ABOUT PIAAC
PIAAC is the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, an international assessment of the foundational information-processing skills required for participation in the social and economic life of advanced economies in the 21st century.
An initiative of the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), PIAAC provides a highly detailed survey of skills in
literacy,
numeracy, and
problem solving in technology-rich environments (PS-TRE) among adults between the ages of 16 and 65 in over 40 countries and sub-national regions, along with all of Canada’s provinces and territories. These core skills form the basis for cultivating other, higher-level skills necessary to function at home, school, work, and in the community.
Data from PIAAC provide a measure of cognitive and workplace skills, a rich evidence base for policy-relevant analysis, a better measure of a country’s “stock” of skills, insights into whether education and training programs are focusing on the right competencies, and the capacity to compare skills across a broad sampling of countries around the world.