A historical perspective on the OECD’s ‘humanitarian turn’: PISA for Development and the Learning Framework 2030

ABSTRACT

This paper identifies OECD's shifting agendas and approaches to education since inception and distinguishes three time periods. Each of these periods reflects shifting geopolitical and economic realities that shaped OECD's priorities and modes of operation. They also demonstrate the adaptive capacity and expansionist nature of OECD's education work as it successfully innovates, finds market niches and adds new dimensions to its datasets. These have culminated in its recent strategic initiatives, namely: PISA for Development and the Learning Framework 2030. The former aims to adapt PISA to fit into low- and middle-income countries and serve as the global learning metric; and the latter aims to incorporate non-cognitive competencies into its main tests. Together they are designed to expand and consolidate the Organisation's influence in the context of the SDGs. By adopting a historical perspective, we provide a critical understanding of OECD's shifting role in global education governance and its ‘humanitarian turn.

经合组织 “人道主义转向” 的历史透视: “PISA 促进发展”与 “2030 年学习框架”

本文辨析了经合组织自成立以来教育议程和运作方式的演变，将之划分为三个主要时期。每个时期都反映了不断变化的地缘政治和经济现实，这些因素塑造了经合组织的主要议程和运作方式；同时，经合组织在这些时期中也成功地进行了创新，填补了市场空缺，并为其教育数据集拓展了新的维度，这显示出经合组织的适应能力和在教育领域工作的扩张主义性质。这些特性在经合组织近期开展的两项战略举措中表现的尤为明显：“PISA 促进发展”和 “2030 年学习框架”。前者旨在使 PISA 适用于低收入和中等收入国家，进而成为全球范围内的学习评估测试标准；后者旨在将非认知能力纳入其主要能力测试框架当中。两者协同作用，目标是使经合组织在全球可持续发展目标的背景下，进一步拓展和巩固其影响力。本文通过历史的分析视角，为理解经合组织在全球教育治理中的角色转变及其“人道主义转向”提供一种批判性见解。

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable development Goals
• OECD post-2015 education agenda
• humanitarian assessment
• ‘humanitarian turn’
• global education governance

关键词:

• 可持续发展目标
• 经合组织后 2015 年教育议程
• 人道主义评估测试
• “人道主义转向”
• 全球教育治理

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Li Xiaomin is a PhD student at the Institute of Education, University College London. She is the recipient of a CSC studentship.

Euan Auld is an assistant professor at the Education University of Hong Kong.

Notes

1 For the analysis of the 1st period (1950s–1990s), we mainly draw on the work of Kjell Eide (1990) and George Papadopoulos (1994). Kjell Eide was a Norwegian economist and was a key figure in the development of the educational involvement of the OECD in the period from the early 1960s; these included the mapping of scientific and technical personnel, the Study Group in the Economics of Education and educational planning. George Papadopoulos also played a central role, who was deputy director responsible for education in the OECD Directorate for Social Affairs, Management and Education for 20 years. His book Education 1960-1990: The OECD Perspective provides a rare source of historical information for the period and became a major source of reference for subsequent analyses.

2 The interview with Andreas Schleicher was conducted on 23 October 2018 in London after he gave a talk on the topic of equity in education hosted by the Education Policy Institute.

3 The Sputnik Shock refers to the US reaction to the Soviet Unions’ successful launch of ‘Sputnik-1’ in 1957, the earth’s first artificial satellite.

4 The work of CERI mainly focused on synthesizing existing research, initiating projects in Member countries and building networks around those projects (Eide 1990).

5 For elaboration see authors (forthcoming) Humanitarian Assessment and the Divine Cycle: Narrating the not-so-new paradigm for development.

6 Retrieved from: https://www.oecd.org/education/2030-project/teaching-and-learning/teaching/