Leaning Tower of PISA and the right to education

Education for all – a peace concern

Following the horrors of the Second World War, responsible individuals aimed to establish the foundations for peaceful coexistence worldwide through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Recognising that the goal and direction of education profoundly influence human emotions, thoughts, and behaviours, Article 26, in its second paragraph, states:
  “Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.”¹ A glance at the world situation today reveals that this objective is far from being realised, despite the majority of countries signing and ratifying this document.

A special educational policy task

Switzerland plays a distinctive role in education as a neutral and directly democratic country. Ensuring that all children and young people receive an education enabling them to exercise their civic rights and duties is crucial for the functioning of the country’s modern direct democracy and the preservation of freedom. This necessitates primary schools to educate individuals with a solid knowledge base, allowing them to contribute to global peace by extending their perspectives beyond personal horizons.
  However, the current state of our schools and the educational level of departing students indicate a different reality. We do not need a PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) test to realise that a genuine educational crisis is evident. The test just established the results of the reforms – reforms triggered by the first PISA – test results.  All the more disconcerting was the reporting in many media in recent weeks, reporting on Switzerland’s pleasing results and emphasising that it was one of the eighteen countries that had achieved better results than the average in maths, reading and science and was therefore doing well to very well. In an international comparison, there were still many countries that were behind our country.
  But is this an honest basis for comparison when you look at who was even worse? And one is even more perplexed by the statement of the report: “Despite this good result in international comparison, it should be noted that almost one-fifth of Swiss pupils do not achieve the minimum competences in mathematics described by the OECD. In reading, with a quarter falling below the minimum level.”² In science, too, it is almost a fifth of young people who do not achieve above the minimum level. In other words, 20 to 25 out of every 100 pupils complete their nine years of schooling without reaching the required proficiency levels in the tested subjects. Where are the times when Switzerland was at the top of international comparisons and being regarded as a centre of education?
  This alarming situation calls for an urgent and comprehensive discussion, starting with an examination of the purpose and implications of the PISA assessment, including its history and educational policy orientation. Rigorous, scientifically grounded analyses and responses are readily available. Acknowledging and acting upon them should be the priority and a commitment to the well-being of the next generation.

The “Sputnik crisis”
and its consequences

Fifteen years ago, in 2008, Roman Langer, a research assistant at the Institute of Education and Educational Psychology at Johannes Kepler University Linz, published an analysis of the history of the PISA tests, which remains relevant today³. Langer investigates the motives behind the PISA initiative, tracing developments in education policy since the mid-1950s when the post-war world order emerged. The “Sputnik crisis” in 1957, when the Soviet Union launched the first probe into orbit, marked a turning point. The perceived technical and military advantage of the USSR over the USA frightened the latter and was seen as a threat to their political and economic supremacy. Thus, the impetus – as Langer states – for modern Western school reforms was created, ultimately leading to the emergence of PISA tests.
  The American education system was acknowledged globally as being in disarray during this period, characterised by a shift towards expensive private elite schools and the neglect of state schools. Rather than addressing its failing school system comprehensively, the USA, post the “Sputnik shock”, initiated an emergency program in 1958 based on utilitarian principles, disregarding the success criteria of European education systems.

A new player is being established

Today, it is a fact and unfortunately also accepted that our education system is reviewed by the PISA tests developed by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).
  Although the OECD was founded in 1961, it initially played a secondary role in education policy, as this domain fell under the purview of UNESCO. However, the OECD exhibited ambitions from the start to become a significant player in global education policy.
  In its founding year, it organised a conference on economic growth and investment in education. It strove for an informal standardisation of education policy in the western world and attempted to place the natural sciences at the centre of education plans.
  In the 1960s, the USA sought the OECD’s assistance to develop indicators and a handbook for evaluating educational and learning performance in member states, marking the organisation’s first steps into the realm of education policy.  The OECD thus became a provider of scientifically sound analyses and a forum for discussion.

Liberalisation,
deregulation and privatisation

From the mid-1970s, an economic crisis dominated events in Western countries. Liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation of trade and markets were intended to generate growth and innovation. The neoliberal economic shift, championed by the Chicago School of Economics (with Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek) replaced the economic theory of John Maynard Keynes and set the course from then on. International economic organisations such as the World Bank, IMF, WTO and OECD were used to implement this strategy. Accordingly, the foundations and objectives of education were also to be changed. A genuine paradigm shift was underway.

Either I decide or …

The USA, reacting to the “Sputnik crisis”, intended to reorganise its education and school system. The 1983 education report titled “A Nation at Risk”, which painted a dismal picture of American schools, prompted a wave of reforms akin to the later changes in German-speaking European countries’ education systems.
  In the USA, the education and school system were to be reorganised. This was prompted by the education report “A Nation at Risk”, which was published in 1983 and gave American schools a miserable report card. This in turn was a shock, comparable to the “Sputnik crisis” (and later the “PISA crisis” in Switzerland, Germany and Austria). It triggered a wave of reform in the American education system in which the later changes in the education and school system in German-speaking European countries are already recognisable.
  The relationship between the USA, UNESCO, and the OECD played a crucial role in these developments. UNESCO, which had been dominant in global educational developments, faced a shift in its majority situation, leading to the USA’s withdrawal in 1984, followed by the UK and Singapore.

The birth of PISA

The OECD was now to step into this gap by upgrading its role in the education sector.
  The USA exerted direct pressure on the OECD to develop indicators allowing an international comparison of education system quality. The OECD initially resisted but yielded to the USA’s demands, replacing UNESCO in its role for education policy and becoming a proponent of a new education strategy. The process involved appointing national coordinators to popularise the “indicator culture”, leading to the creation of a comprehensive system for collecting education and school performance data in OECD member states.
  The USA put direct pressure on the organisation to develop indicators that would allow an international comparison of the quality of education systems. Among other things, this was intended to build up pressure “from above” in the USA itself and undermine the previous educational sovereignty of the American states. (Incidentally, France also used a similar approach to order and implement reforms at national level). The OECD initially refused the USA’s request. However, when the USA threatened to leave the organisation, it gave in and changed its education policy. From then on, it replaced UNESCO in its role for education policy and became the promoter of a new education strategy. This required a network of employees. In the mid-1990s, the OECD therefore appointed national coordinators to popularise the “indicator culture”, as we know it today as assessment criteria, in educational circles. It then recruited academics who, with their focus on data processing, would increasingly dominate the debate on educational issues. And finally, a comprehensive system for collecting education and school performance data in the member states of the OECD was created. This was the birth of PISA.

Lobbying and an army of scientists

The planned review of national educational performance by PISA, presented to OECD member states in 1995, faced initial rejection. Undeterred, promoters continued to pursue the plan, supplementing it with background lobbying. An army of 300 academics was engaged to insulate PISA from methodological criticisms, blending the OECD’s economic policy strategy with the perceived expert status of involved scientists.
  They influenced education policy decision-makers through think tanks and spin doctors, presenting their interests to governments and leveraging networks with international organisations. In 1997, after overcoming initial resistance, PISA was adopted by OECD member states. Reform processes at universities were established, driven by Germany, France and Italy. Rising resistance was overcome by bringing together the various players, with the EU playing an important role. This ultimately led to a second vote in 1997, in which PISA was adopted by the member states. The peer pressure and the accompanying slogan–we must move with the times and prepare schools for the world of tomorrow–certainly played a role. The introduction of an OECD-orientated evaluation system must not be shirked. Since then, this eternal argument “School for the world of tomorrow” has been fed into every reform in order to marginalise opponents as outdated and stifle discussions.

OECD in the leading role

With PISA firmly established, the OECD’s role in shaping educational quality criteria accelerated. Simultaneously, education ministers from Germany, France, Italy, and the UK initiated a precise, military-like organised initiative to reform Europe’s universities, citing globalisation and rapid changes as justifications.
  Powerful Western political players set targets at national and international levels, with governments ultimately granting the OECD a leading role in defining educational quality criteria.
  Questions arise about the level of awareness among individual political decision-makers.

The “Pisa shock”
triggers a wave of reform

The first PISA study in 2000, akin to the “Sputnik crisis” and the “A Nation at Risk” report, triggered a shock in various countries and led to rapid and widespread adoption of fundamental education system reforms. Solution concepts were rapidly adopted as shown by various studies while the USA paid little attention to its own country’s poor results.
  All this happened without in-depth, careful public debate and without a thorough scientific discourse. In Switzerland no critical questions were being asked concerning the concepts propagated by the OECD. Also, no-one scrutinised at what the testing rig was targeted. There was every reason to do so, as Switzerland had always been recognised as having an exemplary education system. The new concepts represented a theoretical and cultural break with the European educational tradition.
  Numerous studies, often lacking independence, scrutinised the enthusiasm for reform, with one noting the surprising ease with which fundamental reforms occurred in Switzerland, without the expected resistance from cantons⁴ as the most important veto-players.

And Switzerland?

Switzerland, though previously renowned for its excellent school system with minimal disparities between the best and worst pupils, adopted new education policy strategies without external pressure.
  The good integration of the school system into the Swiss democratic processes was also highlighted. Nevertheless, the OECD concept and its promoters found supporters in Switzerland. Ernst Buschor, formerly a professor of economics at the St. Gallen School of Economics and then Director of Education in Zurich, spearheaded the reform concept. Having barely been elected to government, he began to put his ideas into practice as of 1993, first in the Department of Health and Welfare and then in the Department of Education. After attending a symposium in Boston, he set to work on the basic concept for a reform that has been the face of our schools ever since.⁵
  Our school system was turned upside down while ignoring the fundamental findings of developmental psychology and pedagogy. Today, we have got a distorted school: the developments and improvements to school based on European research and practice, with their orientation towards a personal image of the human being, have been purged.
  Obviously, they avoided a discussion about the pedagogical and psychological insights underlying successful learning.
  The resulting implementation focused on unconnected teaching concepts, aiming at accompanying the children as an “Ich-AG”⁶ in their “self-optimisation” and bringing their “human capital” to light. The broad education for all children from all social classes became a casualty, leading to the current state where the right to education, a mandatory task for the country, is compromised.
  It is therefore not surprising that this strategy has not been successful. On the contrary, our country has been struck at its core, as the right to education is an obligatory task of our country.  •

¹ https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf
² Erzinger, A.B. et.al. (eds.). (2023). Pisa 2022. Switzerland in focus. University of Bern. S. 31. https://dx.doi.org/10.48350/187037
³ Langer, R. (2008) “Warum haben die PISA gemacht? Ein Bericht über einen emergenten Effekt internationaler politischer Auseinandersetzungen» (Why did they do PISA? A report on an emergent effect of international political disputes). In: Langer, R. (ed.). Warum tun die das? Governanceanalysen zum Steuerungshandeln in der Schulentwicklung. (Why do they do it? Governance analyses of steering action in school development.) Wiesbaden: VS, Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. This very readable text is an essential basis for this article.
⁴ Bieber, T. (2010). Sanfte Steuerungsmechanismen in der Bildungspolitik. Die PISA Studie und der Bologna Prozess in der Schweiz. (Soft governance in education: The PISA study and the Bologna Process in Switzerland) University of Bremen: TranState Working Papers No. 117. Sfb597 
⁵ Pelizzari, A. (2001). Die Ökonomisierung des Politischen. New Public Management und der neoliberale Angriff auf die öffentlichen Dienste. (The economisation of the political. New Public Management and the neoliberal attack on public services.) Konstanz: UVK Verlagsgesellschaft
⁶ Ich-AG refers to a sole proprietorship set up by an unemployed person who has received a start-up grant for this business start-up.