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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.)

The concept of physical and chemical change is far from being the clearest and most self-explanatory concept in the world. If a number of chemists are asked to define physical and chemical change, there may well appear to be a fair degree of uniformity in their answers, until a few examples are suggested. When chemists are asked to place a variety of changes into the category of physical or chemical change, then differences inevitably arise. It is not difficult to demonstrate this by viewing school textbooks and articles about the topic. In spite of this, physical and chemical change is still taught in most in most secondary school courses. The problem arises from the definition and the historical layers of meaning that have grown around the concept, almost by accretion, without teachers being aware of their significance. The purpose of this paper is to describe the answers given by experienced educators to a questionnaire, which attempted to find out what the views of science educators/chemists worldwide about physical and chemical change now are. Four appendixes present: (1) List of Respondents; (2) List of Questionnaires Returned; (3) Physical and Chemical Change: An Information Sheet; and (4) Full Questionnaire: Interview Protocol or Basis for Written Response.