OECD damns stats

THE ORGANISATION for Economic Cooperation and Development has admitted that its higher education statistics are inadequate.

At a top-level meeting one week before the launch of "Education at a Glance 1996", the OECD decided it must improve the standard of its indicators for tertiary education.

Norberto Bottani, principal administrator of CERI, the OECD's centre for educational research and innovation, said: "When you consider the fundamental role of third-level education's development for an information society, then the type and quality of our higher education indicators are not adequate."

OECD members will meet next year to agree ways to distinguish between educational and research costs in universities. "It's a political issue, some countries favour separating these costs, others are resisting it," said Mr Bottani.