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In a world of tablets, smartphones and AI – how exposed should young children be to digital technologies? This episode of Top Class explores the latest research on the use of digital tech in creches, nurseries and kindergartens. OECD policy analyst Carlos González-Sancho tells OECD editor Duncan Crawford about the findings of the OECD report “Empowering Young Children in the Digital Age” and answers many questions, including: Should 2-6 year olds be allowed to use digital tech? How much screen time is OK? What are the key dangers of digital technologies? How can digital tech improve early childhood education? What are the potential benefits to careers and teachers?

On this OECD Education and Skills podcast Professor Patrick Newell from Shizenkan University joins Duncan Crawford, Senior Content Manager of the OECD's Education and Skills Directorate, to discuss how learning in schools could drastically change in the future.

Ensuring all children get an equal chance of succeeding at school is a goal of many policymakers. In the Canadian province of New Brunswick, they have put equity and inclusion at the heart of their education system. On the latest episode of the Top Class podcast, John McLaughlin, President & CEO of Atlantic Education International and former Deputy Education Minister for New Brunswick, speaks to OECD Education’s Senior Editor Duncan Crawford about how the province enshrined inclusive education into its school system, teachers under pressure and other challenges.

Cyberbullying is a growing problem worldwide and has serious consequences for students. It can take place on social media, gaming platforms and mobile phones, and often involves scaring, angering or shaming an individual or group. The experience can be incredibly traumatic for young people, who sometimes feel that escaping from it is impossible. It can also have academic consequences, with OECD data suggesting that students who are regularly bullied score lower on reading tests. As digital technologies radically change the way young people interact, communicate and get information, the OECD’s Education and Skills Directorate has released a working paper, Cyberbullying: An overview of research and policy in OECD countries, outlining ways to deal with the issue. The author, OECD analyst Francesca Gottschalk, and Christina Salmivalli, professor of psychology at the University of Turku in Finland, discuss what can be done.

From the autumn of 2019 till the pandemic shutdowns, schoolchildren in the millions marched to save Earth from irreparable climate crisis. Calling on world leaders to keep the planet’s temperature rise below 1.5°C by cutting carbon emissions, teens organised an unprecedented scale of climate strikes around the globe. And they are still going. Evidence from PISA 2018 bears out Generation Z’s environmental commitment: more than 2/3 of 15-year-olds in every country and economy feel they need to take care of our planet. How do schools help students build on this momentum? Anuna De Wever was one of the founders of the youth climate strike movement in Belgium. She is now a trade policy officer at the European NGO, Climate Action Network.

The uproar over the 2021 Revision of the California Mathematics Framework shows us how passionate people are about mathematics – and how we learn it. For many, however, math arouses not so much passion as fear, even, loathing. But does it have to be this way? Jo Boaler is a professor of mathematics education at Stanford University. She is the author of nine books on mathematics learning, including Limitless Mind: Learn, Lead and Live Without Barriers. In 2013, Boaler taught the first-ever Massive Online Open Course on mathematics education for Stanford University, called "How to Learn Math". Jo Boaler is an advisor to the PISA team at the OECD and one of the authors of the 2021 Revision of the California Mathematics Framework, which is an advisory for kindergarten-to-Grade 12 maths education in California.

There’s a gaping hole in the global education budget and it’s 200 billion US dollars deep. Yearly. Part of the problem has to do with taxes: Many developing countries raise less than 20% of their GDP in tax revenues and out of this, education should take up between 4 to 6% of GDP. That’s a tall order in deficitary times. Michael Ward, OECD Senior Analyst specialising in global educational development issues and Bert Brys, Senior Tax Economist at the OECD, walk us through efficient education spending and how to raise money for education through better taxing.

Sometimes the road to doing well at school goes through surprising places, like hip hop. In 2015, the Lycée Turgot in Paris pioneered a programme for 15- to 18-year-olds that combines regular academic classes with hip hop dance. The brainchild of teacher David Bérillon, Hip Hop Turgot now has students from all over the country, as well as the city’s less privileged catchment areas. Diversity is just as important as dancing in this small programme, along with academic excellence, and the social-emotional qualities of determination, social ease, self-confidence, and the belief that one can always do better – whether at break battles, math class, or in life. The OECD’s international Survey on Social and Emotional Skills tells us that students who think of themselves as highly creative also report high levels of intellectual curiosity and persistence. At this school, dance is the key to unlocking those qualities. Hip Hop Turgot is the subject of a documentary, Allons enfants. Pascale Guy, who is an English teacher at Lycée Turgot, is one of the main teachers involved in the programme.

Never before has critical thinking been so…critical. With so much compromised information online, how do we know what’s opinion? What’s fact? And what’s disinformation? Education can teach us to ask questions, check sources, and understand how algorithms impact the information we’re getting. And, none of this needs to be taught in STEM-based computer science courses – digital media and algorithmic literacy can be cleverly integrated throughout the curriculum. Kara Brissin-Boivin is Director of Research at Mediasmarts, Canada's Centre for Digital and Media Literacy. And OECD analyst Jordan Hill is the author of a new working paper on digital media literacy. They discuss what 21st-century critical thinking should look like.

For many LGBTQI+ students, school can be a hostile place. Bullying and the social and emotional strain of not feeling part of the sexual and gender mainstream is tough, especially for teens. Can teachers, principals, students and governments come together for the well-being of LGBTQI+ students? Can schools be safe, and creatively and intellectually stimulating places where LGBTQI+ students can not only learn in peace but succeed beyond their wildest dreams? That is the goal. To celebrate Pride month, Jody McBrien discusses “The Inclusion of LGBTQI+ Students across Education Systems”. Jody McBrien is a professor in the School of International Global Studies at the University of South Florida and currently on secondment at the OECD as a Council on Foreign Relations Fellow.

When factual information comes under attack, societies head into Orwellian waters. OECD’s Andreas Schleicher and Molly Lesher discuss disinformation and other forms of “untruths” and how to get the measure of a tenacious and elusive phenomenon. Societies can tackle harmful information through citizen- and AI-driven fact-checking and content tagging. Platforms can boost transparency and collaborate with governments to tamp down fake news and synthetic media. But the best defence of all is educating people to question and check information for themselves. Because for contemporary democracy to survive and thrive, it needs digitally literate citizens.

Kim Kardashian has been apprenticing with two lawyers for the past few years to become a lawyer herself in California. Apprenticeships like Kardashian’s “reading law” and vocational education training are career pathways that not enough young people are considering when deciding on what to do after high school. And maybe they’re not thinking about what happens after graduation because schools aren’t getting them “career ready” enough. New analysis of national longitudinal datasets and 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data show that it’s good for job markets and young people’s life outcomes when students start thinking about their future early on. Specifically, students whose schools organised first-hand encounters with people from the work world can expect to experience less unemployment and a greater likelihood of better-paying and fulfilling careers. Anthony Mann, senior policy analyst in the OECD’s Education and Skills directorate, talks to us about career readiness, apprenticeships and vocational educational training.

After the immediate needs of food, medical and psychosocial care, and housing, comes education. According to the UNHCR and UNICEF, “education for refugee children is arguably the best means available to help them, here and now, and to transform their futures.” Estonia is one of the countries on the front line for refugees fleeing the war. We talk to Viivian Jõemets, Chief Expert at the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research, specialising in language learning and migration, and OECD analyst Lucie Cerna, specialising in education and refugees, about how to best continue schooling and vocational training for refugee children and teenagers.