and collaborative evaluation of their performance in relation to suitable criteria. Self-assessments might involve students examining and discussing various kinds of evidence, making judgments about their progress, and setting further goals.

Learning areas
The learning area statements describe the essential nature of each learning area, how it can contribute to a young person's education, and how it is structured. These statements, rather than the achievement objectives, should be the starting point for developing programmes of learning suited to students' needs and interests. Schools are then able to select achievement objectives to fit those programmes.

None of the strands in the required learning areas is optional, but in some learning areas, particular strands may be emphasised at different times or in different years. Schools should have a clear rationale for doing this and should ensure that each strand receives due emphasis over the longer term.

Links between learning areas should be explored. This can lead, for example, to units of work or broad programmes designed to:

develop students' knowledge and understandings in relation to major social, political, and economic shifts of the day, for example, through studies of Asia and the Pacific Rim

develop students' financial capability, positioning them to make well-informed financial decisions throughout their lives.

Future focus
Future-focused issues are a rich source of learning opportunities. They encourage the making of connections across the learning areas, values, and key competencies, and they are relevant to students' futures.

Such issues include:

sustainability - exploring the long-term impact of social, cultural, scientific, technological,
economic, or political practices on society and the environment

citizenship - exploring what it means to be a citizen and to contribute to the development and well-being of society

enterprise - exploring what it is to be innovative and entrepreneurial

globalisation - exploring what it means to be part of a global community and to live amongst diverse cultures.

Achievement objectives

The achievement objectives found in The New Zealand Curriculum set out selected learning processes, knowledge, and skills relative to eight levels of learning. These desirable levels of knowledge, understanding, and skills represent progress towards broader outcomes that ultimately amount to deeper learning.

When designing and reviewing their curriculum, schools choose achievement objectives from each area to fit the learning needs of their students.

Some achievement objectives relate to skills or understandings that can be mastered within a particular learning level. Others are more complex and are developed with increasing sophistication across a number of learning levels. The broader and more complex an objective, the more significant it is likely to be for a student's learning.

It is important for both planning and teaching purposes that schools provide clear statements of learning expectations that apply to particular levels or across a number of levels. These expectations should be stated in ways that help teachers, students, and parents to recognise, measure, discuss, and chart progress.

A school's curriculum is likely to be well designed when:

principals and teachers can show what it is that they want their students to learn and how their curriculum is designed to achieve this

students are helped to build on existing learning and take it to higher levels. Students with special needs are given quality learning experiences that enable them to achieve, and students with special abilities and talents are given opportunities to work beyond formally described objectives

the long view is taken: each student's ultimate learning success is more important than the covering of particular achievement objectives.

Curriculum design and practice should begin with the premise that all students can learn and succeed (see the high expectations principle) and should recognise that, as all students are individuals, their learning may call for different approaches, different resourcing, and different goals (see the inclusion principle).

Assessment

The primary purpose of assessment is to improve students' learning and teachers' teaching as both student and teacher respond to the information that it provides.

With this in mind, schools need to consider how they will gather, analyse, and use assessment information so that it is effective in meeting this purpose.

Assessment for the purpose of improving student learning is best understood as an ongoing process that arises out of the interaction between teaching and learning. It involves the focused and timely gathering, analysis, interpretation, and use of information that can provide evidence of student progress.

Much of this evidence is "of the moment". Analysis and interpretation often take place in the mind of the teacher, who then uses the insights gained to shape their actions as they continue to work with their students.
Use of assessment information Select this link to open a text version of this diagram.
This diagram shows the different groups of people involved in supporting students' learning and the purposes for which they need assessment information.
Some characteristics of effective assessment
Effective assessment:

benefits students - It clarifies for them what they know and can do and what they still need to learn. When students see that they are making progress, their motivation is sustained and their confidence increases.

involves students - They discuss, clarify, and reflect on their goals, strategies, and progress with their teachers, their parents, and one another. This develops students' capacity for self- and peer assessment, which lead in turn to increased self-direction.

supports teaching and learning goals - Students understand the desired outcomes and the criteria for success. Important outcomes are emphasised, and the teacher gives feedback that helps the students to reach them.

is planned and communicated - Outcomes, teaching strategies, and assessment criteria are carefully matched. Students know in advance how and why they are to be assessed. The teacher's programme planning is flexible so that they can make changes in response to new information, opportunities, or insights.

is suited to the purpose - Evidence is obtained through a range of informal and formal assessment approaches. These approaches are chosen to suit the nature of the learning being assessed, the varied characteristics and experiences of the students, and the purpose for which the information is to be used.

is valid and fair - Teachers obtain and interpret information from a range of sources and then base decisions on this evidence, using their professional judgment. Conclusions are most likely to be valid when the evidence for them comes from more than one assessment.

Assessment is integral to the teaching inquiry process because it is the basis for both the focusing inquiry and the learning inquiry.
School-wide assessment
Schools need to know what impact their programmes are having on student learning.

An important way of getting this information is by collecting and analysing school-wide assessment data. Schools can then use this information as the basis for changes to policies or programmes or changes to teaching practices as well as for reporting to the board of trustees, parents, and the Ministry of Education.

Assessment information may also be used to compare the relative achievement of different groups of students or to compare the achievement of the school's students against national standards.
Assessment for national qualifications
The New Zealand Curriculum provides the basis for the ongoing development of achievement standards and unit standards registered on the National Qualifications Framework, which are designed to lead to the award of qualifications in years 11-13. These include the National Certificate of Educational Achievement and other national certificates that schools may choose to offer.

The New Zealand Curriculum, together with the Qualifications Framework, gives schools the flexibility to design and deliver programmes that will engage all students and offer them appropriate learning pathways. The flexibility of the qualifications system also allows schools to keep assessment to levels that are manageable and reasonable for both students and teachers. Not all aspects of the curriculum need to be formally assessed, and excessive high-stakes assessment in years 11-13 is to be avoided.

Learning pathways

As students journey from early childhood through secondary school and, in many cases, on to tertiary training or tertiary education in one of its various forms, they should find that each stage of the journey prepares them for and connects well with the next. Schools can design their curriculum so that students find the transitions positive and have a clear sense of continuity and direction.
Early childhood learning Te Whāriki: He Whāriki Mātauranga mō ngā Mokopuna o Aotearoa
This curriculum for early childhood education provides children with a foundation for ongoing learning. You can download a PDF of the document.

Four principles underpin the Te Whāriki: Empowerment, Holistic Development, Family and Community, and Relationships.

Te Whāriki includes five curriculum strands.

Together, they provide a foundation for lifelong learning.

These strands correspond to the key competencies identified in this document.
Learning in years 1-6
The transition from early childhood education to school is supported when the school:

fosters a child's relationships with teachers and other children and affirms their identity

builds on the learning experiences that the child brings with them

considers the child's whole experience of school

is welcoming of family and whānau.

This new stage in children's learning builds upon and makes connections with early childhood learning and experiences. Teaching and learning programmes are developed through a wide range of experiences across all learning areas, with a focus on literacy and numeracy along with the development of values and key competencies.
Learning in years 7-10
During these years, students have opportunities to achieve to the best of their abilities across the breadth and depth of the New Zealand Curriculum - values, key competencies, and learning areas - laying a foundation for living and for further learning.

A responsive curriculum will recognise that students in these years are undergoing rapid physical development, becoming increasingly socially aware, and encountering increasingly complex curriculum contexts. Particularly important are positive relationships with adults, opportunities for students to be involved in the community, and authentic learning experiences.

Students' learning progress is closely linked to their ongoing development of literacy and numeracy skills. These continue to require focused teaching.
Learning in years 11-13
The New Zealand Curriculum allows for greater choice and specialisation as students approach the end of their school years and as their ideas about future direction become clearer. Schools recognise and provide for the diverse abilities and aspirations of their senior students in ways that enable them to appreciate and keep open a range of options for future study and work. Students can specialise within learning areas or take courses across or outside learning areas, depending on the choices that their schools are able to offer.

In these years, students gain credits towards a range of recognised qualifications. Schools can extend this range by making it possible for students to participate in programmes or studies offered by workplaces and tertiary institutions. Credits gained in this way can often be later transferred to tertiary qualifications.

The values and key competencies gain increasing significance for senior school students as they appreciate that these are the values and capabilities they will need as adults for successful living and working and for continued learning.
Tertiary education and employment
Tertiary education in its various forms offers students wide-ranging opportunities to pursue an area or areas of particular interest. Some tertiary education focuses on the highly specific skills and discipline knowledge required, for example, by trades, ICT, and health professions. In other cases, the emphasis is on more broadly applicable skills and theoretical understandings, developed and explored in depth, which provide a foundation for knowledge creation.

Tertiary education builds on the values, competencies, discipline knowledge, and qualifications that students have developed or gained during their school years. Recognising the importance of key competencies to success at tertiary level, the sector has identified four as crucial: thinking, using tools interactively, acting autonomously, and operating in social groups. These correspond closely to the five key competencies defined in this document.

In the past, many young people finished all formal learning when they left school. Today, all school leavers, including those who go directly into paid employment, should take every opportunity to continue learning and developing their capabilities. New Zealand needs its young people to be skilled and educated, able to contribute fully to its well-being, and able to meet the changing needs of the workplace and the economy.

The key competencies: Cross-sector alignment

This diagram suggests how the tertiary competencies align with those of Te Whāriki and The New Zealand Curriculum:
Select this link to open a text version of this diagram.

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Curriculum design and review is a continuous, cyclic process. The process involves making decisions about how to bring the national curriculum to life in a manner that addresses the particular needs, interests, and circumstances of the school and community.

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Rethinking Learning - A Review of Social and Emotional Learning For Education Systems

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•Germany PISA Shock in 2001

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4vVwWBqlCM

•Netherlands

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLEapFKVROo

•Finland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwD1v73O4VI&t=456s

•Japan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygInMvH30QU

•Korea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJhzdIBUPs0

•Shanhai

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxT94FXwSPM

•Singapore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km25TAnPbI4

•Canada

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4d9o6RpYDM

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From RAS to NCEA(New Zealand assessment)

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From RAS to NCEA(New Zealand assessment)

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This website has been wound up and is no longer maintained. For up-to-date information and resources about the NCEA Change Programme, go to NCEA.education.govt.nz.

A significant number of the changes to NCEA will be delivered as part of the Review of Achievement Standards (RAS).

The RAS will involve many teachers and other experts from the education sector working in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to develop new NCEA standards across a range of subjects. These new achievement standards will replace all existing NCEA achievement standards by January 2025.

The Ministry of Education has set up about 50 Subject Expert Groups – comprised of about 400 practising teachers, academics and representatives from the tertiary and industry sectors – to help develop these new achievement standards and supporting teaching and assessment resources for each subject.

In preparation for the work in developing new NCEA standards, draft teaching and assessment resources for NCEA Level 1 English, Science, Religious Studies and Visual Arts were developed and released for public feedback from 10 December 2019 to 2 March 2020. The feedback and results from the Trial and Pilots phase will help refine the process that will be used in developing standards and supporting resources for all NCEA subjects.

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New Zealand School Evaluation Indicators

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New Zealand School Evaluation Indicators

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Key competencies matter because things have changed. Since our education systems were first established there has been enormous change in the nature of societies, change in the nature of work, change in how knowledge is viewed, and change in technologies, to name just a few. Those changes, and the certainty of ongoing change, have implications for the kind of education our young people require. The key competencies put today's students at the centre, and bring a future-focused perspective to teaching and learning.

In this video, Secretary for Education Karen Sewell explains the importance of building an education system that helps students learn how to learn and to manage the demands of a profoundly different world. (Duration 2:11)

Key competencies matter because they support dispositions that will enable young people to learn well now, and to go on learning throughout their lives. Margaret Carr explains that dispositions mean learners are ready, willing, and able:

It is no longer sufficient for students to merely acquire knowledge and master skills. Students need opportunities to develop their capability as users of knowledge and skills in wide-ranging contexts now and in the future.

They also need to be capable of using those competencies in diverse contexts - at school, in the community, at home, with friends, with peers, in mathematics and statistics, in the arts, and other learning areas.

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Key competencies matter because things have changed. Since our education systems were first established there has been enormous change in the nature of societies, change in the nature of work, change in how knowledge is viewed, and change in technologies, to name just a few.

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A Review of the Provision of Social and Emotional Learning in Australia, the United States, Poland, and Portugal

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T Levels: what they are

T Levels are new 2-year courses which are taken after GCSEs and are broadly equivalent in size to 3 A Levels. Launched in September 2020, these courses have been developed in collaboration with employers and education providers so that the content meets the needs of industry and prepares students for entry into skilled employment, an apprenticeship or related technical study through further or higher education.

T Levels offer students practical and knowledge-based learning at a school or college and on-the-job experience through an industry placement of at least 315 hours - approximately 45 days.

The courses are available at selected colleges, schools and other providers across England.

T Levels are being gradually rolled out. The first 16 have now been launched and our aim is to have 24 T Levels available.

We have published a list of the providers offering T Level courses up to September 2024.

How T Levels will work with other qualifications

T Levels will become one of the main choices for students after GCSEs alongside:

apprenticeships for students who wish to learn a specific occupation 'on the job'

A levels for students who wish to continue academic education

other qualifications not served by A levels or T levels, including sport science, performing arts and small qualifications designed to be taken alongside A levels

The Department for Education ( DfE) is streamlining and improving the quality of the post-16 level 3 qualifications system. We are strengthening progression pathways, creating clearly defined academic and technical routes with high quality qualifications leading to further study, and/or skilled employment. This will help students to make good choices and see more easily how their study will help them to progress.

T Levels are based on the same standards as apprenticeships, designed by employers and approved by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (the Institute).

We expect the total time for a T Level to be around 1,800 hours over the 2 years, including the industry placement. This is a significant increase on most current technical education courses.

T Levels differ from an apprenticeship. T Levels prepare students for work, further training or further study. An apprenticeship is typically 80% on-the-job and 20% in the classroom and is more suited to those who want to earn a wage and learn at the same time, and are ready to enter the workforce at age 16.

How T Levels have been developed

Employers and providers work together to develop each T Level, with support from DfE and the Institute. Groups of employers have defined the skills and requirements for each T Level course by participating in T Level panels. This ensures that students taking T Levels will develop the technical knowledge and skills required by employers in that industry.

The T Level panels have developed the content for the technical qualifications which are part of each T Level programme, based on the same standards as apprenticeships. These plans are then tested and reviewed with students, education providers and additional employers.

The technical qualifications for 2020, 2021 and 2022 T Levels have been approved by the Institute.

Structure of a T Level

T Levels require students to undertake both a technical qualification and an industry placement with an employer.

Students are also required to work towards the attainment of maths and English if they have not already achieved grade 4 at GCSE, as students do on other 16 to 19 programmes. However, T Level students are no longer required to achieve either a grade 4 in English and maths GCSE or level 2 in functional skills to pass their programme.

Transition programme

The T Level transition programme is a 1-year post-GCSE study programme designed to support progression to, and success on, a T Level. It's aimed at students who would like to do a T Level but would benefit from additional preparation and support before starting one.

The programme gives students the opportunity to study technical content aligned to T Levels and develop their English, maths and digital skills, alongside work experience and personal development.

You can see a list of providers delivering the transition programme.

The T Level transition programme framework for delivery has guidance on how the programme should be delivered from academic year 2022 onwards.

Industry placements

Every T Level includes an industry placement with an employer focused on developing the practical and technical skills required for the occupation. These will last a minimum of 315 hours (approximately 45 days) but can last longer.

Employers can offer industry placements as a block, day release or a mix of these, and can discuss sharing part of the placement with another employer if necessary.

Providers will support employers offering industry placements. This will include assistance with paperwork, a careful planning process and support with designing the industry placement.

DfE 's employer engagement teams work with employers of all sizes and providers on industry placements.

Employers interested in finding out more about industry placements can contact 08000 150 600, email tlevel.placement@education.gov.uk or visit T Levels and industry placement support for employers.

Grading and certification

Students who complete their T Level get a nationally recognised certificate which shows their overall grade and a breakdown of what they have achieved.

The T Level certificate includes:

an overall grade for the T Level, shown as pass, merit, distinction or distinction*

a separate grade for the core component, using A* to E

a separate grade for each occupational specialism, shown as pass, merit or distinction

It also confirms that the student has:

completed the industry placement

met any additional mandatory requirements

A student's overall T Level grade is worked out from the grades they achieved on the core component and the occupational specialism(s).

Students who do not pass all elements of their T Level get a T Level statement of achievement which shows the elements they have completed.

If students have attained maths or English qualifications at level 2, this is also referenced on T Level certificates and statements of achievement.

Entry to higher education and UCAS tariff points

T Levels provide several progression options for students, including:

skilled employment

an apprenticeship

higher education

To help T Level students progress into higher education, UCAS tariff points are allocated to T Levels.

UCAS points are allocated to the overall T Level grade. Students must achieve at least an overall pass grade to receive UCAS points.

To support students that partially achieve their T Level, UCAS tariff points are also available for both elements of the technical qualification:

an allocation for students that have passed the core component and completed the industry placement

an allocation for students that have passed the occupational specialism component and completed the industry placement

As the relative weighting of the core and occupational specialism for each T Level varies, the UCAS points for partial achievement will also vary across T Levels. Tariff allocations for partial achievement of each T Level are available on the UCAS tariff calculator.

You can find a list of higher education institutions who accept T Levels for entry onto one of their courses.

Register to deliver T Levels

Providers can register to deliver T Levels from September 2024.

The closing date for registration is 24 March 2023. We recommend that providers register as early as possible so they can take advantage of support that will be offered.

Funding for providers

We recognise that significant additional funding is needed for the successful introduction and delivery of T Levels.

T Levels involve more hours than most current technical qualifications at level 3 and providers are funded for the extra hours involved and for organising industry placements.

Guidance on the next steps for providers includes more information on how T Levels are funded.

All T Level providers receive funding for state-of-the-art specialist equipment. All providers, apart from independent training providers, can bid for funding to refurbish existing facilities or build new buildings. Over £400 million has been made available so far for T Levels capital.

Support for professional development

To be sure that T Levels deliver great outcomes for learners, we are giving teachers and leaders the support they need to deliver them. T Level professional development is available from the Education and Training Foundation ( ETF), at no charge to all providers delivering and planning to deliver T Levels.

The offer is shaped around the needs of providers and their workforce alongside relevant regional, employer and curriculum needs. It includes:

training needs analysis to help identify any gaps in skills and knowledge around T Levels

understanding T Levels to help staff in different roles understand T Levels and how they can support their successful introduction

T Level role and route-specific training - pedagogical and subject-specific courses, and other activities structured to meet an individual's professional development needs

professional development for leaders - support for staff in leadership roles to help with T Level planning and implementation.

networks and TRIPs - route-specific networks and T Level resource improvement projects (TRIP) providing opportunities to produce resources for planning and delivering T Levels

industry insights - opportunities for staff to increase and update their knowledge by:

undertaking placements within industry

accessing industry-relevant mentoring

participating in group industry collaboration

engaging in industry-led workshops

Timeline

September 2020

The first T Level courses started in:

design, surveying and planning for construction

digital production, design and development

education and early years

September 2021

T Level courses started in:

building services engineering for construction

digital business services

digital support and services

health

healthcare science

onsite construction

science

September 2022

T Level courses started in:

accounting

design and development for engineering and manufacturing

engineering, manufacturing, processing and control

finance

maintenance, installation and repair for engineering and manufacturing

management and administration

September 2023

T Level courses will start in:

agriculture, land management and production

legal services

September 2024

T Level courses will start in:

animal care and management

craft and design

hair, beauty and aesthetics

media, broadcast and production

September 2025

T Level courses will start in:

Further planned T Levels

A T Level is planned in Catering, for delivery beyond 2024.

Find out more

Students

Visit our T Levels website where you can add your postcode to find colleges, schools or other providers who are offering T Levels. You can also find guidance at the Get the Jump content hub.

Watch our industry placement videos to hear from students and employers who have benefited from industry placements.

Employers

To find out more about industry placements, contact 0800 0150 600, email tlevel.placement@education.gov.uk or visit T Levels and industry placement support for employers.

Providers

The T Level action plan has detailed information about how we have been developing the T Level qualifications for post-16 students since 2017.

It includes sections on:

the rollout of T Levels

case studies

T Level provider information

T Level results and certification

T Levels for adults

T Level capital

progression to and from T Levels

the Ofsted Thematic Review of T Levels

the role of IfATE in T Level delivery

industry placements

communications and marketing

We also have information for providers about the next steps towards delivering T Levels.

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T Levels are new 2-year courses which are taken after GCSEs and are broadly equivalent in size to 3 A Levels. Launched in September 2020, these courses have been developed in collaboration with employers and education providers so that the content meets the needs of industry and prepares students for entry into skilled employment, an apprenticeship or related technical study through further or higher education.