OECD report seeks more reform
OECD data suggest that Northern Ireland is falling behind but the organisation has also set out proposals to improve the province’s performance.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) comprises 34 member states and focuses on sharing best practice between them. With a headquarters in Paris (pictured above), it covers all the major Western economies. Its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) began in 2000 and involves testing 15-year olds on their skills and knowledge.
As agendaNi reported in December, Northern Ireland’s rankings have fallen from around 520 points when the tests were first carried out to 487 for maths, 498 for reading and 507 for science in 2012. The Republic’s scores were 501, 523 and 522 for those respective subjects, representing an improvement since the last tests in 2009.
Education Minister John O’Dowd has also commissioned a review of the province’s education system by OECD staff. This took place in February-March 2013 and the report was published in December just after the PISA results came out.
O’Dowd accepted the report’s criticisms, which included the lack of professional development for teachers and the “average performance” of post-primary pupils in international comparisons. Improvements at post-primary level, he said, “have not kept pace with those in the primary sector.” O’Dowd pledged to consider the report’s 15 recommendations in more detail.
Its authors found that Northern Ireland had a “highly fragmented” system and social advantage had a particularly strong impact on post-primary schools. Teachers also questioned the effectiveness of the curriculum’s ‘levels of progression’.
Information on a child’s performance was regularly reported to parents but rarely compared between schools. This reflects Sir Robert Salisbury’s finding that schools need to be more closely scrutinised for how (or indeed whether) they are improving their pupils’ results.
The Executive is encouraged to continue its focus on teacher professionalism and give teachers a role in designing future services for supporting schools and improving the levels for progression. Teachers, it affirms, are “best placed to communicate the reality of classroom teaching”. Appraisals of teachers need to be followed up with opportunities for professional learning.
DUP spokesman Mervyn Storey said that the report “should be taken in the context of what has been achieved in our education system and should not be used as a means of trying to [pursue] a narrow ideological agenda.”
His UUP counterpart, Danny Kinahan, welcomed the report’s contribution to the education debate. “There is much we could learn from international countries and therefore reports like these should always be carefully considered,” he remarked. The SDLP and Alliance Party have not yet commented on the report but are likely to consider it over the coming months.
