Profile
Richard Sweet is an international education and training policy consultant based in Sydney and a Professorial Fellow in the Centre for Post-compulsory Education and Lifelong Learning. Between 1998 and 2005 he was a Principal Analyst in the Directorate for Education at the OECD in Paris where he was responsible for major comparative reviews on the transition from school to work, ICT and education policy, career guidance, and tertiary education. He also edited the OECD flagship publication Education Policy Analysis. Prior to joining the OECD Richard was Research Co-ordinator for the Dusseldorp Skills Forum in Sydney, Adjunct Professor of Vocational Education at the University of Technology, Sydney, and a member of the Council of the Australian Council for Educational Research. He has been a member of a number of Australian education and training policy advisory and funding bodies including the Employment and Skills Formation Council and the Australian National Training Authority’s Research Advisory Council. He has acted as an adviser to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Commonwealth Minister for Employment, Education and Training. He chaired the Board of the International Centre for Career Development and Public Policy from its foundation in 2004 until August 2008. In recent years his Australian work has spanned state and Commonwealth governments, the private sector and not-for-profit organisations. His international clients have included the OECD, the United Nations, the European Training Foundation, the World Bank and agencies in Chile, Finland, Norway, Korea, Malta and Italy. In the last decade he has led international teams to review national policies and to advise on education and training reform in Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, Korea, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Finland, the United Kingdom and the United States. During 2007-8 he acted as the international expert for a European Training Foundation review of apprenticeship and other forms of work-based learning for young people in ten Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries.

Recent publications

From Initial Education to Working Life: Making Transitions Work, OECD, Paris (with Marianne Durand-Drouhin), 2000.

“Lifelong learning for all: Policy directions”, Education Policy Analysis, 2001, OECD, Paris, (with A. Hasan).

“Career guidance: New ways forward”, Education Policy Analysis, 2003, OECD, Paris.

“Comparative studies of career guidance: Some reflections”, International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, Vol. 4, Nos 2-3, 2004.

“Getting returns from investing in educational ICT”, Education Policy Analysis, 2004, Paris, OECD.
Career Guidance and Public Policy: Bridging the Gap, Paris, OECD, 2004 (with A.G. Watts).

Career Guidance: A Handbook for Policy Makers, Paris, OECD and European Commission, 2004 (with A.G. Watts, R. Sultana and J. McCarthy).

“ICT and low achievers: What does PISA tell us?” In Karpati, A. (Ed.) Promoting Equity Through ICT in Education: Projects, Problems, Prospects, Budapest, Hungarian Ministry of Education and OECD, 2004.

“ICT in informal and adult learning: Setting the context”, In ICT in Non-formal and Adult Education: Supporting Out-of-school Youth and Adults, Paris, OECD, 2006 (with D. Wagner).

“Adult learning and ICT: How to respond to the diversity of needs”, In ICT in Non-formal and Adult Education: Supporting Out-of-school Youth and Adults,Paris, OECD, 2006 (with B. Pont).

“Current trends in higher education policies and career guidance”, In Vuorinen, R. and Saukkonen, S. (Eds) Guidance Services in Higher Education: Strategies, Design and Implementation, Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä (With A.G. Watts), 2006.

Policy benchmarks for the school-to-work transition: A conceptual framework prepared for the OECD’s Programme on International Assessment of Adult Competences, paper prepared for the OECD, 2006.

Career Guidance in the Western Balkans Region, European Training Foundation, 2006.

OECD Reviews of Tertiary Education: Norway, Paris, OECD, 2006 (With Tony Clark, Karl Gruber, Pedro Lourtie, Paulo Santiago and Åsa Sohlman).

OECD Reviews of Tertiary Education: Korea, Paris OECD, 2006 (With Norton Grubb, Michael Gallagher and Ossi Tuomi).

OECD Thematic Review of the Recognition of Non-formal and Informal Learning. Country Note: Korea, OECD, 2008 (With G. Halasz and M. Taguma).

Work-based Learning Programmes for Young People in the Mediterranean Region: A Comparative Analysis, European Training Foundation, 2009.