Experience in using PISA for improving the quality and equity of education - Imbi Henno, Chief expert in General Education Department, Estonian Ministry of Education and Research

Experience in using PISA for improving the qualityand equity of education

Imbi HennoMinistry of Education and Research

General Education DepartmentChief expert, [email protected]

Republic of Estonia

● Estonia became a European

Union member state in 2004.

● Area: 45,000 square km

● Population: 1,340 million

Largest ethnic groups: Estonians (69%), Russians

(26%), Ukrainians (2%), Belarussians (1%) and

Finns (1%).

http://brand.estonia.eu/en/photos-and-videos-for-free/videos?img=297

● The Estonian Lifelong

Learning Strategy 2020

(adopted 2014) sees learning

as a lifestyle.

● Lifelong learning begins with

general education.

● General education is divided

to pre-school, basic and

upper-secondary education.

● Children who turn 7 years of

age by 1 October of the

current year are obliged to

attend school

National Curricula

● The national curriculum for basic and upper

secondary schools was updated in January 2011.

● The National Curricula implemented in all schools,

regardless of the schools legal status, levels of

education, the language of study.

● Every school develop their own school curricula.

● Parents can influence the school’s development

through school board.

● The school’s running costs will be covered by the

school manager. In most cases, this means local

governments.

General education in Estonia.Some facts 2012/2013

Primary schools (grades 1-6) 68

Basic schools (grades 1-9) 250

Upper secondary schools 214

(grades 1-12)

Number of students: 134 975

A view from outside: 2000–2013

• OECD Review of Estonian Education Policy 1999-

2001

• IEA TIMSS 2003 Study

• PISA 2006, 2009, 2012 (OECD)

• OECD Review of Estonian Tertiary Education (Review

of Tertiary Education, 2006-2007)

• OECD Teachers’ Survey TALIS 2008, 2013

• CIVIC 2009 – (IEA International Civic and Citizenship

Education Study)

• PIAAC OECD Assessment of Adult Competencies

PISA ● PISA offers policy makers and educators a way to

identify the world’s most effective education

policies.

● Strong performers and successful reformers in

education share some key characteristics: a belief in

the potential of all their students, strong political

will, and the capacity of all stakeholders to make

sustained and concerted efforts towards

improvement (OECD, 2013).

● Estonia’s performance in PISA improved

significantly in reading and science since it first

participated in PISA in 2006: 14 score points

between PISA 2006 and PISA 2012.

PISA 2012 results

Math Reading Science

Rank

ingMean Country Mean Country Mean Country

1 613 Shanghai-China 570 Shanghai-China 580 Shanghai-China

2 573 Singapur 545 Hong Kong-China

555 Hong Kong-China

3 561 Hong Kong-China

542 Singapore 551 Singapore

4 560 Chinese Taipei 538 Japan 547 Japan

5 554 Korea 536 Korea 545 Finland

6 538 Macao-China 524 Finland 541 Estonia

7 536 Japan 523 Ireland 538 Korea

8 535 Liechtenstein 523 Chinese Taipei 528 Viet Nam

9 531 Switzerland 523 Kanada 526 Poland

10 523 Netherlands 518 Poland 525 Canada

11 521 Estonia 516 Estonia 525 Liechtenstein

12 519 Finland 516 Liechtenstein 524 Germany

Reducing the number of low achievement

● We have the lowest level of low-performers in

Europe in reading math, science.

● Between 2009 and 2012, Estonia even reduced low

performers and increased top performers in science

simultaneously.

● The benchmark adopted by the European Council

aims to reduce low achievers to below 15% by 2020.

● In OECD in 2012, an average 23 % of students were

low achievers in mathematics. Only Estonia, Finland

and Liechtenstein have already achieved the

benchmark.

The excellence through the equity

● Estonia has performed above the OECD mean

performance in all studies and students tend to

perform well regardless of their own background or

the school they attend.

● Considerable low between-school variation has been

found only in three countries: in Finland, Estonia,

Iceland.

● In Estonia the student’s home socio-economic

background has less impact on performance than it

does in other countries.

Change in the number of students by school levels and projection for 1995–2014, prognosisfor 2017

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Upper Secondary

School

The number of children is decreasing significantly.

Estonia’s recent educational policies

● A significant demographic shift in Estonia’s population

resulted in a 25% reduction in the number of students in

general education between 2004 and 2012.

● In response to the changing student population, the

government changed school funding model.

● Competency standards for teachers and a development

plan for the teacher-training system have formulated.

● To encourage newly qualified teachers to teach in small

towns and rural areas, new teachers are offered an

allowance of more than 12 750 EUR during the first

three years of teaching.

School’s autonomy

● The PISA studies have shown, that in countries

where schools have greater autonomy over

what is taught and how students are assessed,

students tend to perform better.

● In Estonia the schools have the responsibility

to define and elaborate their curricula and

assessments.

● The schools are free to choice mathematics

textbooks.

● Estonia is one of the most advanced e-societies in the

world. WiFi covers all country.

● „E-stonia" is the term commonly used to describe

Estonia – we have E-government, E-elections,

Electronic ID card

● E-services in education – e-School, University via

internet

● Estonia has become became E-stonia with the help of

a government-backed technology investment body

(called the Tiger Leap Programme). All Estonian

schools were online by the late 1990s.

ICT education

● Since 1994, Estonia, through the Tiger Leap

Foundation, has been promoting ICT use at all levels

of education.

● In primary and secondary schools ICT is taught as a

cross-curriculum topic, and in secondary schools ICT

is included within technology as a subject, and also

taught as a separate subject.

● Both students and teachers at secondary level are

expected to use ICT in all subjects both in class and

for complementary activities.

Computer-Based Math

● „I hate maths”– This problem is not unique to

Estonia.

● Conrad Wolfram has developed a programme called

Computer- Based Math, which aims to reset the

subject matter of maths beyond hand-calculating to

wider problem-solving, using modern computing.

● Estonia is the first country in the world to implement

this programme.

● The materials are tested in 31 basic and secondary

schools with 2000 students all over Estonia in spring

2014.

Thank for attention