Education Policy Outlook 2025

The Education Policy Outlook 2025 finds that lifelong learning is increasingly essential for economic resilience and social inclusion, yet participation in learning beyond initial education has stagnated across OECD countries. Declining student performance, widening skill mismatches, and rapid technological change, including the rise of AI, are straining traditional education models, revealing persistent gaps between the skills people have and those they need for a digitalised, fast-changing world.
The report identifies four critical life moments where targeted policies can have disproportionate impact: early childhood (building curiosity and socio-emotional foundations), early to mid-adolescence (shaping identity, motivation and digital literacy), mid-career (supporting upskilling, flexibility and career mobility), and late career (countering skill decline and supporting longer working lives). Across these stages, successful lifelong learning systems strengthen the will to learn (motivation, confidence, agency), the skills to learn (foundational, transversal and digital competences), and the means to learn (time, resources, guidance, flexible pathways). Strategic policies that integrate these three pillars, supported by coherent governance, digital readiness, and cross-sector collaboration, are shown to improve learning engagement, adaptability and long-term outcomes.
Overall, the Outlook stresses that lifelong learning must become a system-wide commitment, not a series of disconnected initiatives. Countries that combine strong early childhood provision, adolescent engagement, flexible adult learning pathways, and inclusive approaches for older workers are better positioned to navigate demographic and technological transitions, reduce inequalities and equip citizens for continuous learning throughout life.