The World Is Measuring Success In Education In This Changed Way

Since the year 2000, when the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) launched a global academic benchmark to measure student outcomes by assessing 15-year-olds, many global education systems have been affected by It sometimes looks and feels like a race to qualify high.

When the OECD launched the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the idea was to allow countries to make comparisons between different student achievements using a common / standard metric to increase human capital. In other words, the highest academic achievements should be related to future income and the standard of living of a country. As PISA says, it publishes the results of the test one year after students are evaluated to help governments shape their educational policies.

As PISA has developed, through seven rounds of global tests every three years, with the first in 2000 and the most recent in 2018, for some it has earned the reputation of "Olympic Games of Education" given the widespread attention they receive the country rankings after publication of results.

Recent intercultural research suggests that the influence of PISA is growing around the world. In fact, in countries such as Germany and Canada, evaluation systems have been developed that reflect the PISA test. In addition, governments seek results from PISA combined with other measures of social outcomes such as equity in education and social mobility or the success of immigrants.

Now, partly in the face of criticism, PISA is looking to expand how and what proof. Taken together, changes in PISA will likely stimulate a change in priorities by national governments, particularly because countries are eager to achieve good results and achieve a high level.

As this process develops, policy makers should remember that the social consequences of a test are as important as the content of the test. Putting a new face on PISA will undoubtedly present several opportunities and challenges.

What PISA now proves?

To date, PISA has been restricted to what is generally called the "cognitive" side of learning, which focuses on reading, mathematics, and scientific literacy. In addition to exam questions, students and school principals’ complete questionnaires to provide contextual information about the characteristics of the school environment and students that may be associated with more or less favorable performance.

Countries that excel in the PISA tests, such as Finland, a country with less than six million people, have been considered by policy makers as a "global reference society", an ideal to aspire to, due to its high performance in the PISA classifications.

By: Preeti Narula

Content: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/new-global-testing-standards-will-force-countries-to-revisit-academic-rankings/