Education and skills
The Education and Skills Programme looks at the cost-effectiveness of different options for delivering education. It also analyses the broader educational environment, including the implications of choice, competition and academisation.
A well-educated and trained workforce is key to economic productivity and to the reduction of social inequality. It is crucial for economic growth that education and skills evolve with the needs of modern labour markets.
Improving educational outcomes for those from disadvantaged backgrounds is a central driver of social mobility. There are many ways to invest in education, a core focus of the programme has been to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of different options for delivering education. For school-related policies this has included analysis of the efficacy of additional expenditure; pedagogical interventions (such as the "literacy hour" of the late 1990s and more recently synthetic phonics); and changing school structures. We have also analysed the broader educational environment, considering, for example, the implications of choice, competition and "academisation" for how students perform at school. A summary of what we have learnt so far is in the book Making a Difference in Education: what the evidence says by Robert Cassen, Sandra McNally and Anna Vignoles. Our research on these issues continues.
How education is delivered is only one factor determining student outcomes. Our programme also researches the causes and consequences of differential access to a good education, often influenced by neighbourhood, location, peers, composition of schools, and the policies and economic forces that shape these.
What of the longer-term effects of educational policies beyond school? We have, along with our Centre for Vocational Education Research worked extensively on linking newly available Department for Education data (eg Longitudinal Education Outcomes data) following students as they move into post-16 education, university and the labour market. Following the paths individuals take through school, further and higher education allows us to understand how the skills delivered by the system affect their labour market opportunities and social mobility.
Featured Work
Education and skills publications
Stephen Gibbons and Cheng Keat Tang
25 September 2023
Marco Bertoni, Gabriel Heller-Sahlgren and Olmo Silva
21 September 2023
Cristina Borra, Maria Iacovou and Almudena Sevilla
1 September 2023
Stephen Machin, Sandra McNally and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela
30 August 2023
Esteban M. Aucejo, Jacob French and Basit Zafar
1 August 2023
Myung Jin and Almudena Sevilla
25 July 2023
Jo Blanden, Marco Mello, Giuseppe Moscelli and Melisa Sayli
10 July 2023
Holger Class, Johannes Hommel, Dongwon Lee, Joseph Piotrowski, Holger Steeb and Felix Weinhardt
29 June 2023
Lee Elliot Major, Andrew Eyles and Esme Lillywhite
28 June 2023
Cristina Borra, Pilar Cuevas-Ruiz and Almudena Sevilla
21 June 2023
Stephen Machin, Sandra McNally and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela
20 June 2023
Anna Bindler, Randi Hjalmarsson, Stephen Machin and Melissa Rubio
17 June 2023
Lindsey Macmillan and Gill Wyness
15 June 2023
Lee Elliot Major, Andrew Eyles and Myung Jin
12 June 2023
Stephen Machin and Jonathan Wadsworth
26 May 2023
Esteban M. Aucejo, Claudia Hupkau and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela
1 May 2023
Cristina Borra, Pilar Cuevas-Ruiz and Almudena Sevilla
18 April 2023
Jo Blanden, Andrew Eyles and Stephen Machin
5 April 2023
Lucas Gortazar, Claudia Hupkau and Antonio Roldan
22 March 2023
Nye Cominetti, Rui Costa, Andrew Eyles, Kathleen Henehan and Sandra McNally
16 March 2023
Rui Costa and Yuanhang Yu
27 February 2023
Latest 25 publications shown. View all