Two weeks ago, the most recent results of the triennial Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) came out. PISA is an international, standardized test in reading, maths and science given to 15-year-old pupils in/of participating states.
Started in 2000, PISA is now in its seventh iteration; it has grown in size (600,000 pupils from 79 states took the test this past year) and scope (also inquiring about non-curricular issues); and its results are eagerly awaited, dissected and reacted to by ministries and the media.
I have been following PISA and its sister triennial program, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), for many years. I was pleasantly surprised to note that the day before the latest results came out, announcements were bouncing around social media about the exact hour when the results were to be released.
And right afterward, articles and analyzes were published in major publications such as The Economist, the New York Times and the Washington Post. In our region too, newspapers carried articles about it for at least two days.
Why the big interest? Because everyone wants to know which states are doing well, or at least better, especially those (such as the UAE and Jordan) that have now participated several times and can analyze the evolution of their results, and what PISA will reveal about what makes some educational systems perform so well.
A few years ago, Jordan’s Ministry of Education conducted a year-long analysis of why its school system was underperforming in PISA tests, and how to improve that. Those meetings and remedial decisions seem to have been effective as Jordan’s scores made significant jumps in the latest round. Turkey jumped even more. But Finland, for many years considered a model of how to do education well, saw a continuation of its slow, steady decline.
The one big headline this year was that China (or at least the four provinces whose results PISA validated), which participated for the first time ever, was well above every other state. Compared to those of developed countries, Chinese students were on average three years ahead in their reading comprehension and maths and science skills.
Reading scores around the world revealed something interesting and rather alarming: Only 10 percent of students were able to distinguish between fact and opinion when reading about an unfamiliar topic. On a more positive note, one important factor that boosts students’ interest in and enjoyment of reading is teacher enthusiasm.
What is so valuable about the PISA reports is that in addition to detailed scores, they provide analyzes about which factors affect the performance of pupils. This is what ministry officials, and educators like me, are most keen on learning about.
Compared to those of developed countries, Chinese students were on average three years ahead in their reading comprehension and maths and science skills.
Nidhal Guessoum
Most notably, the latest PISA report states that “the world is no longer divided between rich and well-educated nations [on the one hand] and poor and badly educated ones [on the other].” Indeed, scores do not correlate with income levels, nor with big spending on education. Factors that were found to be positively associated with academic capabilities include support from parents, a positive school climate and having “a growth mindset.”
One new aspect that PISA explored this year was “student wellbeing.” On average across developed countries, 23 percent of students reported being bullied at least a few times a month, while in developing countries such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, more than 20 percent of students had skipped school at least three times in the two weeks prior to the PISA test.
There is a growing push to broaden views on education, to ensure a positive and nurturing school climate and to steer teachers, parents and administrators to holistic ideas. PISA officials stress that education is more than scoring well on tests, or about competencies for “marketability.” So in its next iteration (PISA 2021), the program will assess creative thinking, how students relate to others, and what they think of their lives and their future.
I should note that PISA does have its detractors. In 2014, more than 100 academics from around the world signed a letter asking for the PISA program to be scrapped. They decried the “over-reliance” on testing and the idea that education can be improved, or even characterized, from just a two-hour examination of their reading, maths and science skills.
What happened to humanities, arts, social sciences, languages, physical education and more, ask the critics. Moreover, they say, the PISA tests have since their inception been developed in the West, and they are now being exported to the rest of the world.
So what should a ministry that wants to improve its education system do? “If a silver bullet for improving education existed it would have been discovered by now,” wrote The Economist a few hours after the latest PISA results came out. But it added: “Yet that does not mean improvement is impossible, or that there is nothing to learn from PISA.”
For instance, over the years, we have learned from PISA that contrary to widespread belief, smaller classes are not the magic solution. Hiring and training excellent teachers is much more effective in improving student performance, as has been demonstrated in Shanghai and Singapore.
The PISA tests are not perfect, and they are not the be all and end all in education. But they offer much to learn and use in various socio-educational settings. As Jordan did, other states in the Arab world and beyond should also set up national commissions to review the tests and student performances in depth, and come up with recommendations to reform various aspects of the education system.
- Nidhal Guessoum is a professor at the American University of Sharjah in the UAE.Twitter: @NidhalGuessoum.
