Education

by Caterina Cecchini

Remarks About 2009 PISA Assessment

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is one of the tools offered to policy makers to evaluate and compare the performances of schooling systems. Within an internationally agreed framework, based on an empirical approach which analyzes data collected according to the endogenous growth model –(http://www.pisa.oecd.org/document/58/0,3746,en_32252351_32236191_44417722_1_1_1_1,00.html), it monitors the improvements of educational systems of the countries participating to the tests, covering questions and problems in the field of maths, natural sciences and reading. (http://www.pisa.oecd.org/pages/0,2987,en_32252351_32235731_1_1_1_1_1,00.html) Students at age of 15 are examined in an interval of three years.

A brief overview

The results of the latest PISA assessment, with the successful performances of Korea and Singapore as well as entities like Hong Kong and Shanghai, confirmed the leading role of Asian countries in the economic and social development.

Among the western countries, however, a divided picture appeared. Whereas Canada, Finland and Sweden are among the high achievers, the scores of students from southern European countries particularly that of Italy and Portugal show deficiencies and contradictions of schooling systems, lacking long-term strategies.

Policies and “myths”

Few weeks ago, in the columns of the Wall Street Journal an article was wondering “Why Chinese Mothers are superior?” underlying the gap in performances between students with Chinese background living in the US and others with a different cultural heritage. In particular, the author remarked the central role played by discipline in the educational strategies of Chinese mothers  (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html?mod=WSJ_hp_us_mostpop_read#articleTabs%3Darticle), providing somehow a cultural-mythological explanation to a western reader, presumably worried about the results and perspectives of his son/daughter.

However, reading carefully all the analyses and surveys related to PISA and its results, it seems that when systems are more standardized and monitored, they are able to offer wider opportunities of success, whatever the student’s background or cultural heritage are. Performances indeed are higher not only in the wealthy part of Asia, but also in western countries where traditionally the state is organized to take care of citizens from “cradle to grave”, and where policy makers pay particular attention to the issue of equal opportunities. In the Asian case, though, the “winning” formula includes high salary for trainers and, at the same time, more responsibilities, such as a higher number of students per class. As a result, discipline becomes a key tool not only for educators at home, but also at school.

On the other hand, the low scores of Italian students can be put in relationship with the lack of competition among the schools, which are not funded on the basis of their merit and performances. In spite of the autonomy over what is taught and on how student are assessed, Italian schools are not obliged to make their achievement data publicly, avoiding to be accountable for results and to compete for enrolling students. As a consequence, in Italy the success of a single person is mainly influenced by his social background and by the geographical location of the school (city-countryside; uptown-downtown; north-south). The structural weakness of this system, unable to bridge the social gap, is more evident when analyzing the performances of immigrates, scoring generally 53 points below natives, and being only 5% of the total amount of students (while in Spain, Belgium and Sweden immigrates are respectively 9%, 15% and 12% of the total, scoring instead 40% below natives’ average). This case shows how policies focused only on funding, without a critical strategy about the allocation and management of the resources, do not provide successful results.

On the contrary, the 1999 reform of education in Poland can be seen as a good example of governance and political will. Following the demise of communism, this country’s educational institutions were unable to connect students to the job market, and what is more they failed to provide them an appropriate preparation for university, mainly addressing students to vocational tracking, once ended a first cycle of 8 years. The government therefore approved a reorganization that reduced from 8 to 6 years long the primary school, introduced a 3 years long lower secondary school and created various types of upper secondary schools. These changes were accompanied by a curricular reform aimed at providing schools with extensive autonomy and responsibility, within a system of examinations and tests at the end of primary and lower secondary cycles. As a result, in a decade Polish students have achieved higher educational attainments and Polish students participating in the PISA study shifted from the bottom to the upper scale.

Conclusion

As noted above, the more policy makers are committed to create an open and updated educational system, aimed at offering equal opportunities in terms of schools, teachers and programs, the more performances improve. This is particularly clear regarding Canada, Sweden, Finland, Singapore, Korea, etc.

On the other hand, the Italian case illustrates how, when policy makers are unable to control an inefficient bureaucratic structure, it becomes the feeding ground of a diverted conception of the welfare state, where nobody is responsible for the correct or incorrect allocation of funds and there is a double loss: economic and human. When trying to reform an educational system, policy makers should first of all consider transparency in governance as precondition of competitiveness and do not forget that school opens the way to the job market as well as to the citizenship. As PISA assessment suggests, a system where equal opportunities are not provided to the majority of students is potentially a system where civil participation and economic development are at risk.

by Caterina Cecchini

In Shock Economy Naomi Klein underlines the consequences of neo-liberalist policies implemented by governments in case of distress and ‘unexpected’ crises. Making reference to the influence of Milton Friedman’s theories on American conservative policies, she illustrates how a shock is often considered a useful tool to erase some of the achievements of civil right movements and to rebuild an alternative social system, mainly based on private funding and enterprise.

Among the cases analyzed, Naomi Klein examines in particular the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the economy of Louisiana state. After the disaster, she points out, many state employees lost their jobs because local government did not receive any financial aid to restore the pre-hurricane system by the central institutions. Washington, indeed, preferred to develop a reconstruction policy focused on promoting the creation of private schools and hospitals, neglecting even the public sector of infrastructure

The situation of many European states today is of course different from the post-Katrina one, but the financial crisis that many of them are facing might reshape definitely their traditional social balance as well as determine their future economic development.

Cutting Education, Cutting the Future

The case of education is paradigmatic in this sense, since it has become one of the most targeted areas by European governments in their policies of cuts in public spending, even though it should be a strategic asset to fight the rampant development of Asian countries. But in countries like Italy or the UK, both led by conservative coalitions, the complexity of the crisis is allowing worried officials to cut indiscriminately in any politically expendable field.

Politicians justify their choices for cuts declaring that it is time to restore responsible policies, which in the past were too dominated by “ideological” perspectives. In the globalized world, they argue, education must necessarily be more tightly connected to the job market: this is not the time for “educational solidarity”. Opponents to these measures point out that indiscriminate education cuts will increase the fees for schooling and university courses and decrease the number of scholarships available, therefore negatively affecting social mobility and equality, key concepts in modern democracies. In addition, a system of funding that is more connected with private sectors and where the state is a peripheral player would probably let investments in the field of humanities drop.

The Sunset of Europe?

On the other hand, the growth of emerging economies, especially in Asia, suggests that the kind of white collar services which are now provided in Europe will increasingly move towards the Far East within the next few years just as industrial production has moved.

Analysts repeat that one of the tools that the European countries should use to fight their decline is investments in advanced research, aimed at maintaining the technological gap which at present distinguishes Europe from emerging countries. Data available shows that in the past years emerging economies have started to invest massively in education and research to fill the technological gap which still exists between them and the developed countries, suggesting that now it shouldn’t be the time for reducing funds in these fields.

The Bologna Process: (not so much) Towards a European Common Strategy in Education and Research

In 1999 the EU Member states officials signed the Bologna Declaration, starting the Bologna Process, a process of integration with the aim of making the EU economic area more competitive and harmonized in the field of education and research. Its purposes were confirmed and expanded in 2009 by the Leuven Communiqué, listing the priorities for the coming decade of European Higher education system:

• social dimension: equitable access and completion;
• lifelong learning;
• employability;
• student-centred learning and the teaching mission of higher education;
• education, research and innovation;
• international openness;
• mobility;
• data collection;
• multidimensional transparency tools;
• funding.

Among the goals already achieved by the Bologna process was the harmonization of the university system, which had to transform the original university study plan of each EU member state from 4 or 5 years of study into 3 + 2 module programmes.  Even though this project has been implemented, many European universities are dissatisfied with the new system because it seems to have only downgraded the level of student preparation and the quality of instruction.

It is not clear yet whether in its second decade the new targets of the Bologna process will succeed, as a brief survey of country reports already suggests. There is little or no balance, in fact, in the allocation of funds each country of the Euro zone plans for research, a difference that will have effects on the middle/long run economic performances of every single state.

But the policies of cuts in education and research could not only slowdown the response of economies to the economic crisis in general, making each country less competitive vis-à-vis the world at large including emerging economies. They may also affect the social and economic cohesion of the EU and its future development, undermining its role as a player in the world’s economy.

The American Lesson. What Perspectives for Europe?

Almost three decades of reductions of public spending in the educational system of the United States have increased poverty and inequality,making citizens at least less confident in state run institutions and seriously eroding the social cohesion at the same time.

It is possible that similar policies perpetrated by conservative coalitions in Europe will change or redefine in the middle/long run the social framework of many countries of the Old Continent. And a poorer educational system means inequality of opportunities, as well as less educated and poorer citizens. Is that the Europe we need?