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08/11/2004 - How well are schools preparing students for the challenges of the future? Data from the latest round of the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment – OECD/PISA – due out on 7 December 2004 will spotlight school systems in more than 40 countries.
“Learning for tomorrow’s world: First results from PISA 2003” will be published at 00.01 Paris time on Tuesday 7 December (2301 GMT on Monday 6 December). The report will be presented under embargo at a news conference in Brussels at 10.00 a.m. on Monday 6 December. Other presentations will take place in locations around the world (see details below).
OECD/PISA provides comparable data on how well students can apply what they have learned in school in real-life situations. A first round of tests in 2000, focusing on reading literacy, covered more than 300,000 secondary-school students in 43 countries. A second round with a similar number of students, focusing on mathematics and including questions relating to problem-solving, took place in 2003 in 41 countries. It is on this round of tests that the present publication is based.
Between 4,500 and 10,000 students took part in two hours of pencil-and-paper tests in each country. They were all 15 years old, an age when most adolescents, regardless of their cultural background, question the purpose of education and ask how it will prepare them for the future.
As the test results show, some school systems do better than others in providing teenagers with skills they can use for the rest of their lives. The outcome will enable countries to examine their strengths and weaknesses in an international context, providing a basis for policy debate and decisions on educational goals and ways of attaining them.
Preparations are now under way for a third round of PISA tests in 2006, this time focusing on science. Some 58 countries will participate and the results will be published in 2007.
The following media events are planned on 6 December, under embargo (no broadcast or publication in print or on news wires or Internet services before 00.01 a.m. Paris time on 7 December):
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Brussels
10.00 a.m. - International news conference with Andreas Schleicher, Head of the OECD’s Educational Indicators and Analysis Division, and Frank Vandenbroucke, Vice-Minister-President of the Flemish Government and Flemish Minister for Work, Education and Training, at the Ministry of the Flemish Community, Boudewijngebouw (Auditorium - 2nd floor), Boudewijnlaan 30, avenue Prince Baudouin, 1000 Brussels.
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Berlin
6.30 p.m. - News conference with Andreas Schleicher, head of the OECD’s Educational Indicators and Analysis Division, at the OECD’s Berlin Centre, Schumannstr. 10, 10117 Berlin.
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Washington, D.C.
Time to be confirmed. - News conference with Barry McGaw, the OECD’s Director for Education, and U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige at the National Press Club.
Events are also planned in Paris, Tokyo and other cities. Please see our website for details of timing and location when these are confirmed (www.oecd.org/media/upcoming).
For further information on PISA
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