In recent decades, large-scale assessments in Ireland have revealed consistent trends, phases of change, and some surprises. This brief explores how data from large-scale assessments informed Ireland's "National Literacy and Numeracy Strategy 2011-2020," particularly regarding priorities, target-setting, and monitoring. It also examines…

Part of the mission of IEA (the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) is to support education systems worldwide with data-driven insights for evidence-based policies and improved student learning outcomes. Together with the TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center at Boston College, LaNA (Literacy and…

Focusing on the variables that can affect both academic achievement and the well-being of students has been crucial for their development, making schools effective and designing educational policy as well as curriculum. The study has aimed to investigate the effect of peer bullying on academic achievement and to determine moderators in the…

Many students require special education and programming to succeed in the classroom. This study analyzed international and national assessment teacher survey data regarding inclusive education to better characterize student classroom needs and teacher preparedness to support them. Most teachers indicated that they relied on teacher-based…

Modern societies are characterised by forms of acceleration, which influence social processes. Sociologist Hartmut Rosa has systematised temporal structures by focusing on three categories of social acceleration: technical acceleration, acceleration of social change, and acceleration of the pace of life. All three processes of acceleration are…

Prior research shows that establishing early literacy and numeracy skills may help children achieve better outcomes in later schooling. Data from the Regional Project on Child Development Indicators (PRIDI), which focused on Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Peru, provided insights into four domains of child development that build the…

This chapter offers a survey of education development in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA), and how the different crises have changed the global dynamics in education. This chapter first gives an overview of the regional context and the history of education in the region, followed by a discussion of the education developments in the…

On international comparisons, the development of Oman's education system in terms of the increase in educational enrolment rates and in the level of teacher qualifications has been remarkably rapid. Almost 100% access to basic education has been achieved, and almost all students progress onto post-basic education. A report from the World Bank in…

In recent years, the global community has developed a range of initiatives to inform the post-2015 global development agenda. In the education community, International Large-Scale Assessments (ILSAs) have an important role to play in advancing a global shift in focus to access plus learning. However, there are a number of other assessment tools…

Background: In a previous study, the total, direct and indirect effects of parental education on reading, mathematics and science achievement have been estimated for Grade 4 pupils of 37 countries that participated in PIRLS and TIMSS 2011 studies (Gustafsson et al. in "TIMSS and PIRLS 2011: Relationships among reading, mathematics, and…

Since at least the enactment of No Child Left Behind in 2002, standardized test scores have served as the primary measures of public school effectiveness. Yet, such scores fail to measure the ultimate goal of education: maximizing happiness. This exploratory analysis assesses nation level associations between test scores and happiness, controlling…

The aim is to describe the development of achievement in compulsory school in the Nordic countries from the 1960s. The study relies on published results concerning literacy and numeracy from the international large-scale assessments between 1964 and 2012. Among others, the following conclusions are drawn: (1) for most countries, a small but…

Lifelong learning is now a recurring topic in national human resource, employment, entrepreneurship and educational reform discourse. In Singapore, the government urges citizens to be lifelong learners to enhance their employability and reminds them that lifelong learning is a survival strategy for the country. This paper presents and analyses…

In this paper we elaborate and extend the work of the EDUsummIT 2015 Thematic Working Group 7 (TWG7) by proposing a set of indicators on quality Technology-Enhanced Learning and Teaching (TEL&T). These indicators are intended as one component of a set of global indicators that could be used to monitor implementation of the Education 2030…

Children's reading skill development is influenced by availability of reading materials, reading habits and opportunity to read. Save the Children's Literacy Boost data have replicated this finding across numerous developing contexts. Meanwhile international large-scale reading assessments do not capture detail on current home literacy. The…