PISA 2018 Results

    This post is a summary of the book with the title above published in 2019  https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/5f07c754-en.pdf?expires=1576970589&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=35845E011A63E8FC16D5A49F66FAED1

               Among its many findings, our PISA 2018 assessment shows that 15-year-old students in the four municipalities of China that participated in the study - Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, outperformed by a large margin their peers from all of the other 78 participating education systems. True, these four municipalities in eastern China are far from representing China as a whole, but the size of each of them compares to that of a typical OECD country, and their combined population amount to over 180 million. What makes their achievement even more remarkable is that the level of income of these four Chinese region is well below the OECD average. In this context, and given the fact that expenditure per primary and secondary student rose by more 15% across OECD countries over the past decades, it is disappointing that most OECD countries saw virtually no improvements in the performance of their students since PISA in 2000. In fact, only seven of the 79 education systems analysed saw significant improvements in the performance of their students, and only one of these, Portugal, is a member of the OECD. All countries have excellent students, but too few countries have enabled all of their students to excel and fulfill their potential to do so. Achieving greater equity in education is not only a social justice imperative, it is also a way to use resources more effectively, increase the supply of skills that fuel economic growth, and promote social cohesion. For those with the right knowledge and skills, digitalisation and globalisation have been liberating and exciting; for those who are insufficiently prepared, these trends can mean vulnerable and insecure work. Seven countries saw improvements of their students throughout their participation in PISA: Albania, Colombia, Macao, Moldova, Peru, Portugal and Qatar. Twenty countries performed above the OECD average in all three domains (reading, math, science): China and singapore were the highest-performing education systems in all three subjects. In reading, Estonia, Canada, Finland and Ireland were the highest-performing countries. In science, the highest-performing countries were Japan and Estonia. In math, were Japan, Korea and Estonia. China, Singapore, Estonia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Japan and Korea scored above the average in all three subjects. While differences in average performance across countries are large, the gap that separates the highest-performing and lowest-performing students within any country is even larger. The largest differences between top-performing and low-achieving students were found in Israel, Lebanon, Malta, UAE, meaning that learning outcomes in these countries are highly unequal. The smallest differences between high- and low-achieving students were, typically found amongst countries with the lowest scores. In Morocco and the Philippines, even the highest-performing students scored only around the average. The goal of PISA is to provide useful information to educators and policy makers concerning the strengths and weaknesses of their country's education systems, the progress over time, and opportunities for improvement. changes in technology and society will continue to influence the demand for skills and the context in which adults and youth people will use their competence in literacy and numeracy. In Brazil, mean performance in math improved over the 2003-2018 period, but most of that improvement was in the early cycles.  After 2009, in math, as in reading and science, mean performance appeared to fluctuate around a flat trend. Mean performance in reading, math and science in the U.S. remained about the same in every PISA assessment, with no significant improvement or decline. However, the gap between the lowest- and highest-achieving students narrowed. Mean performance in reading and science in the U.K. remained stable since 2006, Mean performance in math was mostly flat but with a significant 9 score point improvement between 2015 and 2018, and for the first time, the U.K. performed above the OECD average in math. After a decline until 2012, mean reading, math and science performance in Sweden recovered in 2018, returning to a level similar to that observed in the early PISA. Spain's data met PISA 2018 technical standards. However, mean math performance remained stable throughout the country's participation in PISA. Mean performance in science declined between 2015 and 2018.