OECD Work on Technology and Education: innovative learning environments as an integrating framework

This article presents in summary a selection of the work conducted by OECD in the field of technology and education, which has been an on-going focus of OECD work since the 1980s. Recently, much of this has been under the heading of ‘New Millennium Learners’, but it has also included the widening of student achievement surveys towards digital literacy; reviews of e-learning in higher education, surveys on Open Education Resources (OER); technology as a source of innovation; and analyses of the digital resources market and educational technology patents. The article proposes the more holistic focus on ‘learning environments’ through which to analyse the very diverse ways in which technology can be integrated into education and as a design framework. This is drawn from a report of the OECD Innovative Learning Environments (ILE) project to be published in 2013, itself based on 40 case studies from different countries and regions. It suggests that contemporary learning environments should be: i) Innovating the ‘pedagogical core’; ii) Engaging the ‘Design/Redesign Leadership Circle’; iii) Widening connections and capacity through partnerships; and iv) Promoting 21st century effectiveness (based on the principles derived from the 2010 ILE learning research review). The article then applies this framework to show how technology shapes learning environments in many different ways. The article questions over-reliance on individuals navigating successfully to access non-formal learning opportunities and rejects the argument that learning institutions should simply adapt more adequately to available technologies. Instead, technology should be fully exploited in well-designed learning environments.     

经济合作与发展组织2003年教育发展指标体系研究及启示

经济合作与发展组织(OECD)教育发展指标体系已经成为一种国际性的监控教育发展状况的重要依据。它完备、准确而及时，深化了人们对有关教育投资、学生入学、教育产出、学生成绩等方面的认识，也成为各国教育部门制定宏观政策的有效参考依据，得虬了OECD成员国政府的大力支持。文章在对OECD2003年教育发展指标体系进行详细分析研究的基础上，提出了其对构建我国教育发展指标体系的一些启示。     

The OECD and the expansion of PISA: new global modes of governance in education

This paper examines the expansion of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and associated growth in the influence of the OECD's education work. PISA has become one of the OECD's most successful ‘products’ and has both strengthened the role of the Directorate for Education within the organization and enhanced the significance of the organization in education globally. We provide an overview of the OECD, including organizational changes in response to globalization and the changing place of the Directorate for Education within the organization, particularly with the development of PISA in the late 1990s. We show how the OECD is expanding PISA by broadening the scope of what is measured; increasing the scale of the assessment to cover more countries, systems and schools; and enhancing its explanatory power to provide policy‐makers with better information. The OECD has also developed the Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and PISA‐based Tests for Schools, which draw on the PISA template to extend the influence of its education work to new sites. The paper draws on data from 33 interviews with past and present personnel from the OECD, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) and the English and Australian education systems, as well as analysis of relevant OECD documents. We argue that PISA, and the OECD's education work more broadly, has facilitated new epistemological and infrastructural modes of global governance for the OECD in education.     

The predisposition of school culture towards change in public primary education in Greece

Educational reform attempts in Greece have been increased during the past decades, but research has shown negative change and innovation introduction and implementation results [Spiropoulou, Dimitra, Agapi Varvouraki, Chrisoula Koutra, Louka Eleni, and Mpouras Sarantos. 2007. “Innovation Programs in Education.” Review of Educational Matters 13: 69–83; OECD. 2011. Education Policy Advice for Greece. Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education. OECD Publishing. doi:10.1787/9789264119581-en; Kiriakodi, Despoina, and Athanasios Tzimoyiannis. 2015. “Educational Innovations in Primary Education. A Study of the Awarded Work of the Action ‘Institution of Excellence and Promotion of Good Practices’.” Issues of Science and Technology in Education 8 (3): 123–151]. The present article discusses those elements of school culture that impede educational change or can serve as resources for its more meaningful and effective implementation, as they are investigated with the use of a quantitative questionnaire. The findings from the responses of the participants, teachers (n?=?385) and headteachers (n?=?31), point to the need for an integration of the families in the educational processes, for a shift to the development of skills rather than mere academic achievement and for enhanced cooperation within the school environment. The role of the headteacher is recognised as an element that can improve the reform implementation results. Further qualitative research is suggested.     

经合组织教育指标研制：理论、过程与方法

经合组织教育指标体系的载体《教育概览》因其很高的决策与研究参考价值,被奉为国际比较教育的"宝典"。《教育概览》是经合组织的旗舰教育项目——国际教育指标体系(INES)项目的研究成果。本文通过分析INES项目的发展历程、工作机制以及工作模式,揭示了经合组织教育指标体系的理论框架、指标研制的过程与方法,以期对我国教育指标的研究有所启示。     

Building social and emotional efficacy to (re)engage young adolescents: capitalising on the ‘window of opportunity’

Research confirms that when students disengage from learning, there is a greatly increased risk of them dropping out of school and not completing secondary education (Year 12). In an Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) report on Equity in Education [OECD. 2012. “Investing in Equity in Education Pays off”, in Equity and Quality in Education: Supporting Disadvantaged Students and Schools. Paris, France: OECD. doi:10.1787/9789264130852-3-en], school dropout rates in developed countries averaged 20% and, in some countries, was as high as 25%. Lyche [2010. Taking on the Completion Challenge. A Literature Review on Policies to Prevent Dropout and Early School Leaving. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 53. OECD. doi:10.1787/5km4m2t59cmr-en] noted that school dropout does not ‘just happen’ but rather is a long process of disengagement from school. Students entering early adolescence are experiencing rapid and complex changes to their social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development that can positively or negatively affect their experience in education environments. During this time, there is also an increased expectation, both at school and at home, that young adolescents should accept greater responsibility for themselves and their learning. However, when individual students fail to regulate their behaviour or manage the increasing difficulty of the academic work, they can begin to disengage from learning and become entrenched in a downward cycle of poor academic achievement and poor social competence. With an increasing trend in young adolescents to disengage from learning, identifying how to reengage students is critical to their social and academic success. This study reports on the key features of an early intervention programme that targets young adolescent students who are already showing early signs of disengaging from school. Data show that the programme aligns with evidence-based practice and has had a positive effect in promoting and building students’ social and emotional efficacy and re-engaging them in learning.     

Education in the network age: globalisation,development and the World Bank

This article reviews the World Bank’s (1999) Education Sector Strategy document as a response to the challenges and the complexities of globalization and development as they relate to education. The article begins with an introduction to the Education Sector Strategy document. It moves on to discuss the nature of the new world economy, particularly its discursive shape, its form and the modalities of its reproduction. In this part of the article, the work of Carnoy and Castells (1999) and other analysts, such as Scott (1997), of what they all the networked economy, is used to show what is at stake for the developing world, and also, by implication, for the world as an interconnected community. Central to the reproductive modalities of the new economy, it will argue, are 1) entirely new education-work requirements and 2) a reconfigured and repositioned state. The article will attempt to show the implications of these for education. The article then moves towards a brief analysis of the developing world and then concludes with an assessment of the World Bank’s sector strategy. In summary, the article will argue that the Education Sector Strategy document is a critically important report but that is underestimates the complexity of the information age economy, particularly its modes of reproduction. The article will argue that the document does not sufficiently address the complexity of the modern developing world, especially the uneven and unequal ways in which its component parts articulate with the globalized order and the role of education in addressing this complexity. Critical weaknesses in the document relate to the relationship between education and work and the role of the state     

Socialisation,learning and the OECD’s Reviews of National Policies for Education: the case of Sweden

ABSTRACT

This paper suggests that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) education policy work of the last 20 years has achieved a paradigmatic shift in the thinking and framing of education; however, this process was not exclusively based and dependent upon the cold rationality of numbers. Crucially, as the article will show, it has also involved processes of socialisation and learning. The paper argues that a constructivist-institutionalist perspective based on the notion of socialisation provides adequate tools to explain the dominance of the OECD in the education policymaking world. The paper makes use of policy learning theory to show how and why it is the coming together of various actors in social terms that sustains and reinforces the numbers game, rather than simply the validity or strength of the numbers themselves. It uses the case of the publication of the OECD Review of Swedish education in 2015 to empirically flesh out the argument. Although the influence of the OECD has been great to a number of countries, Sweden is perhaps one of the few that displays such unanimity of public opinion and the academic and policymaking worlds in regard to the indispensability of the OECD as an education policy expert and actor.     

激励与责任：高等教育变化中的制度结构——经济合作与发展组织2002年高等教育学术研讨会综述

OECD2002年高等教育学术研讨会主要议题：（1）以人为本：全球对高等教育系统关注重点的变迁与发展;（2）胡罗卜与大棒;国家政策与院校行为互动的发展趋势;（3）大学跨国化与学术理想：国际教育市场的竞争与合作;（4）人力资源的个体开发：大学职业路径与激励机制;（5）院校个性：今天我们如何管理大学。     

‘Will I learn what I want to learn?’ Usable representations, ‘students’ and OECD assessment production

Amid growing debates around international assessment tools in educational policy, few have critically examined how students themselves are cast in policy tool production processes and discourse. Drawing on Stuart Hall's concept of representation, we show how higher education (HE) ‘students’ are constructed, fixed and normalized by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) initiative. Based on an analysis of AHELO texts, we argue that the OECD, during the early stages of test production, fixes and circulates the meaning of ‘students’ as represented objects. We identify and analyze two distinct representational practices at work in AHELO texts: classifying and organizing, and marking. We posit that by fixing images of the student as an object of learning and as a consumer–investor subject, the OECD creates ‘usable’ representations of ‘students’ to claim jurisdiction over teaching and learning in HE and to justify intervention through standardized testing.     

The changing place of careers guidance in schools

National Institute for Careers Education and Counselling (jointly sponsored by the Careers Research and Advisory Centre and by Hatfield Polytechnic). Research interests include careers guidance and the relationship between education and work. Has acted as a consultant to international organisations including the European Commission, OECD and Unesco. Books include Career Development in Britain, Work Experience in Schools,and Education, Unemployment and the Future of Work.     

Golden relics & historical standards: how the OECD is expanding global education governance through PISA for Development

ABSTRACT

Setting this paper against the backdrop of scholarly research on recent changes in the OECD’s approach and workings in education, I analyse how the OECD has reinforced its infrastructural and epistemological global governance through the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Development (PISA-D). Drawing on qualitative data, this paper makes three arguments. First, there has been a reinforced effort at the OECD to align national and international large-scale assessments; second, the OECD-ensured PISA-D was enhanced only in so far as it remained comparable with PISA, with a view to joining up lower- and middle-income data infrastructures with the global PISA infrastructure; and third, the OECD has bound together the aims of PISA, PISA-D, the Education and Skills Directorate, the Organisation’s Strategy on Development and the global education agenda (Sustainable Development Goals), thus strengthening its global education governance potential. With a note of concern, I suggest these recent changes in the OECD’s work in education may be spreading a very narrow framework of educational values, which does not sufficiently recognise the complexity of learning and teaching.     

TELESOFTWARE FOR BEGINNERS

This article serves as an introduction to the Telesoftware and Education Project being run at Brighton Polytechnic. It describes the recent history of telesoftware as an idea, and its development as a combination of television and microcomputer engineering. The article then moves to the research project itself, outlining the project's organization, intentions and educational aspects. The author provides examples of how telesoftware may be of use in classrooms and speculates on the potential of the telesoftware idea. Finally, the article mentions some present difficulties for micro‐electronics in education and the move towards a more coordinated approach.     

The School and ‘Contestation'∗

(The Editors are pleased to publish this article by Monsieur Maurice Niveau, Rector of the Academy of Lille, because it raises many issues that are also topical in English education: politicization of educational problems, inability to achieve a consensus, the effects of a hierarchical administration, and the composition and powers of school governing bodies (this last was discussed in the context of the Green Paper by Mr Joslyn Owen, the Chief Education Officer for Devonshire, in an article in our last issue). The recent House of Commons Expenditure Committee report ('The Attainments of the School Leaver’, HMSO, London March 1978) recommended that we should seek more information on education elsewhere in Western Europe. The publication of this paper is one small contribution to greater knowledge in this area. The paper was first published in French in the Revue de la Défense Nationale, Paris, July 1977.

Monsieur Niveau, as Rector of Lille, is nominal head of all educational institutions, including universities, in one of the largest and most densely populated ‘académies’ (educational administrative divisions) in France. He is no stranger to Britain and was one of the OECD ‘examiners’ who reported to that organization on the state of English education and which criticized the alleged secrecy of the DES. (cf. Reviews of National Policies for Education, England, OECD Paris 1977.))     

Two worlds,one site: leading practices and transitions to school

ABSTRACT

This paper presents an account of a cross-sectorial study investigating whether shared understandings of practices might enhance continuity during transitions to school. Applying an ontological lens to cross-sectorial leading practices, the paper sheds light on the contextualised realities of transitions to school as a site specific lived experience. The paper begins with an overview of the ways transitions to school practices are understood, including emerging perspectives of transitions as continuity practices. Then, cross-sectorial concepts of leadership and leading are presented to highlight fundamental differences in the ways these practices are enacted across the sectors. The paper presents empirical evidence of the ways leading practices can work to establish shared understandings of transitions to school practices and policies. Given ‘little research has been done on the direct effects of leadership on transitions’ (OECD. [2017]. Starting Strong V: Transitions from Early Childhood Education and Care to Primary School. Paris: OECD Publications, 95) the paper contributes to emerging discourses that construct transitions to school as continuities.     

通过教育实习提高体育教育专业毕业生教师招聘应试能力的思考

从提高体育教育专业毕业生教师招聘应试能力出发,结合当前体育教育专业教育实习的现状,在保证完成原有实习目标和任务的前提下,提出相关改进建议与措施。帮助即将毕业的实习生提高教师招聘应试能力,从而提高学校毕业生就业率和确保就业的本专业对口方向。     

Early Childhood Education and Care Vade Mecum for 2002

This is not an article, but a series of compressed notes which attempt to set down what the writer sees as the principal concerns highlighted in recent studies of early childhood socialisation from birth to about eight years. It draws heavily upon personal and professional experience of education and care systems in some sixteen countries as well as upon current OECD and UNESCO data. It deals with the concerns surrounding a minority of the world's children, however; that is the 10% or less, born into the rich portion of the (largely western) world. It focuses on the context surrounding the growing need for 'institutionalised' provision for children from birth in those OECD countries where divorce is common-place, where the birth rate has fallen dramatically and where, increasingly, most adult women work outside the home. It notes especially the gradual congruence of early childhood care and early education in policy and practice. It emphasises the vital contribution of appropriate early experience and learning to the creation of a humane society, briefly considers the policy preoccupations with literacy, and notes especially that the biggest single factor contributing to high quality provision lies in the quality of the professional staff concerned.     

QUALITY ASSESSMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION: ISSUES AND CONCERNS

Although quality in higher education is hard to define and to identify, there is growing concern about it at national and international levels. The work of CEPES, particularly its proposal to create a European Group on Academic Assessment (EGAA), and the work of OECD, particularly its Institutional Management in Higher Education Programme (IMHE), respond to this concern. Approaches to quality assessment in the United States, Japan, and Sweden are evoked.     

Issues in short cycle higher education

If a transition from elitist to mass higher education is to be brought about, traditional universities will not be able to do the job alone; new types of higher education will have to be developed to cope with increasing numbers and more diversified student needs. One possibility is expansion and appropriate reforms of short-cycle higher education and OECD's Education Committee has been exploring the problems involved in setting up such institutions or programmes and integrating them into the educational system and the society at large. These problems and some of the solutions envisaged are described in the following article.This article first appeared in the OECD Observer, February 1972.     

努力确保学校在地震中的安全——OECD的PEB项目相关研究及政策建议述评

针对汶川大地震中出现的学校倒塌及师生伤亡等不幸事件,作者介绍了OECD的PEB项目开展的学校地震安全的相关研究,特别是重点介绍了2005年OECD理事会批准的的主要内容,并联系这项研究及其政策建议对当前我国开展相关的灾后重建工作提出了建议.