Learning democracy ” “

Numbers, diagrams and tables to ‘photograph’ the situation of education in the industrialized world: the recently published 2002 OECD report – “Education at a glance” – provides just such a snapshot. It is full of the necessary data (referring to the years 2001-2002) for reliable comparisons between countries and educational traditions. We take this report as a starting point for an inquiry into the situation of the educational system in Europe and proposed reforms. “Education at a Glance 2002” contains 350 pages, subdivided into four chapters. The report measures children’s “civic capacity” from the age of 14, their ability “to understand the values of fundamental democratic institutions” and to distinguish between “the expression of an opinion and the statement of a fact”. According to the OECD, the nations that have enjoyed over 40 years of democracy are those in which 14-year-olds have most ability to interpret civil and political information. In Europe they are Great Britain, Greece, Finland, Italy, Norway and Sweden. The percentage of those with school-leaving certificates in the OECD countries is estimated at 70%, but this percentage rises to 90% in Germany, Hungary, Poland and the Slovak Republic; this reflects both different educational policies and the changing needs of the labour market. Traditionally backward countries, such as Spain and Portugal, are rapidly recovering. Lower is the percentage of graduates, which averages only 26% in the OECD countries, rising to 30% or more in Finland, Poland, and the UK, but falling to below 20% in Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Czech Republic and Germany. It is curious to note, on the other hand, that as far as doctorates are concerned, the highest percentage in the countries of Europe is registered in Italy, 85%; at the bottom of the table is France, with only 35% completing doctorates. The degree of education of the workforce in Europe is very varied: low in Portugal and Turkey, where over 2/3 of employees did not complete secondary schooling, around 50% in Italy and Spain, but rising to at least 85% in Germany, Switzerland, Poland, the UK, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Norway. The social value of these data is considerable, since “education plays a key role in providing the individual with the knowledge, skills and capacity to participate actively in society and in the economy”. The choice of what subjects to study presents predictable results: one graduate out of three opts for social sciences, law or economics. Literature and language, arts subjects and teacher training courses follow in popularity, with the consequence that graduates in the humanities represent the highest number in the countries that boast the highest number of graduates. A positive correlation can be drawn between level of education and level of income. According to the report, “there exists a turning-point between secondary schools and universities, a turning-point beyond which further education represents a particularly high recompense; the difference in earnings between graduates and those with school- leaving certificates is in fact higher than that between those who completed higher and lower secondary school. So a continuation in education may mean investing in human capital, formed by “a group of skills that the individual maintains or develops, thanks to education, and then offers on the labour market in exchange for income”. The improvement in human capital seems indeed to be the key factor that has determined growth in recent decades of countries like Italy, Ireland, Spain and Greece.