Category Archives: Education

Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The debate on whether skills training could emerge as a viable and scalable future alternative to college is long standing and heated. There appears to be, however, a mounting consensus that colleges and universities have not come close to keeping up with the skills demanded by …

“Opportunity@Work and Accenture call on employers to tap into the hidden pool of talent of “Skilled Through Alternative Routes” (STAR) workers”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Over 11.000 students aged 13 to 19 took part in Cambridge International’s first ever “Global Perspectives” survey. The results, announced on March 2, reveal that students are keener than ever before to learn about global issues like climate change in school, but almost a third …

“Cambridge Assessment International’s new survey reveals that students want to learn more about climate change in school”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village UNICEF released today the results of an online poll it conducted in February 2020 on 40.000 young people in over 150 countries. The poll revealed the major limitations of current education sytems in preparing young people for the skills needed for future work. Almost a …

“UNICEF teams up with PricewaterhouseCoopers to help equip young people around the world with the skills they need to get jobs”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Much has been said and written about the so called “21st century skills” but there is no real consensus on what is meant by this term and how these skills are included, if at all, in countries’ curricula. A new study by the IEA (International …

“New IEA study on schoolchidren will map how 21st century skills are defined and integrated in curricula across the world”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Students preparing for a job interview have to face a “stark new reality”, reads a recent article by Rachel Metz for CNN Business: they could be vetted in part by artificial intelligence. There is a surge in the use of algorithms to analyze details such …

“There’s a new obstacle to landing a job after college: getting approved by AI”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village What perhaps not many of us know is that over half of the world’s population is bilingual, says Victoria Murphy, Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Oxford, in her review of “The Bilingual Brain”, by Spanish neuropsychologist Albert Costa. Based on the author’s 20+ …

“High time to review the monolingual mindset when thinking about educational provision”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village If today’s youth aren’t adequately educated about the reality of climate change, its effects and the ways the planet can prevent it, how can impactful solutions be implemented? Climate change is an education priority, says the author of a recent article in SI News, echoing …

“Climate change is due to become central to learning in science, math and social studies”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The translation and adaptation of measurement instruments is of vital importance in achieving comparability of data in large-scale assessments. What is meant by “comparability” and how can translations be produced that meet the objectives for comparability? This was the overarching question at a methodological seminar …

“Report of OECD-GESIS seminar on translating/adapting instruments in large-scale assessments now published”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Reading is no longer mainly about extracting information; it is about constructing knowledge, thinking critically and making well-founded judgements”. “Students need to be able to read complex texts, distinguish between credible and untrustworthy sources of information, and between fact and fiction, and question or seek …

“Two recent key international assessments, PISA and ICILS, raise serious concerns about students’ capacity to critically assess information found online”

In general, the press reports too much on country ranking and benchmarking, and too little on more interesting data such as within-country variance; gender equality in the three OECD PISA studies domains; resources invested in education; the correlation between the students’ (and schools’) socioeconomic status and their performance on PISA literacy scales; the effect of …

“Release of OECD PISA studies 2018 results – worldwide resonance 🌎”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The assessment framework of the OECD Study on Social and Emotional Skills (SEL) has just been published. (1) Together with the previously published conceptual framework, the Study now has complete framework documentation explaining all of its substantive and methodological aspects, writes OECD Project Manager for …

“Social and emotional skills are not only important for individuals but also shape the larger communities and societies we live in”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Contrary to common assumption young people do not necessarily develop sophisticated digital skills just by growing up using digital devices: 18% of students who took part in the latest cycle of the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) failed to reach even the lowest …

“The latest cycle of ICILS reveals that over 40% of students have only minimal ability to critically assess information found online”