Despite the coronavirus global pandemic, education systems across the globe have made great efforts to maintain learning continuity. Education systems that are premised on equity, efficiency and high performance were well-suited for the challenges of the pandemic and the broader challenges of education in today’s world.

On September 8, 2020 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released its annual Education at a Glance report that examines the quality of learning outcomes, the policy levers and contextual factors that shape these outcomes, and the broader private and social returns that accrue to investments in education. In this webinar,  OECD Director for Education and Skills Andreas Schleicher and NCEE President and CEO Anthony Mackay took a special in-depth look at implications for U.S. schools and school systems stemming from the 2020 report.

During the webinar, Schleicher and Mackay provided key insights and takeaways from the report and discussed what it all means for state policy makers, district leaders and educators as they work to improve outcomes for students in the age of coronavirus. Schleicher and Mackay also discussed the theme of this year’s report, vocational education and training (VET), a sector that plays a central role in ensuring the alignment between education and work, the successful transition into the labor market, and for employment and the economic recovery more generally and that has been particularly hard hit by the pandemic.