PISA for Development: how the OECD and World Bank shaped education governance post-2015

Abstract

The year 2015 was significant for the arena of international development, as UNESCO's Education for All agenda was replaced by Education 2030, which would identify minimum standards of education quality. The OECD had been working on extending its existing PISA assessment into low-and middle-income countries through PISA for Development (PISA-D) and positioned the new assessment as a means of tracking progress on the post-2015 goals. The organisation maintains that PISA-D was introduced primarily in response to the demands of the international community, especially low-and middle-income countries, and that the assessment was developed in partnership with them. This paper investigates those claims through an analysis of the arrival of PISA-D in Cambodia, situating the analysis within UNESCO's shifting agenda, and the strategic visions of the OECD and World Bank that first emerged in the 1990s. The result is a very different picture to the portrayals of local agency, demand, consensus and partnership that adorn the official websites and pamphlets of global agencies and much academic research, raising serious doubts about education governance post-2015.

The OECD and IELS: Redefining early childhood education for the 21st century

“…Situating IELS within this broader organisational agenda, we characterise IELS as the first step in an attempt to introduce a 'new paradigm for ECE', and argue that the shape and features of this nascent paradigm can be anticipated with regard to the OECD's existing logic and goals, namely: (a) a universal standard of education quality; (b) a cognitiveeconomic model of education, supplemented with a focus on non-cognitive dimensions such as well-being, global competence and social and emotional skills; (c) alignment of national and/or regional level assessments with a global standard; (d) a global policy network, and transfer of 'best practice'; (5) increased private sector involvement in each stage of the process (i.e. measurement, analysis, reform); (6) (for 'developing' nations) incentivised compliance and punitive accountability (Auld et al, 2018).…”

“…16To demonstrate the necessity of PISA, education is defined with regard to the instrumental role that it plays in developing the human capital necessary to compete with the global competition. The OECD must then demonstrate the ability of PISA to capture and quantify this supreme good, an association that has been carefully cultivated in collaboration with the World Bank in recent years, and Eric Hanushek in particular (see Auld et al, 2018;Komatsu and Rappleye, 2017). This association is regularly promoted by Andreas Schleicher, who explains, 'According to one estimate, if all 15-year-olds in the OECD area attained at least level 2 in the PISA mathematics assessment, they would contribute over USD 200 trillion in additional economic output over their working lives' (2014a: 21).…”

“…Notes 1. PISA for Development is currently being piloted in eight countries, with the results due to be released in December 2018 (see Auld et al (2018) for discussion). This pilot exercise will then be used to enhance participation of more low-and middle-income nations in the regular PISA cycle from 2021, which will be allied to the OECD Learning Framework to track progress on the UN's SDGs.…”

Science by streetlight and the OECD’s measure of global competence: A new yardstick for internationalisation?

“…Rappleye et al forthcoming on wellbeing). Our analysis reveals a process that is more ad hoc and opportunistic than the official portrayal, and while the measurement was developed as part of the OECD's aspiration to expand its influence in education governance (see Addey 2017;Auld et al 2018), there is a high degree of contingency to both its inclusion and the outcome. The decision to measure GC complements the OECD's Learning Framework 2030 that is allied to the UN's SDGs, but is also in line with Schleicher's (2018) recent assertion that PISA will be ready to evolve to accommodate new trends and 'hot topics', and to thereby ensure its continued relevance.…”

Assessing the Nigerian Federal Government’s Financial Commitments to Its Education Rights Obligations

“…According to Ball (1998), education as an investment ensures significantly larger income returns, which exposes the individual to equal economic opportunities, increased financial earnings and an incentive for improved health status. For societies, education is a determining factor of both medium to long term economic growth, sufficiently strengthen institutions, and foster social cohesion (Auld, Rappleye, and Morris, 2019).…”