17 Feb 2014
Can we avoid another Vague Skills Goal? By Robert Palmer
By Robert Palmer, Independent Education and Skills Consultant. Education is receiving quite a lot of attention in post-2015 discussions, but how this will translate into goals and targets is increasingly on our minds; at the same time, some comment that the whole issue of education post-2015 is being over-complicated. Meanwhile, despite increased global recognition and... Read More
12 Feb 2014
Public-Private Partnership Schools: A Better Option for Quality Education for All in Pakistan? By Ravish Amjad
By Ravish Amjad, Annual Status of Education Report, Pakistan. The two major problems faced by Pakistan’s education sector remain the huge number of out of school children and the poor quality of education provision to the children who are actually attending school. According to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2013, a massive 21%... Read More
07 Feb 2014
Universal Basic Education? By David Levesque
By David Levesque, Independent Education Adviser. Am I the only one who finds the debate on post MDG /EFA education goals over complicated? Suggested ‘own goals’ abound. With the desire to ensure ‘quality’ and measurement for all and include as many sectors as possible it ends up sounding like a cacophony of competing interests. The... Read More
03 Feb 2014
Education for ‘Global Citizenship’: Beyond the ‘Fuzzword’ By Sobhi Tawil
By Sobhi Tawil, UNESCO. The notion of ‘global citizenship’ has recently gained prominence in international development discourse through the recently-adopted United Nations Secretary-General’s Global Education First Initiative. Indeed, among the three priority areas outlined in this global initiative, the third aims to ‘foster global citizenship’. Making sense of ‘fuzzwords” The notion of ‘global citizenship’, however,... Read More
27 Jan 2014
PIAAC (the PISA for Adults): a Powerful Tool for the OECD Skills Strategy By Oscar Valiente
By Oscar Valiente, University of Glasgow. The OECD launched the first results of the International Report of the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) in October 2013 in Brussels, and a series of dissemination events have been taking place in different parts of the world over the past months. PIAAC assesses the performance of the adult... Read More
20 Jan 2014
Making PISA in Shanghai By Kai-ming Cheng
By Kai-ming Cheng, University of Hong Kong. The PISA 2012 results were published in December 2013; Shanghai again tops the ranking, followed by Hong Kong, Singapore, then South Korea, Taiwan, Japan. So what’s new? First, Finland, which used to be the top, is still doing very well, but has dropped out of pole position. Second,... Read More
16 Jan 2014
PISA in Peru: Achieving Poorly, But Improving By Santiago Cueto
By Santiago Cueto, Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo (GRADE), Peru. As in the past, the recent results of the PISA assessment for Peru generated pessimistic comments about the abilities of our students and the quality of our education system. Are our students achieving poorly? Without a doubt. Are we worse than in previous assessments?... Read More
13 Jan 2014
PISA for Development: One World, One Measure for Learning? By Angeline M. Barrett
By Angeline M. Barrett, University of Bristol. Technical work has started on PISA for Development, the three year project, conceived as a pilot, which aims to “enhance” PISA survey instruments to make them more relevant for “developing countries” whilst at the same time producing scores on the same scales as the “main” PISA assessment. The... Read More
10 Jan 2014
PISA in Low and Middle Income Countries By Simone Bloem
By Simone Bloem, formerly OECD. Over the past decade, the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) has become the worlds’ premier yardstick for evaluating the quality, equity and efficiency of school systems. In December 2013, the latest results of the fifth survey round – PISA 2012 – were published and have resulted in active public... Read More
08 Jan 2014
PISA for Development and the Post-2015 Agenda By Michael Davidson, Michael Ward and Alejandro Gomez Palma
By Michael Davidson, Michael Ward and Alejandro Gomez Palma, OECD. As part of its contribution to the post-2015 education framework, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is attempting to enhance its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to make it more relevant to developing countries. These ideas, outlined in an OECD brochure released... Read More