Juan Carlos Hernández Beltrán

PISA as a Political Tool in Spain: Assessment Instrument, Academic Discourse and Political Reform

This study examines to what extent there is a sort of “political appropiation” by political parties when they seek to set a discourse about the Spanish PISA outcomes. We have consistently found that programs for assessing the competencies of students, especially PISA, have become tools of rationalization and the legitimization of education policies in both the national and territorial contexts. Furthermore, each regional government focuses its discourse on what it feels to be its strong points, that is, a clear “self-justifying reading” of PISA outcomes.

The Bologna Process Could Be at Stake: Some Thoughts from Spain.

The arrival of the Bolognia Process, that is, the last European bold adventure in order to build both a common and strong European Higher Education Area had to mean a new chance to reset our higher education structure. Bolognia meant a new opportunity to set up a wide array of reforms with the focus in raising the quality assurance. Bolognia process was supposed to be surgery rather than just make-up. In the case of Spain the approval and development of the Bolognia Process has been little impact in the much needed turn-around of the higher education arena.