Slavko Gaber

The danger of inadequate conceptualisation in PISA for education policy

Due to the broad acceptance of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and other comparative studies as instruments of policymaking, its accuracy is essential. This article attempts to demonstrate omissions in the conceptualisation, and consequently in calculation and interpretation, of one of the central points of PISA 2006 and 2009. The authors point to the danger of such omissions for possible evidence-based education policymaking. With regard to the reproduction of social inequalities through education, we focus on variance in student performance between schools and within schools on the science scale (PISA 2006) and in the mother tongue (PISA 2009). The thesis of the PISA study is that there are countries (Finland, Iceland and Norway) where between only 14 and 29% of the average OECD variance (33%) is attributed to between-school variance – which is good – and there are countries (Germany, Bulgaria, Austria, Hungary, Belgium, Slovenia, the Netherlands, etc.), where the variance between schools is at least ‘one-and-a-half times that of the OECD’ – which is bad. For Slovenia, we demonstrate a significantly different share of variance explained by between-school variance of the same or similar cohort if we move the point of research by only nine months. Our main argument is that such a difference in the share of variance is not the result of a substantial change in the results (grooving difference in the performance) but the result of formal organisational change – the transition of the cohort to upper secondary education. The difference in calculations also radically changes policy implications, which is crucial. While PISA data suggest the necessity of policy measures to reduce between-school variance, our calculations suggest the need for reconsideration of policy measures aimed at the reduction of within-school variance, gender differences, and differences in performance between native and immigrant students.

Belgrade-Ljubljana-Brussels

In January 2008 Slovenia assumed the Presidency of the European Union, and, in its mandate it coordinated the ratification process of the Treaty on the Functioning of the Union, which is interpreted by some as a European constitution.

AUTONOMY, BUREAUCRACY, ADMINISTRATIVE BURDEN AND QUALITY ASSURANCE IN EDUCATION IN SLOVENIA

Summary This paper deals with the transformation of the teaching profession in Slovenia from a profession of centrally-controlled public employees to autonomous, self-evaluating public employees. We discuss the role of central bureaucratic pedagogical control in socialism and elements of conceptualisation of post-socialist teachers’ autonomy already during the ancien regime. Further, we present the removal of inspection from the classroom in the early years of representative democracy and the process that accompanied the end of state control of teaching and learning. We conclude our reconsiderations of the shift from dispositive of control to dispositive of security by presenting data signifying the persistence of the administrative burden: even the inauguration of a light quality assurance system in education must consider the possible accumulation of an additional bureaucratic workload. Zusammenfassung Der Artikel befasst sich mit der Transformation der Lehrerprofession in Slovenien von dem Leitbild eines zentral kontrollierten Beschäftigten im öffentlichen Dienst hin zu einem autonomen, sich selbst kontrollierenden Lehrer. Die Autoren diskutieren die Bedeutung der zentralen Kontrolle in der sozialistischen Periode und Elemente der Konzeptualisierung der Lehrerautonomie in der postsozialistischen Zeit. Ferner beschreiben sie die Rücknahme der Schulinspektion in der frühen postsozialistischen Phase und Prozesse, welche das Ende der staatlichen Kontrolle des Unterrichts begleiteten. Die Autoren stellen mit Bezug auf empirische Daten das Fortbestehen von administrativen Belastungen fest und schlussfolgern, dass bereits die Einführung eines moderaten Systems der Qualitätssicherung im Bildungswesen eine mögliche Zunahme des zusätzlichen bürokratischen Aufwands berücksichtigen muss. (A.R.)