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The proposed analysis of PIRLS 2021 data will provide the first cross-national estimates of learning loss on a fully comparable achievement scale. The results will help to consolidate available evidence and expand our understanding of the extent of the learning losses, differences in this regard between countries, and on the impact of the pandemic on student attitudes and digital skills.

This report analyzes the results of various PISA and TIMSS assessment rounds conducted in Jordan and Lebanon to identify trends in achievement, provide insights into factors that contribute to better learning, and allow for cross‑country comparisons. The performance of Jordanian and Lebanese students in reading, mathematics, and science is compared to student achievement in other countries. Comparisons of students’ scores across a range of covariates – such as ability levels, gender, and socioeconomic background – are also presented. The PISA and TIMSS data are also analyzed to understand what factors promote or hamper student educational success in these two countries. The report provides in‑depth analysis beyond simple rankings, analyzing results for different academic subjects, grades, and years. By analyzing various factors associated with learning, especially in specific context of each country, it draws upon a broadened perspective to interpret the results in a real-world context of every day social life.

Decentralization, school autonomy, professional development, the national exams, school evaluations, revisions of the curricula, and increased support for early education were among the most important changes implemented in the Polish education system from 1999 to 2015. Although the current government restored the old structure of the school system, limited its support for early education, and is attempting to increase its power over schools, it is hard to take rights once given to key stakeholders. The Polish education system still benefits from decentralized governance and school autonomy, while its complexity requires additional efforts. Overall, the successful Polish education reforms relied on decentralized implementation and involvement of local actors. They established a modern education system with dispersed responsibility and multiple governance layers. La décentralisation, l’autonomie des établissements scolaires, l’évolution professionnelle des enseignants, les examens nationaux, les évaluations des écoles, les révisions des programmes et le soutien accru à l’enseignement précoce font partie des changements les plus importants qu’ait opérés le système éducatif polonais entre 1999 et 2015. Bien que le gouvernement actuel ait restauré l’ancienne structure du système scolaire, limité son soutien à l’éducation précoce et tenté d’accroître sa mainmise sur les écoles, il est difficile de retirer les droits qui ont été accordés aux parties prenantes clés. Le système éducatif polonais continue de tirer parti d’une gouvernance décentralisée et de l’autonomie des établissements, tandis que sa complexité requiert des efforts supplémentaires. Dans l’ensemble, le succès des réformes éducatives entreprises en Pologne a reposé sur une mise en œuvre décentralisée et sur l’implication des acteurs locaux. Un système éducatif moderne qui partage les responsabilités et multiplie les échelons de gouvernance a été mis en place.

La décentralisation, l’autonomie des établissements scolaires, l’évolution professionnelle des enseignants, les examens nationaux, les évaluations des écoles, les révisions des programmes et le soutien accru à l’enseignement précoce font partie des changements les plus importants qu’ait opérés le système éducatif polonais entre 1999 et 2015. Bien que le gouvernement actuel ait restauré l’ancienne structure du système scolaire, limité son soutien à l’éducation précoce et tenté d’accroître sa mainmise sur les écoles, il est difficile de retirer les droits qui ont été accordés aux parties prenantes clés. Le système éducatif polonais continue de tirer parti d’une gouvernance décentralisée et de l’autonomie des établissements, tandis que sa complexité requiert des efforts supplémentaires. Dans l’ensemble, le succès des réformes éducatives entreprises en Pologne a reposé sur une mise en œuvre décentralisée et sur l’implication des acteurs locaux. Un système éducatif moderne qui partage les responsabilités et multiplie les échelons de gouvernance a été mis en place. Decentralization, school autonomy, professional development, the national exams, school evaluations, revisions of the curricula, and increased support for early education were among the most important changes implemented in the Polish education system from 1999 to 2015. Although the current government restored the old structure of the school system, limited its support for early education, and is attempting to increase its power over schools, it is hard to take rights once given to key stakeholders. The Polish education system still benefits from decentralized governance and school autonomy, while its complexity requires additional efforts. Overall, the successful Polish education reforms relied on decentralized implementation and involvement of local actors. They established a modern education system with dispersed responsibility and multiple governance layers.

Carbonic anhydrases constitute a group of enzymes that catalyse reversible hydration of carbon dioxide leading to the formation of bicarbonate and proton. The platelet carbonic anhydrase II (CAII) was described for the first time in the '80s of the last century. Nevertheless, its direct role in platelet physiology and pathology still remains poorly understood. The modulation of platelet CAII action as a therapeutic approach holds promise as a novel strategy to reduce the impact of cardiovascular diseases. This short review paper summarises the current knowledge regarding the role of human CAII in regulating platelet function. The potential future directions considering this enzyme as a potential drug target and important pathophysiological chain in platelet-related disorders are described.

This technical brief analyses the relationship between immigrant status and educational expectations in PISA. Migration flows from outside and within the EU have increased in recent years, and this has raised the attention of policy makers and the general public, with special interests on the implications that those flows can have on, among other, the education system and the labour markets. At the same time, the EU has set the Europe 2020 headline target of reducing the share of early school leavers to 10 % within the EU. Early school leavers become generally disadvantaged socially and economically in later stages in life, so that it is important to better understand the motivations for leaving school and provide adequate policy solutions. The European Commission (2016, p. 3) indicates that early school leavers are more likely to come from immigrant student groups, as their “early school leaving rates are nearly twice as high as for the native population”. Yet it also emphasises that there is still a lack of evidence pointing to the underlying reasons. In particular, it is not clear whether, among early school leavers, immigrants students are more frequent due to specific reasons related to the status of immigrants or whether they are more frequent because immigrant students are more likely to possess the set of characteristics that are normally associated to early school leaving behaviour (such as belonging to low socio economic status). This study analyses the factors that are most strongly related to the probability to leave school early, putting special attention to immigrant status (by differentiating among first and second generation immigrants and, where possible, among EU and non-EU immigrants). To this end, we use OECD’s PISA data, which are the most widely employed data on international student assessment. Since early school leavers cannot directly be considered with these data, we focus on educational expectations, including the expectation to dropout early from school. As the related literature emphasises, these expectations are very closely linked to actually realised educational career patterns. Therefore, we can use expectations to gain insights on the factors influencing early school leaving. In addition, we also employ data from Eurostat to complement the picture on early school leavers and immigrants. First, we provide a range of descriptive data on immigrants and expected early school leavers. Second, we run a number of two-level logit regression models, including a range of student- and school-level variables. In particular, we consider all (available) EU Member States together, before providing results for each MS individually. Finally, we also distinguish more specifically between EU and non-EU immigrants in our regression models. The results show that, when controlling for individual and school characteristics, immigrant students do not structurally differ in their expected early dropout probability from natives across Europe. In other words, the reasons why students expect to leave school early are the same for both immigrant students and natives. This finding implies that it is more important to focus on the common factors that are associated with expected early school leaving. In particular, our results suggest that these are, at the students’ level, the socio-economic background of students, their epistemological beliefs and grade repetition, while, at the school level, the most consistent factor is the school’s mean expected early school leavers rate. The school-environment thus appears to play a key role in shaping educational expectations. Among the student-related factors, grade repetition is the most amenable by policy, so that grade repetition practices may be reconsidered by national policy makers., JRC.B.4-Human Capital and Employment

This technical brief analyses the regional distribution of skills in Italy and Spain. Educational attainment rates have frequently been used as an indicator of regional educational development in EU Member States (MS). These rates indicate significant regional disparities in education within countries. However, recent evidence shows that the quality of education, as measured by the level of specific skills, is more important than the number of years one spends in school, in particular when considering the relationship between the cognitive (and non-cognitive) skills and economic growth. International large scale assessments (ILSA) of student performance measure these cognitive skills in key areas. OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) provides a very useful and important source of information of students' performance in key cognitive skills. When analysing PISA data, researchers and commentators often focus on cross-country comparisons. However, vast within-country differences exist, also in terms of educational attainment and PISA test scores. A focus on country averages alone would hence provide only a partial view of the status of education within countries. However, the possibility of exploring within-country differences with PISA data is limited to only a few countries. In this report we focus on regional inequalities in cognitive skills (as measured by PISA test scores) in Italy and Spain, using regional PISA data from the most recent 2015 wave, and we analyse the factors that are associated with these inequalities. In order to insure full comparability between the two countries we define regions at the level of NUTS1 (macro-region), following Eurostat’s official NUTS 2013 classification. We investigate regional inequalities by using descriptive statistics, by running a range of OLS regression models that allow us to analyse the associations between PISA 2015 science scores and the explanatory variables within regions and finally by using the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method to specify the factors that are related to within-country differences. The results show that there are significant regional differences in PISA scores within both MS. There are several factors that are associated with regional differences within Italy and Spain. The factors most consistently positively associated with regional science achievement are teacher-directed teaching and epistemological beliefs, while grade repetition and truancy are significantly negatively related with achievement. Still, there is also a range of other relevant factors varying between and within both MS. The Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition also shows that variables such as the socio-economic background, the students’ expected occupation, learning outside school time, truancy, immigrant status and grade repetition matter for within-country differences. Our results suggest that policy makers should focus on finding solutions to limit truancy and rethink grade repetition to leverage scores in lower performing regions. Moreover, our results with regard to epistemological beliefs and teaching practices challenge thinking about how science should be taught in schools in Italy and Spain. The specific results for each region may allow policy makers to consider more in detail how a region stands in comparison to the rest of the country, and the specific factors that need to be addressed to improve the within-country inequality related to educational achievement., JRC.B.4-Human Capital and Employment

In order to stabilise and improve their income situation, rural households are strongly encouraged to diversify their activities both within and outside the agricultural sector. Often, however, this advice is only moderately pursued. This paper addresses issues of rural household income diversification in the case of Poland. It investigates returns from rural household income strategies using propensity score matching methods and extensive datasets spanning 1998-2008. Results suggest that returns from combining farm and off-farm activities were lower than returns from concentrating on farming or on self-employment outside agriculture. This differential is stable over time although returns from diversification have relatively improved after Poland’s accession to the EU. This is also visible in the fact that since 2006 returns from combining farm and off-farm activities have evened with returns from relying solely on hired off-farm labour, thus smoothing the difference observed before the accession. Further, over the analysed period, households pursuing the diversification strategy performed better than those relying solely on unearned income. Finally, in general, the income in households combining farm and off-farm activities was higher than in those combining two off-farm income sources.