The Netherlands could use a Pisa shock
Next Tuesday the new Pisa results will be published. The sometimes justified criticism of international educational research should not be an excuse for the Netherlands to ignore disappointing results.
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In the coming week, alarming headlines will probably appear again about 'Pisa': the triennial survey of 36-year-olds worldwide. The scores in the world's most influential student poll have been causing commotion for nearly twenty years. As always, the creators of the OECD, a collaborative organization of XNUMX relatively rich countries, will nuance the importance of the rankings. A half-hearted ritual, because frightening and thereby enforcing change in educational systems was Pisa's right to exist from the start.
The history of international comparative research dates back to the XNUMXs. The American president Ronald Reagan and the French former presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Chevènement then wanted to demonstrate with facts that the education systems in their country had to be overhauled. Reagan fought against the power of the American states, Chevènement against the elitist French education system. Both politicians were looking for figures that would convince fellow politicians of the flaws in existing education systems. This is how educational researcher Lucy Crehan explains it in her book Cleverlands.
Reading skills are the most important skill of the 21st century
Setting up an international system of comparable tests took many years, but not long after the turn of the century, the first results were there. In Germany, the first report resulted in a 'Pisa shock', because unexpectedly the Germans scored below the average of the then 31 OECD countries on reading, mathematics and physics. The German education system was overhauled and the federal government's spending on education doubled.
Effect
Nothing like this has ever happened in the Netherlands. A shock effect like in Germany? “No, we never had that here,” says Maarten Wolbers, advisor for the new Dutch Pisa report and as professor at Radboud University Nijmegen specializing in research into equal educational opportunities. “There are endless references to the Pisa results in reports, but it has not led to concrete measures. I don't expect this to happen as a result of Pisa 2018. ”
Test scores in the Netherlands are declining
It is not the numbers. The Dutch Pisa results have shown a declining trend for years. *Concerns about Pisa results Education is not a competition. A country may accidentally drop one or two places in a Pisa ranking, but that is not all. If only because more and more countries are participating. So what are they actually worth, those scores and rankings? Pisa advisor and professor Maarten Wolbers also has objections. "If you read Sander Dekker's letter in response to Pisa 2015 again, you will see that the then Secretary of State puts quite a lot of emphasis on those rankings." In the Dutch report Pisa 2018, the hit parade lists with rises and falls will be omitted, says Wolbers. Nevertheless, the Dutch decline in scores and rankings is indeed real. The absolute decrease in the Dutch scores in the field of natural sciences in the latest Pisa studies is so great that coincidence is statistically unlikely, according to Cito in a report that zooms in on the Dutch results of Pisa 2015. It is worrying that the Netherlands is not only falling in the OECD rankings, but also in the rankings of countries in the European Union, lists that are not clouded by newcomers. Between 2003 and 2015, the Netherlands also fell from place 2 to place 6 (natural sciences) and from place 4 to 9 (reading skills). Only in mathematics did the Netherlands remain in place 2. The lagging scores of ethnic and social groups and the increasing percentage of low-literate people are also substantial. The recent increase in the percentage of low-literate people, between 2012 and 2015, is the largest: from 14 to 18. Fifteen-year-olds who speak Dutch at home, native Dutch students and children of parents with a higher education level perform better on the Pisa tests than other students. This difference in performance applies to all three domains that Pisa measures: in the natural sciences, reading skills and mathematics the differences are so great that they cannot be statistically based on coincidence. Far too little has happened with the results of Pisa 2015, says Kees Vernooy, lecturer emeritus of reading education. Vernooy remembers that in Germany there were around 2000 signs along the motorways: 'Reading skills must be improved'. “I don't see our education minister Arie Slob doing anything like that yet. Governments and administrations should take their responsibility, but that is not happening. I am surprised that there is no panic by now. The fact that XNUMX-year-olds cannot read properly is seen as a huge problem in other countries. ”
Comments
The Pisa reports are definitely causing something in the Netherlands. Many education experts, teachers and policymakers have traveled to the guide country of Finland in the past decade: leader of many Pisa lists. And Pisa's poor equal opportunity results have been cited in numerous reports, such as those from the Education Inspectorate. “For the ministries and the inspectorate, Pisa is the most important thermometer for our educational results,” says Wolbers. "Especially now that other studies, in which fixed groups of students were followed for a long time, have been abolished."
The problem in the Netherlands is not that there are no reactions at all, says Wolbers, sometimes the reaction is too quick. Not long after the announcement in 2016, of the disturbing results from Pisa 2015 and the new annual report of the inspectorate, then education minister Jet Bussemaker presented her action plan for equal opportunities. Wolbers: “That plan came about mainly because we were just before the elections, in the last year of her ministry. The PvdA had to show that something was happening. A lot of money is spent on that plan and the question is whether that will ultimately yield anything. Schools that wanted a subsidy had to quickly come up with plans for this program and therefore did not have time to think carefully about the purpose of those plans. ” And Wolbers sees more examples of responses that are too fast: "We are introducing language and arithmetic tests and getting rid of them a few years later."
Criticism
The substantive criticism of educational experts, also in the Netherlands, of international comparisons such as Pisa, may be an excuse for a lack of thoughtful decisiveness. The main criticisms of Pisa are clearly stated in the book The Global Education Race from 2017, written by three renowned educational scientists.
First of all, the conclusions of international comparisons sometimes diverge considerably. International tests such as Timss (knowledge of science subjects in primary school) and Pirls (reading achievements in primary school) sometimes point in a different direction than Pisa. But Vernooy also sees the Pisa trends appearing in other international comparative research, at least in his field: reading skills. “The reactions to Pisa are sometimes insulting,” he says. “Ah those lists, people say, but in the meantime we keep falling back. That is not in the interest of society and certainly not in the interest of our students. ”
Well those lists, people say, but in the meantime we are falling further and further back
Another criticism of Pisa is that it focuses on a limited arsenal of skills. Arts, social skills and citizenship have no place in the tests, while these and other skills are really very important in this 21st century.
Nevertheless, the researchers themselves claim that they measure whether our youth is ready for the future. Pisa measures whether students apply knowledge to 'real situations' and 'to what extent they are equipped to participate fully in society'. "Nonsense of course," says Wolbers. "You can't just measure that by Pisa."
Better and fairer
The criticism of Pisa may sometimes make sense, but trivializing the tests does not seem wise. Scientific research has shown that young people in various countries run into difficulties without a basic level of math and writing.
“If you ask me, reading skills are the most important skill of the 21st century,” says Vernooy. During presentations, he likes to talk about the visit to a Toyota garage a few years ago. “The owner said: The first thing we test in the application process is reading skills, because technicians will have to retrain throughout their lives. Children who cannot read have a huge risk of dropping out on the labor market. ”
Even the authors of The Global Education Race are still quite enthusiastic despite their critical book. Pisa is perhaps one of the best efforts ever made to accurately measure educational outcomes. It provides education ministers, activists, educators and parents with data on equality that can make education systems better and fairer. '
