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
Lee Elliot Major, Andrew Eyles and Stephen Machin
7 July 2021
Claudia Hupkau and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela
15 June 2021
Ghazala Azmat and Katja Kaufmann
5 May 2021
Niklas Gohl, Peter Haan, Elisabeth Kurz and Felix Weinhardt
19 March 2021
Claudia Hupkau, Ingo Isphording, Stephen Machin and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela
1 March 2021
Jiaqi Li, Anna Valero and Guglielmo Ventura
16 December 2020
Jonathan Colmer and John Voorheis
2 December 2020