Speculating UK’s Pisa Rank

It’s Tuesday.  The anticipation for the promised publication of the triennial international survey’s results has just grown heated, as UK together with other expected middle to low ranking countries, are rethinking about their education systems.

The survey in question is OECD’s Pisa or the Programme for International Assessment.  Fifteen year old students are randomly picked out to take Pisa tests on three key subjects: maths, science and reading.  It lasts for two hours and is comprised of “a mixture of open-ended and multiple choice questions.”

Only two hours; after students’ agony, the rest of worrying is passed unto the different states’ education leaders.  This is understandable; they’re expected to carry the burden.  In UK’s wake, it’s going to be a long wait for Education Secretary Michael Gove.

Round 1: Verbal combat

The exchange started a bit earlier than anticipated.  Before results are revealed, Labour shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt opened it with statements that implicates the failure of Gove’s reforms.

Gove hadn’t let the statement pass and instead, proffered a clarification: that the “forthcoming results” aren’t the direct consequences of his reforms; rather, it served to be the “verdict on the last government.”

If not now, then when will his education reforms bore fruit?  His answer: “… a decade’s time…”

Bleak prospects

The sources of these mediocre ranking came from the UK government, and unsurprisingly, from opposition spokesmen.  The triumph on the other end of the bar is expected to be reaped by Shanghai, Singapore and South Korean schools systems, as they did last Pisa tests.

The total number of students who took the Pisa tests peaked to 500,000 – some of them came from “England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.”  UK had only managed to fare in the middle of the ranks and is, obviously, not anticipated to ‘make any progress.’

The rest collides

Fortunately, UK is not alone wallowing over its poor ranks.  Fellow EU countries are getting the ultimate “Pisa shock” – one of which had been the Pisa proponent’s (Andreas Schleicher) country, Germany.  The same had been apparent in US schools system.

This hasn’t always made Pisa many friends. It can puncture the idea that everything is getting better.

Every schools system in the world needs a balance of good and bad news; the latter is surely defined by this Pisa shock.  It inevitably spurred rethinking about the existing education systems, the change it needs, the local scene and the bigger picture.

Pisa and its errors

These rethinking, reassessing, and debates goes to reveal the strong influence Pisa is making throughout the world’s school systems and education leaders.  Unfortunately, not everyone is impressed.  Take for instance the case of The Guardian’s Peter Wilby.

In his article, “Don’t let dubious Pisa league tables dictate how we educate our children,” Wilby goes on to expose the fact that a variety of elements present in Pisa testing is questionable.  Bringing into context such flawed features, Wilby closed his piece with persuasion by pointing out that UK may, indeed, “learn from what others are doing in their own schools.”

Is UK’s low Pisa ranking a serious cause for worry?  Or should the education leaders (ie, secretary and department) focus on local education issues?