Education is Life - The OECD Skills Strategy for the Developing World

26 June, 2:00 p.m., Plenary Chamber
Hosted by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

Education is not preparation for life - education is life itself”, American educational reformer John Dewey once said. This observation still holds true today. In a growing number of countries what we can achieve in life is not determined by our family backgrounds, our sex or our faith but by the skills and competences we have managed to acquire. Still, we should not consider education a goal in itself. It can only act as a driver of economic and social change if it strives to meet the needs of today’s society. This is where the OECD’s Skills Strategy comes into play: Training more and more people is not enough - we must also take care to match their skills to the demands of potential employers.

OECD countries investing abroad increasingly rely on locally trained human capital. At the same time developing countries are keen on attracting more of it to support their visions of growth. The OECD Skills Strategy aims at improving the supply of, anticipating the demand for, and optimising the use of skills in the workforce to promote economic growth and social inclusion. A careful selection of policy options from the Strategy will support developing countries and development partners in ensuring better links between plans for economic and for human capital development.

The workshop will discuss a roadmap for policy support to developing and emerging countries. A short presentation of the Skills Strategy by the OECD Secretariat, followed by comments from a representative of an OECD country and an emerging economy will set the scene for the discussion.

Panelists:

Ängmo, Helén
Deputy Director General; Skolverket/Swedish National Agency for Education, Stockholm, Sweden

Ghosh, Shoba Mishra
Director FICCI (Industry's Voice for Policy Change), India

Ischinger, Barbara (Moderator)
Director, OECD Directorate for Education, France