21st November 2013 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Under a new education policy, individual secondary schools in England will have access to international exams which will show how they compare with the best schools in Asia and the rest of Europe. The Programme for international student assessment (pisa) developed by the OECD is used to compare the standard of education in different developed countries around the world. From 2014, schools in England will be able to use these tests to see how they rank against high performing schools around the world. The tests are designed for 15 year olds, and examine students’ attainment in reading, maths and science in developed countries.
The government’s department for education and skills has said that they encourage schools to take part, and that the test provides an excellent opportunity for schools to compare themselves on a global scale. Some councils around the country have already said that they will be encouraging their schools to take part, which would allow them to be placed on international as well as national league tables. The OECD publishes international league tables which are based on the ‘pisa’ tests, and which have become influential international benchmarks. The league tables are published every three years based on a sample of schools in each country, and are used as significant indicators for the economic performance of each country in years to come.
In recent OECD league tables, Asian countries have dominated the top of the lists, with Scandinavian countries coming top in Europe. The UK is generally a mediocre performer, ranking consistently around the middle of the tables, but analysts have raised concerns that these results do not reflect the huge national disparities between region and type of school. Some have argued that it would be useful to compare results from different areas, so that it would be possible to see how state schools in London compared with those of other cities such as New York and Paris. Now that schools in England have the opportunity to offer the tests to their students, schools who take up the Pisa testing will be able to see how they rank on an international scale and create linkages with schools in other countries.