Sunday, January 12, 2020 | The Sunday Times

Topof theNews | A11

In partnership with

OECD education fast-changing word.

and skills chief Degrees signal what you did in
Andreas the past. They don’t necessarily
Schleicher says show what you can do today. I stud-
the degree ied physics but if you put me in a
aspirations of lab now, I won’t be able to do a
young great job.
Singaporeans
are Q Singapore will reach 40 per cent
understandable, cohort participation rate this year,
as research which means that four out of every
around the world 10 in an age group would be able to
has shown that enrol in one of the six universities in
those with Singapore for degree studies. This is
university a big increase from just a few years
degrees ago. Should we increase it further?
command a A In many countries, not just Singa-
premium in the pore, qualification levels have
marketplace. risen enormously with a lot more
LIANHE ZAOBAO people attaining tertiary qualifica-
FILE PHOTO tions.
But as I said, actually not all of
that is visible in better skills. Qual-
ity and degrees do not always
align.
So it is a good idea to provide
more places in higher and further
education, but do ensure that
there’s quality and it is relevant to
the future.
Across the industrialised world,
graduates are much less likely to
be unemployed and very likely to
have higher earnings.
The “haves” and “have nots” in
the economy are strongly linked
to levels of education.

One size
This also means that access to
About Andreas Schleicher higher education is an important
ingredient in promoting social mo-
Mr Andreas Schleicher, 55, is director for educa- bility.
tion and skills, and special adviser on education pol- Having said that, I would say,
icy to the secretary-general at the Organisation for there must be many choices and
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

does not fit

pathways in higher education.
in Paris. One size does not fit all.
As a key member of the OECD senior manage-
ment team, Mr Schleicher supports the secretary- Q Why is it important to be focused
general’s strategy to produce analysis and policy on skills?
advice that advances economic growth and social A The single most important find-
progress. ing from our analysis is, in fact,

all in higher
In addition to policy and country reviews, the that the knowledge economy no
work of the directorate includes the Programme for longer pays you for what you
International Student Assessment, the OECD Sur- know.
vey of Adult Skills, and the OECD Teaching and Google knows everything these
Learning International Survey. days. The knowledge economy
Before joining the OECD, Mr Schleicher was di- pays you for what you can do with

education
In this third of a Despite some calling into question
the value of a degree education,
four-part series on most Singaporeans are firmly in the
other camp.
higher education, In 2018, when the Organisation
work and skills, for Economic Cooperation and De-
velopment (OECD) surveyed
Senior Education 15-year-olds around the world on
rector for analysis at the International Association what you know.
for Educational Achievement. Success is no longer about repro-
He studied physics in Germany and received a de- ducing content knowledge, but
gree in mathematics and statistics in Australia. about extrapolating from what we
He is the recipient of numerous honours and know and applying that knowl-
awards, including the Theodor Heuss prize, edge to novel situations.
awarded in the name of the first president of the
Federal Republic of Germany for “exemplary Q You have called for diverse
democratic engagement”. pathways and different types of
He holds an honorary professorship at the Uni- higher education institutions, yet
versity of Heidelberg. the four-year traditional degree
A German citizen, Mr Schleicher is married, with model has remained for a long time.
three children. He speaks German, English, Italian Will it really change?
Mr Andreas Schleicher is director for education and skills, and French. A It will change and I feel it (the
and special adviser on education policy to the move towards change) is already
secretary-general at the OECD. ST PHOTO: SANDRA DAVIE Sandra Davie gathering pace in some parts of
the world.
There are MOOCs (massive
open online courses), microcre-

their degree aspirations, Singapore
Correspondent had by far the highest proportion
wanting to go to university.
Sandra Davie talks The Paris-based think-tank’s edu-
to OECD’s Andreas cation and skills chief Andreas
Schleicher says that the aspirations
Schleicher on how of young Singaporeans are under-
standable, as research around the
higher education world has shown that those with
institutions will university degrees command a pre-
mium in the marketplace.
have to transform In fact, a survey of adult-skills re-
sults released in 2017 showed that
themselves to stay Singapore has the highest percent-
age change in wages along with in-
relevant creases in the years of education
among the 34 economies surveyed
by the OECD’s Programme for the
International Assessment of Adult
Competencies (Piaac).
Every additional three years of ed-
ucation translates to a more than
30 per cent increase in wages in Sin-
gapore.
For countries, such as the United
States, the comparable figure is
around 20 per cent, while the
OECD average is a wage hike of less
than 15 per cent.
Mr Schleicher says the finding
does not mean that employers here
recognise and pay for better skills.
“I think, unfortunately, employ-
ers in Singapore, as in many other
countries, are using formal qualifi-
cations as a proxy for skills.”
He also cautions that just because
someone has a degree, it does not
mean he or she is highly skilled.
In fact, Piaac has shown that high
school graduates in some countries
have better literacy and numeracy
skills than tertiary-educated people
in other countries.
He also said that honing the skills
of students should be the focus of
not only universities, but also em-
ployers. Employers must recruit
based on the skills that candidates
possess and know how to extract
value from their workers’ skill sets.
He brought up the example of the
US and Japan to illustrate why it
was important that employers
make optimal use of workers’ skills.
The US has a low skills base com-
pared with Japan, but its economy
is more vibrant. Why is this so?
Piaac researchers looked at the ev-
idence and surmised that the Ameri-
can economy was exceptionally
good at extracting value from its
workers, including talented foreign-
ers who head to the US for further
education and jobs.
“It is because the employers there
recognise their skills, know how to
use them and are willing to pay a
premium for skills,” explained Mr
Schleicher.
“The reverse is true for Japan,
where rigid labour market arrange-
ments prevent many skilled individ-
uals, notably women, from going
into jobs where their skills can be
well used.”
He is full of admiration for Singa-
pore’s SkillsFuture movement,
which aims to develop every Singa-
porean to his fullest potential.
Singapore, he said, should not
only aim to raise the level of skills
among its population, but also look
at how to use its skilled and tal-
ented workforce better.
Q&A
Q You say qualifications, including
university degrees, are not always a
good predictor of the skills that
people currently have. Why so?
A Piaac, or our survey of adult
skills, shows that when you look at
the data across countries, there is
an overlap in the skills of high
school graduates and university
graduates.
Japanese high school graduates
come out better than university
graduates in many other countries
on foundation skills like literacy
and numeracy.
Also, even if a student acquires
skills and knowledge, these can
quickly become obsolete in this
dentials, industry certifications,
work-study and apprenticeship
programmes and coding schools,
like Holberton and 42.
I believe the future is not with de-
grees, but with microcredentials –
a certification indicating compe-
tency in a specific skill.
Learning will be done in many
different places and many differ-
ent ways, both online and offline.
Increasingly, employers will not
just be looking at degrees, but at cer-
tifications, badges and various
other forms of skills assessment.
It’s already happening in some
fields, such as computing, with
tech companies.
The current model of studying
four years for a degree and then go-
ing out to start your career will not
work any more.
We have to keep learning while
earning. You have to keep going
back to relearn and reskill as you
have to keep adapting to the
changes.
sandra@sph.com.sg