HK chosen as case study to gauge effect of Pisa on education policy
Hong Kong is playing a key role in a major impact study on the Programme for International Student Assessment.
The city has been chosen as one of six countries and regions to be used as an in-depth case study to judge the effectiveness of the literacy test's long-term influence on education policy around the world.
'We are trying to determine what the value of what we do is,' said Dianne Pennock, principal investigator on the study for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which runs the assessment in 62 countries and regions.
The report, due to be completed in the autumn, will include profiles of all countries and regions involved in Pisa plus case studies of six.
Ms Pennock has been in Hong Kong this week conducting interviews on the role and perception of the Pisa study among government officials, educators, academics, parents, journalists and business representatives. She is due to depart today.
'We currently run the assessments once every three years, but perhaps we need to look at whether to change that to once every four,' she said. 'The study is a very costly process and we realise it can eat up a lot of a country's educational investment funds.'
Another option was to consider extending the test to cover other areas of the curriculum beyond its current scope of maths, science and reading, with some countries having suggested civic education.
Ms Pennock said there was also concern about 'confusion' among the public about what the study actually measured, with the international rankings often being over-emphasised in media reports.
The Pisa study started in 2000 and is held every three years, testing 15-year-olds on their literacy levels in maths, science and reading. The 2006 round assessed 400,000 students in 57 locations.
Although Hong Kong is not an OECD member, it is one of a number of invited regions to be included.
