International large-scale assessments (ILSAs) are one of the most important tools policymakers and other educational stakeholders have to inform evidence based decision making for educational reform. Despite this, and the widespread use of ILSA data, results are sometimes misunderstood or misinterpreted. Here, we offer a brief guide to ILSAs and…

Autonomy is often discussed as a necessary condition for professionalism in any field, including the teaching profession. In the educational context, autonomy is seen to be critical for teachers to be able to synthesize their knowledge and skills and translate them into effective classroom practices in the best interest of their students. In…

Countries around the world are striving to improve their educational systems with a view to improving their economy and society. In this global competition, national and international test results are of considerable interest. In this paper, we show that national testing in England and the USA have shown little or no improvement over the years.…

In light of disappointing scores on the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), Arabic-speaking countries have begun to reexamine, and in some case reform, how they teach reading in the early grades. Egypt was one of the first countries to initiate early-grade reading reforms in 2010.…

With the release of the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and 2016 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) results, concerns that reading scores of U.S. students have remained flat for the past decade have surfaced again along with suggestions about the source of this problem and how it might be remedied. The…

This article looks at the changes made to examinations in England over recent decades and asks about the politics behind the changes. It considers how increasingly centralised the assessment regime has become, moving from a system where teachers could have a say in how pupils are assessed to a regime dominated by government approved tests. It…

The last two decades have seen fast-moving and wholescale changes in the ways that education is now provided in French schools, in the nature of learner assessment, and in the form and scale of system evaluation. Innovation and reform have in part followed international trends, themselves triggered by the global impact of the international…

Australia has declared its ambition to be within the "top five" in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) by 2025. So serious is it about this ambition, that the Australian Government has incorporated it into the "Australian Education Act, 2013". Given this focus on PISA results and rankings, we go beyond…

Results from international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) garner considerable attention in the media, academia, and among policy makers. Although there is widespread recognition that ILSAs can provide useful information, there is debate about what types of comparisons are the most meaningful and what could be done to assure more sound…

Primary education in Russia has failed to adapt to the needs of post-Soviet society, and is still based on rote learning and memorization instead of learning through discovery and learning to use and apply what is learned.

Reports of international large-scale assessments tend to evaluate and compare education system performance based on absolute scores. And policymakers refer to high-performing and economically prosperous education systems to enhance their own systemic features. But socioeconomic differences between systems compromise the plausibility of those…

In the twenty years since independence, new Eurasian nation-states of the former Soviet Union have introduced major changes to the way students are admitted to institutions of higher education. Azerbaijan (1992), Uzbekistan (1993), Kazakhstan (1999), Russia (2001), Kyrgyzstan (2002), Ukraine (2004), and Georgia (2005) have all created new state or…

Based on recent ethnographic research, this article explores young people's opportunities of formal and informal democracy learning and expressions of such learning in the highly market-influenced Swedish upper secondary education. With its ambitious democracy-fostering goals and far-reaching marketisation, Swedish education constitutes an…

The paper reviews the research on instructional leadership and, through identifying problems emerging in Indonesian school reform, suggests some sustainable solutions. There are some discrepancies in the processes of Indonesia's school reform, and the objectives of the national education reform do not seem to have been reflected in the actual…

Drawing from a range of secondary data sources, this paper succinctly overviews patterns of access to good-quality education in Turkey over the last 15 years. It also maps the policy context within which issues of access, quality and equity are examined. As a result of effective supply and demand side strategies, enrolment ratios beyond the…