OECD TO PUT RICH COUNTRIES' UNIVERSITY SYSTEMS TO THE TEST
Students
across the world are to be examined on their basic abilities as part of a plan to provide an objective assessment of the quality of rich countries' university systems, writes Jon Boone in London.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is drawing up plans based on its Pisa survey that has been measuring the educational capabilities of 15-year-olds around the world since 2000.
The Pisa survey , which tests for literacy in reading, mathematics and science, revealed ed fascinating differences between countries, including the fact that countries such as the US that spend a lot on education do not necessarily perform above the average.
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Richard Yelland, an official at the OECD's education directorate, said part of the impetus for a rigorous study of higher education had come from international university league tables, in particular the ranking created by Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
He said: ““These league tables are the only international comparisons we have at the moment, and the Shanghai survey is quite explicit about the weight it puts on research. If the idea gets around that this small minority of institutions are the only world-class universities then teaching will get overlooked. Governments clearly want to get a better handle on the quality of teaching in higher education.”
While news organisations will inevitably focus on the ranking of different countries, Mr Yelland said governments would be more interested in the fine detail that emerges from the mass of data collected.
He said: “There is clearly real concern not just about the overall quality of universities, but other issues such as the employability of graduates and whether they are gaining the most relevant skills.” Such concern is particularly acute in Europe. A recent paper by the Centre for European Reform by Richard Lambert, director general of the CBI, the major UK employers' group, warned that Europe, compared to the US, has too many underfunded, mediocre institutions to compete with the best in the world.
However, league tables comparing the universities of countries around the world will be many years off as funding for the study has not yet been agreed. Education experts at the organisation are still scratching their heads over how to construct an international test of undergraduate competence which will necessarily be much more difficult to construct than literacy and numeracy tests for 15 year olds.
They believe it may be five years before undergraduates across the world start sitting down in front of OECD exam papers. Meaningful data may take even longer to emerge.
Students across the world are to be examined on their basic abilities as part of a plan to provide an objective assessment of the quality of rich countries' university systems.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is drawing up plans based on its Pisa survey that has been measuring the educational capabilities of 15-year-olds around the world since 2000.
The Pisa survey revealed that countries that spend a lot on education do not necessarily perform above the average.
Richard Yelland, an official at the OECD's education directorate, said part of the impetus for a rigorous study of higher education had come from international university league tables, in particular the ranking created by Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
“These league tables are the only international comparisons we have at the moment, and the Shanghai survey is quite explicit about the weight it puts on research. If the idea gets around that this small minority of institutions are the only world-class universities then teaching will get overlooked. Governments clearly want to get a better handle on the quality of teaching in higher education
全球大学生面临“统考”?
本
报记者乔恩?布恩伦敦报道，全球学生即将接受一项针对其基础能力的考核，这是一项旨在客观评估富裕国家大学体系质量的计划一部分。
经济合作与发展组织(OECD，简称经合组织)正在制定基于其国际学生评估计划(PISA)调查的计划。自2000年以来，该调查一直在评估全球15岁学生的能力。
PISA调查测试学生的阅读、数学和自然科学能力，它暴露出各国在教育方面的显著差距，包括这样一个事实：美国等教育支出大国的表现，未必在平均水平之上。
经合组织教育理事会官员理查德?叶兰德(Richard Yelland)表示，该组织之所以对高等教育进行严谨研究，一部分动力来自全球大学排行榜，特别是上海交通大学(Shanghai Jiao Tong University)推出的排名。
他表示：“这些排行榜是我们目前仅有的全球院校比较排名，上海交通大学的调查对其给予研究的权重相当明确。如果宣传这种只有少数院校才是世界一流大学的观点，那么教学工作就会被忽视。各国政府显然希望提高高教体系的教学质量。”
尽管新闻机构将不可避免地关注不同国家的排名，但叶兰德表示，政府会对搜集大量数据过程的具体细节更感兴趣。
他表示：“目前存在一种明显真实的担忧，不仅是对大学的整体质量，而且还对其它问题，例如毕业生的就业能力，以及他们是否掌握了最相关的技能等。”此类担忧在欧洲尤其明显。一份近来由理查德?兰伯特(Richard Lambert)为欧洲改革中心(Centre for European Reform) 撰写的报告警告称，与美国相比，欧洲存在过多资金不足、表现平平的院校，难以媲美全球顶级院校。兰伯特是英国《金融时报》前任总编辑，现任英国主要雇主组织――英国工商业联合会(CBI)总干事。
但由于研究资金迄今尚未得到批准，因此对全球各国大学进行对比的排行榜还需要多年才能出炉。该组织的教育专家们仍在努力思考，如何组织一次对大学生能力的全球测试。组织这种测试的难度，必然远远超过对15岁学生读写和数学能力的测试。
这些专家认为，要使全球各地的大学生开始接受经合组织的测试，可能需要5年时间，而要产生有意义的数据，或许需要甚至更长的时间。
