PRESS RELEASE: School Students Reject Distorted PISA Assessments
On the occasion of the international results presentation of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012, the Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions (OBESSU), the platform for school students in Europe, hereby expresses its concerns about the alarming tendency to rely on standardised tests for the assessment of student performance and subsequently of national educational systems.
We believe that PISA assessments present a distorted picture of education because:
- PISA tests only assess subjects with easily quantifiable learning outcomes, namely mathematics, literacy and science; therefore these tests, by their composition, only measure a narrow range of competences. They do not take into account important aspects of education such as the progress of each learner, the background of learners, the learning environment and the motivation and interest of the learner.
- The evaluation of learners, especially those of 15 years of age, cannot be performed satisfactorily when conducted solely by multiple choice tests. Only a competent teacher is able to consider all the factors that converge in the evaluation of a learner and adapt the methodology to the learner.
- Different students have different learning needs and they perform well using different methods. The very narrow format of these tests restrains the diversity and individuality of each learner.
- PISA tests create a negative atmosphere of competition between students, teachers, schools and national education systems. The core concept of quality education should be cooperation between its actors.
- PISA tests undermine principles of autonomy and subsidiarity in education by moving quality monitoring and the strategic measures to improve quality to a more distant level: from class to school level, from school to national level, from national to international level.
- PISA tests are unclear on their intentions: the “scientific evidence” drawn from their results does not have any reliable counterpart for comparison. The policy recommendations formulated by the OECD do not prioritise the interests of teachers, students and their families, the direct stakeholders in education. Often, PISA results are misinterpreted and misused to promote a political agenda and to achieve goals which do not favour the learner but vested interests of other institutions and stakeholders.
- PISA tests interfere with the curricula by promoting “teaching to the test” and causing a shift from a learner-centred approach to an outcome-centred approach.
- The prominence of PISA tests spreads the idea of standardised evaluation as a valid method of assessment in schools.
OBESSU and its member organisations demand a shift of focus from quantitative to qualitative evaluation of educational systems and demand that those who draw on their results recognise the complexity of the PISA results, as with all surveys that quantifiably measure education and training. We call on national governments and international institutions to acknowledge the aforementioned discrepancies between PISA tests and the mission of secondary education, and call on the authorities to initiate an inclusive and democratic dialogue between all stakeholders to challenge the current PISA assessment and find better indicators to assess the health of education and ensure its quality.
For more information, please contact the OBESSU Board at board(a)obessu.org.
Download the press release as a PDF here.
