Today, the Minister of Education and Research Mailis Reps met with the Director for Education and Skills at the OECD Andreas Schleicher to discuss Estonia's PISA scores and the impact of PISA on education policy making across the world.
"PISA test results have sent a clear message to our schools and teachers - your work is world-class. Also, the results serve as an excellent input for analysis and provide solid data for education policy decisions," said Minister Mailis Reps.
"Estonia's consistent high scores have set an example worldwide," said Director for Education and Skills at the OECD Andreas Schleicher. According to Schleicher, PISA test results play a greater role in countries where education is higher on the list of priorities. Schleicher believes that Estonia has achieved outstanding scores but we still have room for improvement in terms of valuing the teacher's profession so as to offer intellectual challenges besides a salary raise as well as in terms of promoting natural sciences among students where the schools play a major role. "The more the students enjoy learning natural sciences, the higher their career expectations," underlined the OECD representative.
Picture: Mailis Reps and Andreas Schleicher
Andreas Schleicher is visiting Estonia in connection with the international high-level conference on education taking place today and tomorrow where the Ministers of Education of three countries and representatives from OECD and Boston College discuss PISA results in the context of shaping national education policies.
Conference participants include education experts from countries around the Baltic Sea who attend workshops to analyse the experience gained by various countries and visit the schools and educational institutions in Tallinn to learn about cutting-edge basic education in Europe.
Background information:
- In this PISA test, Estonia ranked first in Europe and third worldwide after Singapore and Japan.
- Estonia participated in the PISA test for the fourth time. This time, the test placed special focus on natural sciences.
- Half of Estonia's 15-year-old students participated in the PISA test.