While the quality of online education is a subject of intense debate among educators, parents and students alike, what is no longer open to debate is the need for digital literacy. A recent report in The Guardian affirmed that adults with Internet skills are 25% more likely to get work and to earn as much as 10% more than their colleagues who don’t have such skills.

Canadian education enjoys an excellent reputation at home and abroad, thanks to strong performances in such renowned surveys as OECD PISA, which focuses on 15-year-olds. There are several reasons for this success, and as experts from the OECD and Canada explain, reforms that focus on equity and integration all help. But there are challenges too.

Canadian education enjoys an excellent reputation at home and abroad, thanks to strong performances in such renowned surveys as OECD PISA, which focuses on 15-year-olds. There are several reasons for this success, and as experts from the OECD and Canada explain, reforms that focus on equity and integration all help. But there are challenges too.

Are today’s students prepared for the knowledge economy of the 21st century? What basic skills do they have, and how do different countries rank against each other when it comes to basic tasks such as reading, mathematics and science?

Anyone wondering why knowledge and skills are important to the future of our economies should consider two facts.

Unemployment soared in the crisis, and creating jobs is now a major policy priority. But jobs alone will not be enough. A greater emphasis on skills will be needed for the recovery to last. Investing more in lifelong learning is a good way to secure one's place in the job market and contributes to business competitiveness.

The OECD’s general conference, Higher Education in a World Changed Utterly: Doing more with less, identified one of the great challenges of expanding university systems: can higher education provide value while admitting more students and cutting back on spending in a recessionary climate? The problem is that no one knows how to measure the “value” of higher education.

As governments try to maintain their global competitiveness, increase the flexibility and responsiveness of labour markets and deal with issues of population ageing, the OECD is launching a Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) to assess the skills individuals posess, how they use them at the work place, and how better skills feed into better jobs, higher productivity, and ultimately better economic and social outcomes. The aim of the programme is to help governments understand how education and training systems can nurture the skills and competencies needed for individuals to participate in knowledgebased societies.

According to European Union data, around 20% of jobs in Europe are either in the information and communication technology sector or require skills in that field. How prepared are today’s students for living and working in a digital world? The OECD’s New Millennium Learners project explores what drives students to use computers, and how computer use affects education performance. Its study, Are the New Millennium Learners Making the Grade? Technology Use and Educational Performance in PISA, shows that there is not a simple correlation between using computers and doing well in school. Rather, there is evidence of a second “digital divide” emerging–not between students who do and don’t have computers, but between those students who have the skills to benefit from computer use and those who don’t.

Income levels of sons are often influenced by the income levels of their fathers, OECD research shows. The height of each bar on the graph measures the extent to which sons’ earnings levels reflect those of their fathers. The correlation is strongest in the UK, Italy and the US, and much less so in Denmark, Australia and Norway.

Jobs crisis or no, it's best to invest in education. As this year's edition of Education at a Glance shows, men and women who have university-level degrees earn far more over the course of a lifetime than those who don't. In fact, men with higher education in Italy and the US can earn over US$300,000 more than their counterparts who do not have a university degree. Rewards tend to be lower for women, with Korea and Spain the exceptions.