PISA - An edible item or what?

PIZZA generally pronounced as PISA is a delightful Italian cuisine which has become pretty popular in India too.  But how many people know the other PISA, which is like the world cup for cricket or football or even Olympic games connected with the quality of school education globally.  PISA, known as Programme in International Student Assessment, is one of the world’s biggest international education surveys, conducted by the Paris based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), every three years since 2000.  It has 34 member countries including UK, USA, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Germany, France, Canada etc., but the International student assessment is open to non-member nations too.  The PISA test is conducted for school going students in the age groups of 15 years and 3 months to 16 years and 2 months, to ascertain the Pupil’s scholastic performance on Mathematics, Science and Reading. 

 PISA claims to measure education’s application to real-life problems and life long learning.

In other words, pupil’s knowledge to solve problems in real-world contents is tested and hence, rote-learning will not help to secure higher points.  To fulfill OECD requirements, each country must draw a sample of atleast 5000 students, but small countries like Iceland and Luxemburg, where there are fewer than 5000 students per year, an entire cohort is tested.  Apart from taking the test, participating students are asked to answer questions pertaining to their learning habits, motivation and family.

With regard to importance of PISA test, Andreas Schleicher, from OECD said “Your education today is your economy tomorrow. Your country’s competitiveness and your individual job prospects are heavily influenced by what happens in other countries.”

Since the year 2000, Finland stood first in all tests viz., Mathematics, Science and Reading literacy. For the first time, China and Indian students also participated in the PISA test in 2009.  India was represented by students from Tamilnadu and Himachal Pradesh, considered as best performing states in India.  It was reported that from Tamilnadu alone, students numbering 6,78,968 from 158 Government,Government aided and unaided private schools including CBSE schools participated in the PISA tests.  It was also reported that about 2.3 crore students took part in the PISA  tests.  Tamilnadu and Himachal Pradesh were counted as different entities.  Totally 74 developed and emerging economies took part.

The shocking result was, out of 74 global participants, Tamilnadu secured 72^nd position, Himachal Pradesh secured 73^rd position and last position went to Krygystan.  China emerged as the world’s cleverest country with the first rank in all the three tests, students from rural and urban areas performing uniformly well.

PISA results sent shock waves to all educationists in India. The world was shocked and surprised at the exemplary performance of China and extraordinarily disappointing show of India.

Government of India blamed “Out of Context” questions in the PISA format for India’s poor show and wrote to OECD on the issue, stressing the need to factor in India’s Socio-cultural milieu in the type of the questions asked.

But even countries like UK and USA quoted many differences in their countries but accepted the rules prescribed by OECD.

The results brought out the facts, some are highlighted here:

1.Indian students are exposed to rote learning and memorizing, rather than understanding the concept and practical application of the same.

2.As regards reading, the test is administered in the language of instruction and not necessarily in English. English proficiency is not the issue unless English is the medium of instruction.

Since OECD did not change the testing format, India opted out of 2012 and 2015 PISA tests, fearing the repeat of the dismal performance by Indian students.

The PISA 2012 test results were anxiously awaited by all the 65 participating countries including USA,UK. China etc.

With over 5,10,000 students taking  part, the results of PISA 2012, were published on Tuesday December 3^rd 2013 at 10 AM (GMT). It was an encore for China, topping the list again.  Finland which was the topper till 2006 PISA test, secured 12^th position in Maths.  Asian countries like Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan took the first 7 positions in Maths.  UK was in 26^th position, USA 36^th position and the last 65^th position went to Peru. USA scored lower marks in Maths and Science than the OECD average scores.  Boys did better than girls in Maths.

About top score by China, TIME World, claimed that by sending much better educated children from Shangai and Hongkong, China is cheating the world student ranking systems. But it is not acceptable to most of the readers, as they conclude, Chinese children are hardworking and have work ethics.

CNBC blasted the poor performance by USA and other western economic powers such as Germany, France and UK . A German newspaper described the experience as an “instructive disaster”

A Finland magazine FINNBAY headlined “Golden Days Where Acceptance of Finland’s Success in Education is Over” Another Finnish newspaper, headline was “Finnish education is crumbling down!”

One reader from US, cogently summarized his views as under:

“Bring back competition. Get rid of tenure. Pay on performance. Remove grading curves. Bring back limited corporal punishment. Only winners get prizes and losers fail. Not everyone is ‘gifted’ “

By avoiding such an important international educational exam, India is cheating itself and is not keen to equip its children with appropriate real-life academic skills.

Our schools are a failure and we are no longer parenting.  It is time for us to wake up.

 

CCE - A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

One of the important features of Right to Education Act is introduction of Continous and Comrehensive Evaluation System in order to make children stress-free, freedom from year-end examination, assess students from various other perspectives like attitude, aptitude, social skills, extra-curricular skills etc., rather than the monotonous method of examination, which ever leads to the tendency to commit suicide and try to eliminate rote-learning and cramming. Grading system, instead of awarding marks, is another advantage.

 The concept imported from the West is certainly laudable.

But there are many drawbacks too in the system as of now. CCE introduced in CBSE schools two years ago is not fully understood and appreciated by 67% of teachers and 58% teachers oppose the system, according to a survey. It is possibly on account of sudden introduction without adequate preparation. Thus educating, training and evaluating the teachers are essential pre-requisites for the success of the system.

 Teachers’ ignorance and inadequacy of training will be like a blind man guiding another blind man.

Secondly, there is a tendency among students to make presentation of papers preparation of projects based on inputs down-loaded from internet or copied from friends. Thirdly, parents are also to be blamed as they readily substitute the children for project preparation.

 Indian schooling has the dubious character of “One teacher school” which is about 12% to 17% overall. There is a huge shortage of about 10 lac teachers, substantial number of untrained teachers and part-time teachers of about 9.44%. Average student teacher ratio in India is 42:1, much higher than RTE stipulation.

 With so many impediments, can CCE succeed? India is not Finland which ranks first in terms of quality education in schools and the best talent comes to teaching profession, without any need to evaluate the performance at any point of time.

 CCE in India is a boon or bane? Time alone will answer.