Learning Assessments Regional and Global Initiatives Dr John Cresswell SEA-PLM Penang, October, 2014

Overview Global Assessments PIRLS, TIMSS, PISA, ICCS, EGRA Regional Assessments SACMEQ, PASEC, LLECE ASER/Uwezo Learning Metrics Taskforce

Change happens - Korea In Korea, in the 1950s, the literacy rate was 22% and less than 20% of children attended secondary school. Education reforms undertaken by Korea led to them having one of the most advanced education systems in the world.

Approximate percentage of adults with high school qualifications Change happens - Korea Approximate percentage of adults with high school qualifications 13 1 1 27

Change happens - Finland Until the late 1960s, in Finland most children left public school after six years. Some children went to private schools, academic grammar schools or folk schools. At that time only the privileged and fortunate were exposed to quality education. A series of reforms was undertaken over many years and in 2000 Finland achieved at the highest level in PISA.

Education reform cycle Assessment is just one part of the process of educational improvement. Simply doing more assessment will not, by itself, improve educational outcomes of students.

Reform cycle Reform discussion Policy dialogue and decisions Education reform is not a straight line activity Reform discussion Policy dialogue and decisions Student assessment and reporting Policy implementation Teaching and learning

Regional and International Assessments In 1964, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) conducted the first internationally comparative study in mathematics; 12 countries participated. By 2009, about 70 per cent of the countries in the world participated in some form of regional or international assessment program. Since the 1980s, the number of national assessment programs has also increased.

PIRLS (Progress in Reading Literacy Study) International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Sample – grade 4. Subject – reading. Focus – curriculum. Other – student, parent, teacher and school questionnaires.

PIRLS 2011 The boundaries indicate the 95% confidence limits The centre line is the estimated mean for the country 500 is the mean international score

TIMSS (Trends in Mathematics and Science Study) International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Sample – grade 4 and grade 8. Subjects – mathematics and science. Focus – curriculum. Other – student, teacher and school questionnaires.

ICCS – the International Civics and Citizenship Study Preparing young people to undertake their roles as citizens Two dimensions of civics & citizenship Student knowledge and understanding Attitudes, perceptions and activities Focus of ICCS reporting International comparisons Variations within countries Factors explaining variation

PISA – Programme for International Student Assessment Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Reading, mathematics, science Also problem solving, financial literacy Student and school questionnaires Sample is 15-year-olds 72 systems in PISA 2015 Focus in preparedness for the future – ie not curriculum based. The OECD also conducts TALIS and PIAAC.

EGRA - Early Grade Reading Assessment US AID/RTI Also Early Grade Mathematics Assessment (EGMA) Implemented in over 70 countries in 100 languages.

SACMEQ - Southern and Eastern African Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality 15 countries; since 1995. Compares student performance, and the factors associated with that performance. Capacity building has been a major focus of SACMEQ

LLECE Latin American Laboratory for the Evaluation of Quality in Education 15 countries; since 1997. second assessment (SERCE) study in 2007. TERCE followed.

PASEC - Programme for the Analysis of Educational Systems of CONFEMEN The Conference of Education Ministers of Countries which include French as a Language of Communication (CONFEMEN) First assessment 1991; 24 participating countries in a series of assessments. The first phase of PASEC had tests at the beginning and end of grades 2 and 5, but is now moving into a new phase with just one test in each of grades 2 and 6.

ASER and Uwezo Household based assessments. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER): implemented annually in India for the last ten years, 600,000 out-of-school children. Uwezo: an ASER based assessment in Africa. Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and in the future Senegal and Mali.

Regional participation   PIRLS PISA TIMSS ICCS EGRA PASEC Country 2001 2006 2011 2000 2003 2009 2012 1995 1999 2007 * Brunei Cambodia • Indonesia Lao PDR Malaysia Myanmar Philippines Singapore Timor Leste Thailand Vietnam

What do countries learn by participating? Gauge of educational health Calls to action when results surprise PISA: eg Germany, Japan Setting of national expectations that are consistent with performance throughout the world

What do countries learn by participating? Influence on curriculum orientation and content TIMSS (the role of statistics, probability and data in the mathematics curriculum) PISA and its literacy orientation Non-continuous text as an element of reading Capacity development Assessment task development Research design, sampling, scaling, analysis…

What do countries learn by participating? Trend information Is our performance increasing or decreasing? Have gender differences narrowed? Has participation of girls increased? Policy development Inform options for policy Identify correlates of outcomes (eg teacher qualifications, resource access)

LMTF - Learning Metrics Taskforce Post-2015 Development Goals The overarching goal of the Learning Metrics Task Force is to catalyse a shift in the global conversation on education from a focus on simply access to a focus on access plus learning. Assessment is a necessary part of the process to find out if students are learning.

Learning Metrics Partnership LMTF 2.0 Learning Metrics Partnership Strategic partnership between LMTF, UIS and ACER to develop common global metrics for reading and numeracy Opportunities for alignment between SEA-PLM and the global metric ACER is a member of the LMTF and is providing all technical support for the development of the common metrics