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Pointing out that the term "videotex" is a general term covering three types of videotex systems, i.e., teletext, viewdata, and cable text, this paper briefly describes such systems and notes that their future depends on social acceptance and permeation as well as government regulations. The difficulties for international videotex networking caused by protocol conversions, politics, packet network delays, and charging difficulties are noted. The report then focuses on videotex activities around the world, including Japan, the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. The role of videotex in each country's educational system and factors affecting its feasibility are discussed, and examples of its usage are provided. Telesoftware is also discussed, and the paper concludes by forecasting trends and future developments. (DJR)

The paper uses data from the United States and several other industrialized nations to evaluate the costs of post-secondary education. Discussed are: variations on the concept of higher educational costs; three cost issues (how much higher education, the unit costs of higher education, and sharing the costs); higher education costs and social goals--equality of opportunity, efficiency, and equity; the costs of higher education in five nations (United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Sweden). Among the international trends identified are the following: (1) aggregate expenditures will increase in real terms; (2) the underrepresentation of children from less privileged socioeconomic classes will remain a great problem in all nations; (3) pressures to spend more on aggregate higher educational capacity and on a per-unit basis will be resisted by increasing pressures from governments (taxpayers) to lower unit costs and become more productive; (4) technology (though unsuccessful in altering unit costs in Europe and North America) may play a role in the cost-effective expansion of higher education in Asia and sparsely populated regions; (5) higher education will become increasingly differentiated; (6) higher education will continue to broaden its revenue base away from overwhelming reliance on the taxpayer. Forty-four endnotes are attached. (DB)

In 10 papers by independent experts, this volume explores the trends in and prospects for research training in member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. "Problems and Prospects of Research Training in the 1990s" (Stuart Blume) looks at trends in national policy toward research training and issues of quality. "Research Training in Australia--Policy, Practice, and Directions in the 1990s" (Tim Turpin and Sue Curtis) covers current issues including quality, and postgraduate training. "Research Training in Canada" (Gilles Julien), reviews university degree structure, current status, training and the labor market, and current concerns and initiatives. "Research Training in Finland" (Ulla Ekberg), looks at the Finnish system, steering mechanisms for researcher training, recruiting, characteristics of training, cooperation with business and industry, postgraduate study, and women in training. "Research Training in Italy" (Sveva Avveduto) describes research training inside and outside the university setting. "Research Training in Japan" (Shinichi Yamamoto), details the structure of degrees and scale of training, current organization and content of training, and current problems and initiatives. "Postgraduate Research and Training in the United Kingdom" (Robert G. Burgess and others), explores development of training; current dimensions and structure; training in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and financing; student motives and experience; the labor market and an institutional response. "Postgraduate Research Training in the United States" (Jules B. Lapidus and others), discusses degree and training structures, current organization and content of training, issues and concerns, and new initiatives. "Research Training in the Czech Republic" (Dana Tollingerova and others) reviews preparation for training, postgraduate studies, institutionalization and internationalization, legal conditions, and the current science policy of the government. An appended paper, "Research Training and Employment for Holders of Doctorates in France--The Activities of the Association Bernard Gregory (ABG)" (Jose Ezratty) describes the origin, operation and studies of the ABG, European initiatives, and the international mobility of French postdoctoral researchers. (Papers contain references.) (JB)

This study used data from the 1991-93 Carnegie International Survey of the Academic Profession to examine the perceptions of college faculty in regard to the emphasis on research over teaching in advanced-industrialized higher education systems, the compatibility of research and teaching, and job satisfaction. It focused on data from 8 countries (West Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, the United States, Australia, Israel, Japan, and South Korea), which included 13,984 faculty questionnaire responses. The study found that faculty with a research orientation (RO) generally spent more time on research, and that faculty with a teaching orientation (TO) spent more time on teaching. There was no significant difference in the mean job satisfaction of the two orientation groups, although higher ranking academics were found to be more satisfied than academics at lower ranks. A total of 43 percent of the RO faculty thought that their research had a positive effect on their teaching, whereas only 30 percent of the TO faculty felt that their research had a positive effect on their teaching. Country and gender effects are also discussed. (Contains 26 references.) (MDM)

The literature on employment growth in the United States and selected industrialized countries and the wage, benefits, and job security characteristics of new and existing jobs were analyzed to determine how job growth and quality in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s compares to that in other industrialized countries. Among the study's main findings were the following: (1) although job growth has been greater in the United States than in most other industrialized countries, only 20-30% of the differential in employment rates between the United States and European countries during the 1980s is accounted for by cross-country differences in unemployment rate trends; (2) not all groups benefited from the strong job growth in the United States in the 1980s (for example, rates of unemployment/labor force nonparticipation among less-educated prime-age men have increased significantly); (3) although a disproportionate number of new jobs were added in high-paying occupations in 1988-93, 20% of net new jobs were added in occupations at the bottom of the earnings distribution; and (4) the biggest deterioration in job quality in the United States has been due to deteriorating wages and benefits across a broad spectrum of new and existing jobs. (Contains 39 references.) (MN)

An international numeracy scale compared how well adults in seven countries--the United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, Australia, and Denmark--handled some basic tasks involving numbers. The questionnaire comprised a set of 12 numeracy tasks that respondents were asked to complete using pen and paper. Within each country, the numeracy tasks were posed to a representative sample of adults aged 16 or 18 to 59/60. Tasks included adding and subtracting decimals, simple multiplication, calculating area, calculating percentages, and using fractions. Comparing the percentage of respondents who managed to give the correct answer for all tasks, Japan emerged at the top with 43 percent, followed by France (40 percent), and the Netherlands (38 percent). Respondents in the United Kingdom performed least well with only 20 percent accurately completing all 12 tasks. When results were reviewed for the proportion of respondents getting most answers right, UK respondents could achieve an average of only 7.9 correct. All other nations achieved an average of 9 or more correct. Most difficulty overall was experienced with questions where respondents were asked to use fractions. Analyses inferred that the typical UK resident who struggled with basic numeracy was young, female, and from a working class household. (The report includes the full tabulated results for each question, summary tables, and these appendixes: technical notes, survey details by country, and the 12 tasks.) (YLB)

Public bodies hold a range of information and content ranging from demographic, economic and meteorological data to art works, historical documents and books. Given the availability of information and communication technologies (ICTs) public sector information can play an important role in producing innovative value-added services and goods. Furthermore, these technologies also provide a wider population better access to educational and cultural knowledge. Both commercial opportunities and the wider spread of information have positive economic and social benefits. Knowledge is a source of competitive advantage in the "information economy", for this reason it is economically important that there is wide diffusion of public information. Governments also have a basic commitment that citizens have to access national cultural heritage such as paintings, monuments and books; and this is also important for social inclusion. To contribute to better conditions for learning, the digitisation of cultural and educational resources is fundamental. New communication tools, such as interactive Web sites and games, often also reach groups of people with no previous interest, notably if they allow personal participation. OECD countries have recently initiated many programmes which use these tools for cultural and educational content. The main emphasis of policies has shifted to improving access to available resources, and preservation of content created digitally ("digitally-born") receives increasing attention. Public Sector information (PSI) constitutes the "raw material" for a variety of products and services in applications across a wide range of industries, and analysis has concluded that it is an important economic asset. This study gives an overview of the main areas of PSI and their commercial applications. Currently geographic and meteorological information have the greatest economic potential; and so far their use has had positive impacts on employment and growth. Specifically combining various types of PSI has led to the development of innovative products such as location-based services. Technological innovation including the development of mobile networks open up further markets for PSI-based services, and better data quality and e.g. increased interoperability open up cross-border services. Industry structure has also been affected by ICTs; often higher value added producers have taken the place of previous intermediary distributors in the production value chain. Further, the roles of public and private firms are changing and the growth of mobile services markets stimulates the development of PSI business re-use further. To develop competitive PSI markets, most OECD countries have attempted to ensure private service providers face the same conditions as public institutions, enabled private sector access to public data and clarified conditions under which these data can be used. For example portals have been developed that provide an overview of available PSI and conditions for use. Important questions are: which access regimes and re-use arrangements maximise the positive economic and other benefits of PSI, and which may for example develop commercial activities based on government-created content/data. In some OECD countries access regimes allow commercial re-users have cheap and readily available access to PSI. They then add value to the public data and re-sell it to firms and consumers. Some studies argue that such open access regimes improve competitive market conditions for PSI re-use, stimulate economic growth and create jobs. However there are also arguments that commercial re-users may have low-cost access to data which was costly to create for the government, and that taxpayers may pay twice for the PSI content (once for creation of government content, and the second time when purchasing the content from a commercial re-user, although provided re-use is non-exclusive, users can also go to the original source for the original information, presumably at lower cost, but without value-added services). On the other hand, in other OECD countries, there are access regimes where the public sector holds public sector information for its own use or employs cost-recovery strategies that allow only limited and potentially expensive access. In this scenario there are arguments that potential consumers of this data may have only restricted access to it, and that this approach is more costly to the consumer and for the taxpayer. Moreover, the potential economic gains from development of new commercial activities based on PSI reuse may be foregone. The economic and equity arguments surrounding commercial re-use of public sector information and content are complex and deserve considerably more analysis and policy attention. If public sector content is to be more widely available through ICTs, it is crucial that cultural institutions have adequate in-house capacities and sustainable financial resources for digitisation. In many countries the cultural sector has faced cuts in public funding, and efficient digitisation has been a challenge for small and regional institutions. While public resources will remain important, private-public partnerships and the development of e-learning markets provide alternatives to finance content digitisation. Public sector information can also be sold and monetized to develop self-sustaining revenue streams helping data creation and digitisation efforts. Networks and interactive communities are also important because they allow cost reductions along the lines of open software development. With respect to copyright many challenges for content preservation and diffusion arise. This study addresses challenges and related policy issues with respect to both PSI and public sector content. It is a first review of the area of public sector information and content and it is proposed that follow-up work be carried out in this area, particularly on the economic and distributional aspects of different access, cost, pricing and distribution models for public sector information and content. (A bibliography is included. Selected examples of digital education institutions/projects, recommendations for online cultural content, and related abbreviations are annexed. Contains 7 figures, 17 boxes and 6 tables.)

This paper explores the impact of policies and institutions on employment and unemployment of OECD countries in the past decades. Reduced-form unemployment equations, consistent with standard wage setting/price-setting models, are estimated using cross-country/time-series data from 21 OECD countries over the period 1982-2003. In the "average" OECD country, high and long-lasting unemployment benefits, high tax wedges and stringent anticompetitive product market regulation are found to increase aggregate unemployment. By contrast, highly centralised and/or coordinated wage bargaining systems are estimated to reduce unemployment. These findings are robust across specifications, datasets and econometric methods. As policies and institutions affect employment not only via their impact on aggregate unemployment but also through their effects on labour market participation -- particularly for those groups "at the margin" of the labour market, group-specific employment rate equations are also estimated. In the "average" OECD country, high unemployment benefits and high tax wedges are found to be associated with lower employment prospects for all groups studied, namely prime-age males, females, older workers and youths. There is also evidence that group-specific policy determinants matter, such as targeted fiscal incentives. The paper also finds significant evidence of interactions across policies and institutions, as well as between institutions and macroeconomic conditions. Consistent with theory, structural reforms appear to have mutually reinforcing effects: the impact of a given policy reform is greater the more employment-friendly the overall policy and institutional framework. Certain more specific interactions across policies and institutions are found to be particularly robust, notably between unemployment benefits and public spending on active labour market programmes as well as between statutory minimum wages and the tax wedge. Finally, it is shown that macroeconomic conditions also matter for unemployment patterns, with their impact being shaped by policies. (A bibliography is included. Contains 144 footnotes, 9 figures, 3 boxes and 27 tables.)

This paper presents composite indicators of the institutional and policy characteristics of educational systems, collated from the questionnaire responses of 26 Member countries. These indicators provide an overview of the institutional framework in the primary and secondary education sector and are constructed so as to be used for the analysis of international differences in spending efficiency. The key features of the institutional setting in the non-tertiary education sector are grouped under three headings: (1) the ability to prioritise and allocate resources efficiently (through decentralisation and mechanisms matching resources to specific needs); (2) the efficiency in managing spending at the local level (through outcome-focused policies and managerial autonomy), and (3) the efficiency in service provision (through benchmarking and user choice). For each country, an intermediate indicator is computed for each of these six institutional properties. Composite indicators then combine the six intermediate indicators of spending efficiency into a single, aggregate measure. Results are presented and some of their implications are discussed. Overall, the characteristics of the institutional framework in the non-tertiary public education sector seem to be very favourable, compared to OECD average, in the United Kingdom, Australia, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands, whereas results are less favourable for the Czech Republic, Greece, Luxembourg, Japan, Turkey, Hungary, Belgium (French speaking community), Switzerland and Austria. (Contains 3 tables, 15 figures and 14 endnotes.) (Abstract altered to meet ERIC guidelines.)

More than any previous generation, today's students need to develop a global perspective and be knowledgeable about other nations in order to play a better role on the global stage. This paper first reviews some earlier and current studies on students' knowledge of the world, mainly conducted in the United States, and then it describes the global education status and similar studies in countries like Canada, Russia, the United Kingdom, China, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Based on a review of studies in these countries, the paper proposes that contemporary assessments of students' cross-national and global knowledge and attitudes are necessary. The new research must be multinational, assessing what paired nations' school aged populations know about one another's history, geography, politics, economics, and international relations. (Contains 1 footnote.)

The contribution of higher education institutions to regional development is a theme that has attracted growing attention in recent years. Knowledge institutions are increasingly expected not only to conduct education and research, but also to play an active role in the economic, social and cultural development of their regions. The extent to which higher education institutions are able to play this role depends on a number of circumstances: the characteristics of the institutions, the regions in which they are located and the policy frameworks are all significant. At the same time, there are signs of more fundamental conceptual and strategic confusion. The discussions in this domain are frequently characterised by slogans and popular metaphors. This literature review was prepared to support the OECD project entitled 'Supporting the Contribution of Higher Education Institutions to Regional Development', which was conducted by the OECD Programme on Institutional Management in Higher Education (IMHE) in collaboration with the Directorate of Public Governance and Territorial Development. Drawing mainly from a selection of European and North American publications, the report takes an overall view on the development of higher education institutions in the regional context. It focuses on the evolution and discourses of higher education and research, the regional aspects of higher education policies, the various functions and roles that the institutions play, measures taken to link the universities with their regional partners, and the conditions which favour or hamper stronger regional engagement. (A bibliography is included. Contains 9 figures.)

To frame the larger research agenda requires an intimate blending of knowledge of the situations of foreign research universities and those of public research universities in the United States. The first step was to bring together for a two-day symposium a group of scholars and practitioners, some with deep and varied knowledge of United States public research universities and others with specific knowledge of the university systems and recent changes in pertinent foreign countries. The purpose of the symposium was to share comparative information and analysis, to discuss major issues facing national and supranational systems of higher education and the role of research universities, and to identify the most promising avenues for further investigation. The symposium was focused on a group consisting largely of economically developed countries and regions that are important exemplars or locales for consideration of reform or alternative systems from those of the U. S. Considerations were structured around four major policy areas, including: (1) Fees and Finance; (2) Access, Quality and Accountability; (3) Science and Technology; and (4) Organization and Governance. Participants (a list of whom is in Appendix 1) provided working papers on assigned topics related to one or more of the four policy areas, or were asked to comment on the papers and the short presentations. This narrative provides a summary of the symposium proceedings, attempting to capture the gist of what was a varied and thought-provoking set of presentations and discussions. Presentations include the following: (1) Introduction (Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and C. Judson King); (2) OECD Perspective on Major International Issues Affecting Public Higher Education (Chaired by David Breneman and participated by Stephan Vincent-Lancrin); (3) Environmental Scan of U.S. Public Higher Education--Issues and Trends (Chaired by Ahmed Bawa and participated by Irwin Feller and Robert Berdahl); (4) Environmental Scan of Higher Education in Europe--Approaches and Trends (Chaired by John Aubrey Douglass Marijk van der Wende and participated by Michael Shattock, Wilhelm Krull, and Daniel Fallon); (5) Environmental Scan of Higher Education in the Pacific Region--Approaches and Trends (Chaired by Otto C. C. Lin and participated by Philip Altbach, Wan-Hua Ma, and Rory Hume); (6) Comparative Approaches to Financing of Public Higher Education (Chaired by Sheldon Rothblatt and participated by David Palfreyman, Katharine Lyall, and David Breneman); (7) Comparative Approaches to Access and Marketing: Undergraduate Education and Degree Production (Chaired by Steven Brint and participated by John Aubrey Douglass, Kerstin Eliasson, and Grant Harman); (8) Science and Technology Initiatives and Strategies for Economic Development (Chaired by Irwin Feller and participated by Otto C. C. Lin, Henry Etzkowitz, Taizo Yakushiji, and John Zysman); (9) Comparative Approaches to Governance and Management of Higher Education Systems (Chaired by Katharine Lyall and participated by Christine Musselin, Jeroen Huisman, and C. Judson King); and (10) Reflection on Discussion and Targets for Further Research (Delivered by Robert Berdahl, Taizo Yakushiji, Daniel Fallon and John Zysman). Appendices include: (1) List of Symposium Participants; and (2) References and Resources. (Lists 4 resources.)

School systems aspire to provide equal opportunity for all, irrespective of socio-economic status (SES). Much of the criticism of recent school reforms that introduce accountability, autonomy, and choice emphasizes their potentially negative consequences for equity. This report provides new evidence on how national features of accountability, autonomy, and choice are related to the equality of opportunity across countries. We estimate whether student achievement depends more or less on SES in school systems employing these institutional features. The rigorous micro-econometric analyses are based on the PISA 2003 data for more than 180,000 students from 27 OECD countries. The main empirical result is that rather than harming disadvantaged students, accountability, autonomy, and choice appear to be tides that lift all boats. The additional choice created by public funding for private schools in particular is associated with a strong reduction in the dependence of student achievement on SES. External exit exams have a strong positive effect for all students that is slightly smaller for low-SES students. The positive effect of regularly using subjective teacher ratings to assess students is substantially larger for low-SES students. The effect of many other accountability devices does not differ significantly by student SES. School autonomy in determining course content is associated with higher equality of opportunity, while equality of opportunity is lower in countries where more schools have autonomy in hiring teachers. Autonomy in formulating the budget and in establishing starting salaries is not associated with the equity of student outcomes. Inequality of opportunity is substantially higher in school systems that track students at early ages. (Contains 19 footnotes, 6 figures and 9 tables.)

The growth of private higher education has come as a surprise to most governments, which have tried to catch up in their regulatory and funding policymaking. In China, Malaysia and South Africa they have given legal recognition to previously disallowed private higher education and this has helped to fuel its subsequent growth. Some governments encourage private higher education in order to help to meet the rising demand for higher-level qualifications, and also to provide their "public service" counterparts with further challenges to improve their market responsiveness and overall efficiency and effectiveness. Such private entities tend to be highly reliant on income from tuition fees and similar student charges for their business models and lack the capability or funds to engage in research, a function increasingly confined in most countries (other than the United States) to well-established public universities. In the United States, reliance on tuition fee income and other student charges has led to persistent violations by for-profit providers, such as paying admissions tutors a commission to enrol students who have little or no ability to benefit from the education provided. This has led to a toughening of federal rules. In the United States, private institutions include some of the longest-established and most prestigious universities, such as Harvard, Stanford and Yale, and this is also the picture in Japan and Chile. They possess large research and endowment funds and do not depend on tuition fees as their only or primary source of income. Long-established private universities of this kind have been rarely "for-profit", at least in a formal sense. Government regulation usually requires them to adopt a charitable-like "non-profit" structure in order to obtain tax advantages, even if they are business-like and quite commercial in their operations. These not-for-profit institutions cannot be organised to benefit private interests, their assets must be permanently dedicated to charitable purposes, and net earnings cannot be distributed to owners or shareholders. While international expansion of private higher education is occurring, most such provision is local, not least because local regulation and control remain significant barriers to such growth, even where individual countries' regulatory environment becomes more favourable. This paper explores different categories of private providers and their characteristics: not-for-profit private higher education institutions and for-profit institutions, including various types of for-profit institutions. (Contains 8 endnotes.)

Do some forms of student (and school) assessment hinder the introduction of innovative educational practices and the development of innovation skills in education systems? This report focuses on the impact of high-stake summative assessment on innovation and argues that it is possible to reconcile high-stakes assessments and examinations through innovative approaches to testing. While necessary, assessment based on high-stake examinations often acts as an incentive to teach or study "to the test". It may thus limit risk-taking by teachers, students and parents, for instance. The problem may be amplified if a system of accountability and incentives uses the results of these examinations and tests to assess teachers and schools. What should be done to ensure that the systems used to assess education systems do not stifle the risk-taking inherent to innovation--and that they foster innovation skills in students? This study proposes three main ways of combining assessment and innovation: 1) developing a wide range of performance measurements for both students and schools; 2) rethinking the alignment of standards and assessment; 3) measuring the impact of assessments on teaching and learning. One way of influencing teaching and learning might be to modify high-stake testing. Systems will adapt to this, and both teaching and learning will focus on acquiring the right skills. Rather than testing the content of learning, standards could relate to cognitive skills such as problem-solving, communicating and reasoning--with test/examination developers adapting those skills to subjects such as mathematics, science or literary analysis. Similarly, more use might be made of innovative assessment methods based on information and communication technologies, inasmuch as these may feature simulation or interactivity, for instance, at a reasonable cost. Focusing the assessment on cognitive processes rather than content would leave more scope for teachers to put in place innovative teaching/learning strategies. This does, however, assume a high standard of professionalism in teachers and an adequate system of continuing training and knowledge management. As a single type of assessment cannot fully capture student learning, one effective strategy might also be to multiply the number of measurements and thus relieve the pressure on students and teachers to perform well in a single, high-visibility, high-stake test. At the same time, this larger number of measurements could provide the necessary input for systems based on accountability, diagnosis and assessment of the effectiveness of innovative practice. Finally, assessing the technical standard of tests and examinations is an integral part of their development, but it is less common to address the impact they have on teaching/learning or the validity of how their results are used. Since assessment is an integral part of the education process, it is just as important to assess tests and examinations as it is other educational practices in order to achieve improvements and innovation in educational assessment, but also in educational practice. (Contains 12 notes.)

This paper discusses the most relevant issues concerning teacher evaluation in primary and secondary education by reviewing the recent literature and analysing current practices within the OECD countries. First, it provides a conceptual framework highlighting key features of teacher evaluation schemes. In particular, it emphasises the importance of clarifying the purposes of teacher appraisal, whether summative when designed to assure that the practices enhancing student learning are undertaken or formative when conducted for further professional development objectives. It also encompasses the diverse criteria and instruments commonly used to assess teachers as well as the actors generally involved in the process and potential consequences for teachers' professional life. Second, it deals with a number of contentious points, including the question of the use of student outcomes to measure teaching performance, the advantages and drawbacks of different approaches given the purpose emphasised and resource restrictions, the implementation difficulties resulting from different stakeholders' interests and possible ways to overcome these obstacles. Finally, it provides an account of current empirical evidence, pointing out mixed results stemming from difficulties in assessing the effects of such evaluation schemes on teaching quality, teachers' motivation and student learning. It concludes by considering the circumstances under which teacher evaluation systems seem to be more effective, fair and reliable. Developing a comprehensive approach to evaluate teachers is critical to make demands for educational best practice compatible with teachers' appropriation of the process as well as to enhance the decisive attractiveness and recognition of the teaching profession. (Contains 1 table.)

This literature review on school choice analyses the impact of choice schemes on students and on school systems focusing on equity. Reviewing the evidence can be difficult, as the literature is often fragmented and inconclusive, and the political importance of this research often results in high-profile attention given to individual studies rather than systemically understanding collected from a larger empirical base (Berends, Cannata and Goldring, 2011). Different political groups use evidence that supports their positions in favour or against school choice, and their positions relative to school choice are largely based on their ideologies, rather than on empirical work and evidence of effectiveness (Levin and Belfield, 2004). This report steps away from the ideological debate and provides research-based evidence on the impact of choice on disadvantaged students and schools. As "only with data on the consequences of different plans for school choice will we be able to reach sensible judgements rooted in experience (Fuller and Elmore, 1996, p. 8)". It uses analysis and statements that are supported empirically and attempts to cover the widest possible scope of research, and provide responses to the key question of how to balance choice with equity considerations. (Contains 7 tables, 4 figures, 5 boxes and 13 footnotes.)

Innovation is essential for the education sector. The ways in which curriculum decision making is organised reflects different implicit approaches on how educational systems pertain to promote innovation in education. Curriculum holds an outstanding place when seeking to promote innovation in education, as it reflects the vision for education by indicating knowledge, skills and values to be taught to students. It may express not only "what" should be taught to students, but also "how" the students should be taught. Curriculum innovations can include new subjects, combinations of old subjects or cross-cutting learning objectives. They may also take a form of new content, concepts, sequencing, time allocation or pedagogy. This paper characterises two contrasted approaches to curriculum decision making and bringing about innovations in education. At one extreme, a prescriptive central curriculum implicitly places the initiative for educational innovations at the level of the central administration. This approach provides strong incentives for schools and teachers to adapt innovations that would not otherwise take place. Innovations, supported by policy measures and informed by research, are brought within the reach of all schools and teachers in an equitable manner. The challenge is then to accommodate local needs and ensure the commitment to and implementation of innovations by schools and teachers. At the other extreme, decentralised curriculum decision making provides schools--and perhaps even teachers--with room to create their own educational innovations. This approach allows for experimentation relevant to individual students and local communities. Innovations are meant to spread through horizontal networks of schools and teachers. The challenge is then to provide incentives for individual schools and teachers to innovate or adapt innovations and ensure that they have equal capacity to do so. The paper provides an overview of various possible approaches linking curriculum policy to educational innovation, it shows that OECD countries can mix these approaches and it discusses elements that can affect those innovations in reality. Focusing on public lower-secondary education, it draws on various OECD and UNESCO data. First, the paper suggests that OECD education systems differ clearly when looking at formal curriculum decision making, although no system relies on a purely central or school-based approach to curriculum innovations. Second, several elements can reduce the "innovation power" of the central curriculum and the "innovation flexibility" of the decentralised curriculum. Third, stakeholders--such as experts, teachers and parents--are able to influence curriculum innovations differently at central and school levels. Innovations in central-level curriculum appear to have widespread possibilities to rely on expert knowledge with consultation with practitioners, parents and the wider public. School level curriculum innovations appear to build mainly on principals and teachers' knowledge with an indirect influence from experts and parents. Annexed are: (1) Emerging Curriculum Themes in OECD Countries; (2) Approaches to Bringing About Competence-Based Curriculum; (3) Central Level Curriculum in OECD Countries; (4) Details on the Implicit Approaches to Curriculum Innovations; and (5) Roles of Parents in Decision Making on Education Policy. (Contains 13 tables, 4 charts, 5 boxes and 20 notes.)