Building the right skills can help countries improve economic prosperity and social cohesion, by contributing to social outcomes such as health, civil and social engagement, by supporting improvement in productivity and growth and by supporting high levels of employment in good quality jobs.

1. National Skills Strategy Slovenia
Launch of the Diagnostic
Report
Andreas Schleicher
Director for Education and Skills, OECD
26 June 2017, Ljubljana

2. Directorate for
Education and Skills
Economics
Department
Directorate for
Employment, Labour
and Social Affairs
Directorate for
Science, Technology
and Innovation
Centre for Tax Policy
and Administration
Directorate for Public
Governance and
Territorial
Development
Local Economic and
Employment
Development
OECD GOVERNMENT OF SLOVENIA
Building a collaborative approach
Ministry of Labour, Family,
Social Affairs and Equal
Opportunities
Ministry of Finance
Ministry of Education,
Science and Sport
Ministry of Economic
Development and
Technology
Ministry of Environment
and Spatial Planning
Ministry of Health
Ministry of Agriculture,
Forestry and Food
Ministry of Public
Administration
Office for Development
and European Cohesion
Bringing Ministries together…

3. Drawing upon the insights of stakeholders

4. OECD Skills Strategy
Developing, activating and using skills for greater
economic prosperity and social cohesion

5. Context
Skills to thrive in an increasingly
interconnected and rapidly
changing world

6. The kind of things that
are easy to teach are
now easy to automate,
digitize or outsource

7. Robotics

8. >1m miles,
one minor accident,
occasional human
intervention

9. Augmented reality

10. Jobs are increasingly vulnerable to
technological displacement
Share of workforce using general cognitive skills at or below level of computer capabilities
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
%
Computer capabilities in 2016 Additional capabilities projected for 2026
Source: Elliott, S. (forthcoming), “Computers and the future of skill demand”.

11. Global Value Chains
Value added
The Smiling Curve
11
R&D
Design
Logistic
purchase
Production
Assembling
Logistic
s
Market
ing
Service
s
Pre-production
Upstream activities
Post-production
Downstream activities
Production
Value
chain
activities

12. 12
Gap in job quality between high-skilled and low-skilled workers
and participation in global value chains
More educated workers enjoy better job quality
AUT
BEL
CZE
DNK
EST
FIN
FRA
DEU
GRC
HUN
IRL
ITA
LUX
NLD
NOR
POL
PRT
SVK
SVNESP
SWE
TUR
GBR
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Gap in the quality of the
working environment
between high-skilled and
low-skilled workers
Backward participation in GVCs, %
In countries more integrated in global markets,
the gap in job quality between educated and less
educated workers is bigger
Source: OECD calculations based on OECD Job Quality Database and OECD Trade in Value
Added database (TiVA).

13. Slovenia has an ambitious vision
for the future
A society where people:
…learn throughout and for life
…are innovative
…trust one another
…enjoy a high quality of life
…embrace their identity and culture.
Vision of Slovenia 2050

14. Strengthening Slovenia’s
skills system
7. Inclusive and effective
governance of the skills
system
8. Enabling better decisions
through improved skills
information
9. Financing and taxing skills
equitably and efficiently
Activating skills
supply
3. Boosting
employment
for all age-
groups
4. Attracting and
retaining talent
from Slovenia
and abroad
Using skills effectively
5. Making the most of people’s skills in workplaces
6. Using skills for entrepreneurship and innovation
Developing relevant
skills
1. Equipping young
people with skills
for work and life
2. Improving the
skills of low-skilled
adults
Slovenia’s main skills challenges

15. Developing skills
Challenge 1: Equipping young
people with skills for work and life

16. 100 80 60 40 20 0 20 40
Turkey
Chile
Israel
Poland
Ireland
England (UK)
Japan
Slovenia
Denmark
Australia
New Zealand
Czech Republic
Flanders (Belgium)
Sweden
Korea
Level 2 Level 3 Level 2 Level 3
Young adults (16-24 year-olds) Older adults (55-65 year-olds)
%
Medium to advanced digital problem-
solving skills
Source: OECD Survey of Adult Skills database (PIAAC) (2012, 2015)

17. Low-performing and disadvantaged students
are concentrated in vocational programmes
Share of 15-year-old students in vocational and general education who are low
performers (level 1 or below) in mathematics, 2012
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
% Enrolled in a vocational programme Enrolled in a general programme
Source: OECD (2013), PISA 2012 Results: Excellence through Equity: Giving Every
Student the Chance to Succeed (Volume II), PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264201132-en.

18. Vocational students also lack funding to
develop skills for the future
Annual expenditure per student by education level
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
18000
Early childhood
(level 0)
Primary (level 1) Lower secondary
(level 2)
General upper
secondary (level
3)
Vocational upper
secondary (level
3)
Short-cycle tertiary
(level 5)
Bachelor's and
above (levels 6-8)
$ Slovenia OECD - average
Source: OECD calculations based on data from Educational finance indicators database
(http://dotstat.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=EAG_FIN_RATIO_CATEGORY).

19. Slovenia’s higher education system could be
more responsive to the economy’s skills needs
Share of employers ‘very satisfied’ with graduates’ skill levels
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
%
Slovenia OECD - average (31 countries)
Source: European Commission (EC) and Gallup Organisation (2010), Employers'
Perception of Graduate Employability, Flash Eurobarometer No. 304.

20. Developing skills
Challenge 2: Improving the skills
of low-skilled adults

21. One-third of adults has low levels of skills
Share of adults with low literacy and/or numeracy proficiency, by age
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
16-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-65
%
Slovenia OECD – average
Slovenia overall
Source: OECD calculations based on OECD (2017) OECD Survey of Adult Skills database
(PIAAC) (2012, 2015), www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/ (accessed March 2017).

22. Relatively few low-skilled adults participate
in adult learning
Share of adults (25-65 year-olds) participating in formal or non-formal education
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
%
Levels 4 or 5 Level 1 and below
Source: OECD calculations based on OECD (2017) Survey of Adult Skills database
(PIAAC) (2012, 2015), www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/ (accessed March 2017).

23. Developing skills:
Recommended areas for action
…upper-secondary students develop high levels of skills
…higher education system responsive to skills needs
…motivating low-skilled adults to improve their skills
…flexible adult learning and validation of prior learning

24. Activating skills
Challenge 3: Boosting employment
for all age groups

25. Very few older people in Slovenia are in paid
employment
Employment rates of 55-64 year-olds, OECD countries, 2015
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
%
Source: OECD calculations based on OECD (2017) Employment Database (LFS by sex
and age), www.oecd.org/employment/database.

26. A growing number of youth are not in
employment, education or training
Share of young adults (15-29 year-olds) Not in Employment, Education or
Training (NEET), 2007 and 2015
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Italy Slovak
Republic
Hungary Slovenia OECD –
average
United
Kingdom
Austria Netherlands
%
2015 2007
Source: Youth not in employment, education or training (NEET) (indicator),
http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1787/72d1033a-en (accessed on 2 December 2016).

27. High employment costs, cost jobs
Income tax plus employee and employer social security contributions (SSC)
as a share of labour costs, single worker no children average wages, 2015
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
%
Income tax Employee SSC Employer SSC
Source: OECD (2016c), Taxing Wages 2016, OECD Publishing, Paris,
www.dx.doi.org/10.1787/tax_wages-2016-en.

28. Activating skills
Challenge 4: Retaining and attracting
talent from Slovenia and abroad

29. “Brain drain” is low today, but it is growing
Emigration numbers, by education level, Slovenia, 2011-2015
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Emigrants: Upper secondary
Emigrants: below upper secondary
Emigrants: tertiary
Source: OECD calculations based on International migration, Statistical Office of the Republic of
Slovenia, http://pxweb.stat.si/pxweb/Database/Demographics/Demographics.asp.

30. Highly skilled adults have relatively low
earnings potential in Slovenia
Annual net earnings of a single person without children, earning 167% of the
average wage, in EUR, 2015
0
20000
40000
60000
80000
100000
120000
€
Source: Eurostat (2015) Annual Net Earnings, Data Explorer,
http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=earn_nt_net

31. Activating skills:
Recommended areas for action
…strong incentives for people to work and employers to hire
…more older adults and long-term unemployed find work
…disengaged youth effectively reached and supported
…a tax system that doesn’t deter high-skilled workers
…third-country nationals have good job prospects
…attracting more international students

32. Using skills
Challenge 5: Making the most of
people’s skills in workplaces

33. In contrast to the OECD, large firms make
less use of workers’ skills
Average use of ICT at work by firm size, Slovenia and OECD
2.0
2.2
2.4
2.6
2.8
3.0
1-10 employees 11-50 employees 51-250 employees 251-1000 employees 1000+ employees
Indexofuse
Most frequent use = 5
Least frequent use = 0
Slovenia OECD - average
Source: OECD calculations based on OECD (2017) OECD Survey of Adult Skills database
(PIAAC) (2012, 2015), OECD, Paris, www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/ (accessed March 2017).

34. High-Performance Work Practices (HPWP)
are not prevalent enough
Share of jobs with high HPWP and mean HPWP score, all factors, 2012, 2015
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.7
2.8
2.9
3.0
3.1
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
Index%
Percentage of jobs with high HPWP (left) Mean HPWP index (right)
Source: OECD (2016a) ), OECD Employment Outlook, OECD Publishing, Paris,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/empl_outlook-2016-en.

35. Using skills
Challenge 6: Using skills for
entrepreneurship and innovation

36. A high and growing share of workers engage
in research and development…
R&D personnel in employment, in thousands of persons
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Thousands
Total R&D personnel, 2013 Total R&D personnel, 2003
Source: OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2015: Innovation for Growth
and Society, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/sti_scoreboard-2015-en.

37. …yet the public sector’s innovation
performance is mixed
Index of innovation performance for Slovenia’s universities and public
research institutes, 2014
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
Publications in the top journals (per
GDP)
Patents filed by universities and public
labs (per GDP)
International co-invention (%)
Median
Bottom 5 OECD values Middle-range OECD Top 5 OECD values Slovenia
Min.
Max.
Source: “Slovenia”, in OECD Science, Technology and Innovation Outlook 2016, OECD
Publishing, Paris. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/sti_in_outlook-2016-85-en.

38. Using skills:
Recommended areas for action
…diffusing High-Performance Work Practices across workplaces
…monitoring and responding to other factors affecting skills use
…implementing outstanding reforms to the innovation system
…opportunities, skills and attitudes towards entrepreneurship

39. Strengthening the skills system
Challenge 7: Inclusive and effective
governance of the skills system

40. Strengthening the skills
system
Challenge 8: Enabling better
decisions through improved skills
information

41. Slovenians lack good information on skills needs
• Slovenia’s skills assessment and
anticipation system:
• focused on the short-term
• reliant on employer surveys
• limited sectoral and regional
coverage

42. Strengthening the skills
system
Challenge 9: Financing and taxing
skills equitably and efficiently

43. Slovenia’s students receive a substantial
return to tertiary education
Earnings increment necessary to breakeven on a tertiary skills investment,
compared to the actual labour market premium for tertiary education
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
% of wage before
education
Breakeven earnings increment Labour market premium for tertiary education
Source: OECD (2017), “Taxation and Skills”, OECD Tax Policy Studies, No. 24, OECD
Publishing, Paris.

44. Yet students contribute relatively little to
tertiary education costs
Share of private expenditure on tertiary educational institutions, 2013
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
%
Source: OECD 2016, Education at a Glance 2016: OECD Indicators,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/eag-2016-en.

45. Strengthening the skills system:
Recommended areas for action
…evaluating government performance in engaging stakeholders
…strong capacity and incentives for inter-ministerial collaboration
…local engagement and policy tailoring
…comprehensive, tailored information on skills needs
…boosting financial support for vocational education
…funding mechanisms that boost adult learning

46. From Diagnosis to Action

47. From Diagnosis to Action
ACTION
• …?
• …?
• …?
THEMES
• Empowering active citizens with the
right skills for the future
• Building a culture of lifelong learning
• Working together to strengthen skills

48. To discuss OECD’s work with countries on National Skills Strategy projects
contact:
andreas.schleicher@oecd.org
joanne.caddy@oecd.org
andrew.bell@oecd.org
To learn more about the OECD’s work on skills visit: www.oecd.org/skills/
48
For further information