The PISA calendar: Temporal governance and international large-scale assessments

Abstract

This article analyses international large-scale assessments in education from a temporal perspective. The article discusses and compares the different conceptions of time in the early international assessments conducted in the 1960s and 1970s by the IEA with the PISA studies conducted by the OECD from the year 2000 onwards. The paper argues that there has been a shift in the ways that the assessments structure time. The early IEA surveys were characterized by a relative slowness, lack of synchronization and lack of trend analyses. PISA, by contrast, is characterized by high pace, simultaneous publication of results around the world and regular and recurrent studies making the analysis of trends possible. The emergence of this new time regime, it is argued, has implications for how education is governed. At the transnational level, it strengthens the influence and importance of OECD as a significant policy actor. At the national level, as educational discourse and policy adapts to the temporalities of the PISA calendar, two kinds of effects can be distinguished. First, there is a tendency towards searching for "retrotopian" solutions for contemporary problems. Second, there is a tendency towards acceleration and short-term planning when it comes to educational reforms. ARTICLE HISTORYWhen the Norwegian minister of education Torbjørn Røe Isaksen woke up early in the morning on December 6, 2016, he knew that it was a special day. In fact, it was "one of the most important days in my time as a minister. The PISA day. It had been written down in my calendar for at least a year." (Morgenbladet, 2016). The idea that there is a special day when the overall quality of a national school system is assessed says something about the peculiar nature of how education, in contrast to other societal sectors, is measured today. The economy and the environment are, to name two examples, measured on a continual basis. Education, by contrast, is with the PISA survey measured every third year and reported on a special day, accompanied by massive media coverage. Historically this is a new phenomenon, marking a new way in which education is measured and governed. What I call the "PISA calendar" refers to a new temporal regime in which international assessments are conducted regularly, reported swiftly and simultaneously across the whole world. The aim of the article is to explore how this temporal regime of international assessments emerged and the potential influence it has over educational policy and CONTACT Joakim Landahl

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