OECD’s 2008 Education at a Glance to be published on Tuesday 9 September

27/08/2008 - OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría will launch the 2008 edition of OECD’s annual Education at a Glance at a news conference at 11.00 a.m. on 9 September 2008 in Paris. This rich compendium of comparable statistics provides valuable underpinning for policy debate and decisions by education authorities.

The 2008 edition of Education at a Glance looks, among other things, at the choices countries are making as they seek to raise the effectiveness of investments in education. It also examines the equity challenges facing countries when young people from deprived backgrounds leave school with poor qualifications only to face worsening job prospects.

In addition to the news conference with Mr. Gurría at OECD headquarters, other media events are planned in the following locations:

London - Monday 8 September at 11.00 a.m. local time - news conference (under embargo until Tuesday 9 September at 10.00 a.m. London time – 11.00 a.m. Paris time) with Andreas Schleicher, Head of the Educational Indicators and Analysis Division in the OECD’s Education Directorate (Mountbatten Room, Overseas House, Park Place, St. James’s Street, London SW1A ILR).

Berlin - Tuesday 9 September at 11.30 a.m. local time - news conference with the head of OECD’s Education Directorate, Barbara Ischinger and the Federal Ministry for Education and Research as well as the Standing Conference of Education Ministers (Bundespressekonferenz, Schiffbauerdamm 40, D-10117 Berlin).

Tokyo - Tuesday 9 September at 4.00 p.m. local time - videoconference media briefing with Andreas Schleicher, Head of the Educational Indicators and Analysis Division in the OECD’s Education Directorate (OECD Tokyo Centre, 3rd floor, Nippon Press Centre Building, 2-2-1 Uchisaiwaicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0011). Interpretation in Japanese will be provided.

The 2008 edition of Education at a Glance will be available to journalists on the OECD’s password-protected website from 11.00 a.m. Paris time on Tuesday 9 September 2008. A special website will be available at www.oecd.org/edu/eag2008.

For further information and to register for the Paris and London news conferences, journalists are invited to contact the OECD’s Media Division (tel: +33 1 45 24 97 00).
For Berlin: The OECD Berlin Centre +49 30 2888 3541 - matthias.rumpf @ oecd.org
For Tokyo: The OECD Tokyo Centre +81 3 5532 0026 - noriko.mimura @ oecd.org