European Expert Network on Economics of Education

This document provides a forward-looking summary of important themes and issues to inspire future European Commission’s work in the field of economics of education and training. The summary highlights specific focus areas covered by recently published research and foresight studies (between July and December 2021) and are relevant to the European Commission’s programme 2022 and the Directorate General for Education, Youth, Sport, And Culture (DG EAC) Strategic Plan 2020-2024.

Which factors drove the comparatively different performances of Member States with regard to school closures and remote learning during the pandemic? No single aspect of governments’ approaches ensured success. This Policy Brief explores the roles of two factors:

This Policy Brief has been produced by authors Miroslav Beblavý and Barbara Bačová and is based on the EENEE Analytical Report "Policy measures to monitor and mitigate the negative impacts of COVID-19 and COVID-19 related policy measures on education".

This Analytical Report extends beyond analysing the negative impact on children’s

education of the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures imposed in relation to it and goes

on to describe the various policy responses implemented to counter these threats. The

report focuses on seven EU Member States (Denmark, France, Italy, Lithuania, the

Netherlands, Slovakia and Sweden) but is also informed by global experience and uses

several examples from other countries. It covers response at the level of primary,

secondary and higher education, looking at topics such as preparedness and subsequent

policy learning, the relationship between adaptability and decentralisation, measures to

support connectivity, as well as mitigation measures after the end of lockdowns.

The report looks into the impacts of COVID-19 on education for sustainable development (ESD). It provides an overview of existing evidence on policy responses to COVID-19 targeting either ESD specifically or the provision of education generally at schools, vocational education and training, and higher education. The integration of ESD and impacts by the COVID-19 pandemic are analysed following the dimensions and aspects of sustainability relevant to each education level. The report shows how some of the policy responses to the crisis caused by the pandemic enable or challenge the promotion of ESD. It also suggests recommendations for future promotion and adoption of ESD that are structured according to the five UNESCO 2020-2030 Roadmap priority areas: advancing policy; transforming learning environments; building capacities of educators; empowering and mobilising youth; and accelerating local level actions.

This report responds to the need among EU and national-level stakeholders to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the learning progress of disadvantaged children, and how the educational inequality that has increased during the pandemic can be reduced and mitigated over the coming years. The report looks at both the current widening gap in learning progress between disadvantaged children and their peers, as well as the impact this may have on their social and economic opportunities in the future. As a result, the report provides both short- and medium-term recommendations to address these disruptions to the learning progress, as well as long-term recommendations to reduce social and economic inequality in the future.

The policy brief titled An International Perspective on Gender Gaps along the Educational Trajectory was produced by EENEE Network Member Martina Viarengo, the author of the analytical report on Gender Gaps in Education: Evidence and Policy Implications.

The policy brief summarises the following aspects of the report:

· The state of gender gaps;

· Empirical evidence;

· Educational context;

· The structure of the labour market.

EENEE is pleased to announce the publication of the policy brief on Patterns of School Segregation in Europe. This policy brief is based on the Analytical Report (No. 45) written by Helena Holmlund and Björn Öckert.

The brief highlights key findings from the Report, including:

This Analytical Report focuses on gender gaps in educational attainment and educational trajectories. It provides a review of recent research and state-of-the-art empirical evidence by examining the economic literature. It documents trends and how gender gaps vary by level of educational attainment and field of study. Furthermore, the report shows that gender differences in educational choices are significant and persist over time. It highlights the heterogeneity in gender gaps in STEM and across related sub-fields.

This Analytical Report documents school segregation across Europe today and demonstrates the extent to which Europe’s different school systems and diverse demographic profiles can explain some of the variations in segregation across countries. It also illustrates how much of the test score gaps across schools can be explained by differences in student background.

EENEE publishes a policy brief accompanying the recent analytical report on Quality of School Life and Student Outcomes in Europe.

The policy brief is available in English, French and German languages.

The latest EENEE Analytical Report on Quality of School Life and Student Outcomes in Europe by Asenka Hristova and Ekaterina Tosheva.

There is little research offering consistent estimates of the quality of school life aspects across EU education systems and analysing their predictive value for different outcomes of schooling.

This study aims to fill the existing gap by providing a research model for measuring the subjective quality of school life for EU students based on large-scale international assessments like the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

Using individual data from 189 468 15-year-old EU students who participated in the PISA 2018 assessment cycle, the analytical model provides valid subjective measures for six specific QSL dimensions:

We are delighted to share the summary of the latest (period between January and June 2021) research trends.

As part of the EENEE’s advisory function, the Coordination team tracks the latest research trends from the most prominent academic journals in the field of economics and/or education. In addition to the academic journals, the Coordination team considers the most recent publications from the major international organisations such as OECD, UNICEF, and UNESCO.

The latest ad-hoc report on The impact of COVID-19 on apprenticeship markets is prepared by EENEE expert Samuel Mühlemann.

EENEE publishes an ad-hoc report on The Labour Market Returns to Classroom-based Vocational Education prepared by  EENEE expert Christopher Jepsen.

The report covers the following aspects:

EENEE publishes a new ad-hoc report on Financing Education in the Context of COVID-19 prepared by authors Kristof De Witte and Mike Smet.

The report covers the following aspects:

Do workers and firms take advantage of the lower opportunity cost of labour and invest in adult learning during recessions, in the hope of having higher skills when the economy will take up again? We investigate the relationship between adult learning and the business cycle in the EU-27 countries, using data from the European Labour Force Survey for the period 2005-2018. We define “training” as non-formal learning, and “adult learning” as a broader concept that includes both non-formal and formal learning.

We find that adult learning is not sensitive to the business cycle. Training, instead, is mildly counter-cyclical. There are important differences by employment status: for the employed, adult learning is a-cyclical, yet training is counter-cyclical. We estimate that a 1 per cent decline in GDP per capita increases participation in the training of the employed by 0.95 per cent. For the not employed, both training and adult learning are pro-cyclical, and hence decrease in recessions. We find that a 1 per cent decline in GDP per capita reduces training hours for the not employed by 1.47 per cent. Counter-cyclical training of the employed is consistent with the view of recessions as times of firm re-organisation. Pro-cyclical training and adult learning for the not employed suggests the presence of credit constraints preventing the investment in skills during recessions.

EENEE is proud to announce the latest analytical report (No.43) on Human Capital During Recessions by Giorgio Brunello and Marco Bertoni.

In this report, the authors investigate the cyclicality of skill accumulation in Europe, using data from the European Labour Force Survey (ELFS) for 2005-18. Pooling data across all EU-27 countries, and across employed and not employed workers, the authors estimate that adult learning – which comprises both formal education and training – is acyclical and that training is mildly countercyclical. The report demonstrates that there is substantial heterogeneity in the cyclicality of adult learning and training both across European countries and by employment status.