Rolf van der Velden

Why are Migrant Students Better Off in Certain Types of Educational Systems or Schools than in Others

The main research question of this article is concerned with the combined estimation of the effects of educational systems, school composition, track level, and country of origin on the educational achievement of 15-year-old migrant students. The authors focus specifically on the effects of socioeconomic and ethnic background on achievement scores and the extent to which these effects are affected by characteristics of the school, track, or educational system in which these students are enrolled. In doing so, they examine the ‘sorting’ mechanisms of schools and tracks in highly stratified, moderately stratified, and comprehensive education systems. They use data from the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) wave. Compared with previous research in this area, the articles main contribution is in explicitly including the tracks-within-school level as a separate unit of analysis, which leads to less biased results concerning the effects of educational system characteristics. The results highlight the importance of including factors of track level and school composition in the debate surrounding educational inequality of opportunity for students in different education contexts. The findings clearly indicate that analyses of the effects of educational system characteristics are flawed if the analysis only uses a country level and a student level and ignores the tracks-within-school-level characteristics. From a policy perspective, the most important finding is that educational systems are neither uniformly ‘good’ nor uniformly ‘bad’, but they can result in different consequences for different migrant groups. Some migrant groups are better off in comprehensive systems, while others are better off in moderately stratified systems.

A Framework for Monitoring Transition Systems

With its publication of the Thematic Review on the Transition from Initial Education to Working Life in 2000, OECD has laid the foundation for the development of indicators regarding the transition from education to work. One of the core activities of OECD’s Network B in 2005 and 2006 was to further develop these indicators by establishing a framework for monitoring transition systems. A transition system is defined as “the social institutions and processes through which a society provides its members to make the transition from the education system to the employment system”. The current report presents the results of this developmental work. It first presents the results of a quick scan carried out among the Network B members on the policy goals for transition systems and relevant indicators used to assess national situations (November 2002-January 2003). Next a theoretical framework is presented that identifies the most relevant characteristics of transition systems. It also relates the outcomes of the transition system to relevant characteristics of the educational system on the one hand and the employment system on the other hand. Based on the results of the quick scan and the developed theoretical framework, an evaluation of the earlier defined policy goals is carried, proposing a new set of 11 policy goals. As a next step, the existing data sources from OECD, EUROSTAT and major international surveys have been analysed to identify relevant indicators for the policy goals as well as descriptors for relevant other aspects of the developed framework. This report presents an overview of these indicators and descriptors. The theoretical framework and the developed set of indicators have been discussed at the March 2006 meeting of the Network B in Washington DC. Members of the network have also sent written comments. All these comments have been taken up in this final version. The report concludes with recommendations for the further data collection strategy. En publiant l’etude « Thematic Review on the Transition from Initial Education to Working Life in 2000 », l’OCDE jette les bases necessaires a la mise au point d’indicateurs dedies a la transition entre les etudes et la vie active. En 2005 et en 2006, le Reseau B de l’OCDE s’est principalement consacre a affiner ces indicateurs en elaborant un cadre de suivi des systemes de transition. Un systeme de transition est defini comme « les institutions et les processus sociaux qui permettent a une societe de fournir aux individus les moyens d’assurer la transition entre le systeme educatif et le marche du travail ». L’etude presente les resultats de ces travaux : dans un premier temps, elle fait le point sur les resultats d’une evaluation rapide realisee parmi les membres du reseau B sur les objectifs des systemes de transition en termes d’action publique et sur les indicateurs retenus pour apprecier la situation dans chaque pays (novembre 2002-janvier 2003). Ensuite, l’etude presente un cadre theorique visant a identifier les caracteristiques les plus pertinentes des systemes de transition. Un lien est ensuite etabli entre les resultats du systeme de transition et les caracteristiques pertinentes du systeme educatif d’une part et du marche du travail de l’autre. Enfin, en s’appuyant sur les conclusions de l’evaluation rapide et sur le cadre theorique presente, l’etude evalue les objectifs definis precedemment en termes d’action publique, pour en proposer 11 nouveaux. Les sources de donnees existantes issues de l’OCDE, d’EUROSTAT et des principales enquetes internationales ont ete analysees en vue d’identifier les indicateurs pertinents pour les objectifs d’action publique et les caracteristiques descriptives des autres aspects importants du cadre theorique. L’etude fait la synthese de ces indicateurs et de ces caracteristiques descriptives. Le cadre theorique et les indicateurs ont ete examines lors de la reunion de mars 2006 du Reseau B a Washington DC et les membres du reseau ont egalement transmis leurs commentaires par ecrit. Tous ces commentaires ont ete pris en compte dans la version finale de l’etude, qui conclut en proposant des recommandations pour la strategie de collecte des donnees.

Competence indicators in academic education and early labour market success of graduates in health sciences

In this study, the effects of several educational and non‐educational indicators of competence on short‐term labour market outcomes for university graduates are estimated. The research question is: to what extent do indications of specific and generic competence during the educational program predict labour market outcomes? Labour market outcomes in this study pertain to employment chances and quality of the job. We use data on specific and generic aspects of competence, all of which were assessed during the university programme, i.e. test scores on the attainment of domain specific knowledge, scores on group functioning, and the Masters’ thesis result. In addition, some other indicators of human capital acquired outside education are used, i.e. relevant work experience and managerial experience. The results indicate a rather differentiated pattern for the value of specific and generic competence acquired during education for the labour market. Group functioning scores have large effects on attaining jobs on the academic level.

From school to fitting work: How education-to-job matching of European school leavers is related to educational system characteristics

Although optimal labour market allocation of school leavers benefits individuals, employers and societies, a substantial part of European school leavers do not find a job that matches their field or level of education. This paper explores the extent to which horizontal and vertical education-to-job matches of European school leavers from secondary education is associated with the level of stratification, standardization, and the level of vocational orientation and institutional linkages of education systems. We combine notions of signalling theory, human capital theory and job matching theory to formulate hypotheses about how education systems affect horizontal and vertical education-to-job matches. We use micro-data on 30,805 school leavers in 20 European countries from the 2009 Ad Hoc Module of the European Labour Force Survey and data on system characteristics. Using multi-level logistic regression, we show that the level of stratification of secondary education is associated with better vertical job matches. We also find that the positive relation between being vocationally trained and education-to-job matches is stronger in systems with stronger institutional linkages. The positive relation between being vocationally trained and vertical job matches is less strong in more vocational oriented systems. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Higher Education and Graduate Employment in the Netherlands

There are 13 universities, nine of which provide teaching and conduct research in a wide range of disciplines in arts and sciences. Three (technical) universities offer courses mainly in science and engineering subjects and one is specialised in agricultural sciences. The HBO sector was established in the late 1960s when colleges for higher vocational training were upgraded. Major reforms in this sector resulted in the amalgamation of more than 400 smaller institutions oriented towards specific professional fields into large institutions providing a wide range of vocationallyoriented courses, with a standard period of study of four years. Today, there are some 65 HBO institutions providing theoretical and practical training with a clear vocational orientation. They have an important societal task of transferring and developing knowledge for the benefit of the professions in both the industrial and service sectors. In addition, other institutions are considered as higher education institutions. First, there are a limited number with ‘university status’, such as the institutes of theology and the university of business administration. Second, there are a number of private institutions which offer courses in various professional fields such as economics, management, and engineering. Often these are structured as distance learning courses and recently more institutions have been seeking recognition from the Ministry of Education to issue diplomas at HBO-level. Third, the Open University provides both university and HBO degrees through distance learning with a number of support centres around the country. The first university degree is close to the master degree. It is obtained after a standard four-year course. Exceptions are several science and engineering courses mainly at the three technical universities and increasingly at the general universities which, as from 1995, last for five years. Medicine, pharmacy, and veterinary medicine studies last for six years. The HBOs award the first degree after four years. In the past, the length of study varied from three to six years, depending on the field. Since 1986, it has

Positive but also Negative Effects of Ethnic Diversity in Schools on Educational Performance? An Empirical Test Using PISA Data

In this chapter, we will estimate the effects on language skills of two characteristics of school populations: average/share and diversity, on both the ethnic and the sociocultural dimensions. We will use the cross-national Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2006 data for native students and students with an immigrant background, in which both cohorts are 15 years old. A greater ethnic diversity of school populations in secondary education hampers the educational performance of students with an immigrant background but does not significantly affect that of native students. The sociocultural diversity of schools has no effect on educational performance. However, the level of the curriculum attended by the students and the average parental sociocultural status of schools are important variables that explain the educational performance of children. A higher share of students of non-Islamic Asian origin in a school increases the educational performance of both native and immigrant students of other origins in that school. Students from non-Islamic Asian countries in schools with higher shares of students of non-Islamic Asian origin perform better than do comparable students originating from other regions. Students originating from Islamic countries have substantially lower language scores than do equivalent students with an immigrant background from other regions. This cannot be explained by individual socioeconomic backgrounds, school characteristics, or educational systems.

Early school-leaving in the Netherlands: the role of family resources, school composition and background characteristics in early school-leaving in lower secondary education

This study explains early school-leaving in lower secondary education in the Netherlands, taking into account background characteristics, family resources and school composition factors at the same time. We distinguish four groups of school-leavers: ‘dropouts’ (those without any qualification), those who leave school with a diploma in lower secondary education (‘low qualified’), those who complete apprentice-based tracks (‘apprentices’) and those who continue education and receive a full upper secondary qualification (‘full qualification’). The breakdown into these four groups reveals clear differences in the effects of different factors on the risk of early school-leaving.

The Flexible Professional in the Knowledge Society: Required Competences and the Role of Higher Education

This chapter provides a brief overview of the theoretical underpinnings of the REFLEX project and describes some of the key findings. Attention is paid to the demands made of graduates and the extent to which they are prepared by higher education to meet these demands. Five domains are identified in which graduates are thought to be faced with particularly high demands: professional expertise, functional flexibility, innovation and knowledge management, mobilisation of human resources and international orientation. As well as describing the extent to which graduates experience a shortage or a surplus of competences in these domains, we pay attention to competences that are considered specifically weak or strong points of the higher education program. We look at national differences in the way in which higher education is organised and explore the role of higher education in equipping graduates with the competences they need to meet the five demands. We also look at the extent to which higher education provides a good basis for participation in the labour market, for career and personal development and for the development of entrepreneurial skills, and examine how program characteristics are related to graduates’ evaluations of these aspects.

Self-assessments or tests? Comparing cross-national differences in patterns and outcomes of graduates' skills based on international large-scale surveys

In this paper an analysis is carried out whether objective tests and subjective self-assessments in international large-scale studies yield similar results when looking at cross-national differences in the effects of skills on earnings, and skills patterns across countries, fields of study and gender. The findings indicate that subjective skills measures do not correlate well with objective measures of similar constructs when looking at cross-national differences. Countrywise associations between subjective skills measures and earnings do not correlate well with those found using objective skills measures. Moreover, cross-national differences in the level of subjective skills measures do not correlate well with cross-national differences in skill levels based on objective tests. Nor do gender differences found using subjective skills measures correlate with those found using objective skills measures. This does not mean that self-assessments cannot be used, but they need to be restricted to analysing within-country differences. Within countries, self-assessments do a good job in predicting skills differences across fields of study and also in predicting the effect of skills on earnings. When comparing gender differences in skills levels within countries, however, one needs to be aware that females tend to overestimate their skills levels in typical ‘female’ domains like literacy.

Measuring Competences in Higher Education

The theme of this conference, “Modeling and Measurement of Competences in Higher Education”, indicates that there is a growing awareness that the measurement of competences should not be restricted to primary and secondary education, but should also enter into the domain of higher education.