Global Education Digest 2012 - International Reading Association

SECTION 4 / Monitoring education quality: Putting the spotlight on low levels of learning
BOX 4. What universal reading skills should all children acquire by the end of
primary education?
The Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics
(UIS) have launched a Learning Metrics Task Force to catalyse a shared vision for learning goals and
targets. The task force provides a space for consultation and dialogue among a diverse group of
experts to develop recommendations for learning standards, metrics and implementation practices.
The project timeline strategically aligns with global policy processes to implement the next generation
of the Education for All agenda and Millennium Development Goals, as well as the UN Secretary-
General’s new global education initiative, Education First.
The task force will develop recommendations for learning metrics at the early childhood, primary
and post-primary education levels. It includes representatives of national governments, civil society,
regional organizations, multilaterals and bilateral donors. The Brookings Institution and the UIS will
support the analytical and administrative work of the task force, while technical working groups will
make recommendations concerning standards, measures, methods and implementation strategies.
their current grade to repeat the grade. This policy
is motivated by the belief that an extra year in the
grade will give struggling pupils an opportunity to
improve content mastery and be better prepared to
succeed in subsequent grades. Those who favour
grade repetition policies also tend to suggest that it is
important for schools to maintain high standards.
In contrast, other school systems apply a social
promotion policy of moving pupils to the next grade
level despite poor achievement at their current grade.
It is based on the belief that promotion maintains
the motivation of pupils and that such pupils will get
more from exposure to new content than they would
from repeating their current grade (UIS, 2004).
Results from international learning studies show that
student performance is not closely associated with
the practice of repetition or automatic promotion.
For example, high-performing students come
from countries that practise repetition and from
those that practice automatic promotion. In more
developed countries, results from the Programme
for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2009
(OECD, 2011) show that some high-performing
countries apply automatic promotion (e.g. Finland,
Iceland and Norway) while others practice repetition
(e.g. Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands and the
United States). According to results from the
SACMEQ III survey (Hungi, 2011), the top three
performers in terms of reading scores of primary
Grade 6 pupils were Seychelles, Mauritius (which
have automatic promotion policies) and Tanzania,
which applies repetition.
At the same time, the progress of individual pupils
may be impacted by repetition or automatic
promotion policies. In South and East Africa, in all
of the 15 SACMEQ school systems, pupils who
had never repeated grades were likely to achieve
better results than pupils who had repeated grades
in reading, and in all but two of the school systems
(Malawi and Swaziland) in mathematics (Hungi,
2011). Over the last decade, PASEC evaluations in
11 countries provide evidence that during the school
year repeaters progressed less than their classmates
in terms of learning (PASEC, 2010).
Does repetition improve learning? A wide range of
studies and empirical evidence have still not reached
a consensus on the use of repetition to address
insufficient learning (Ndaruhutse, 2008; Crahay,
2007; UNESCO/IIEP, 1997). Those who support
its pedagogical effectiveness argue that advancing
to the subsequent grade/level of education is
contingent upon mastery of the curriculum of the
preceding grade/level. They also argue that repetition
can be effectively used to regulate and motivate
students. Conversely, arguments against the use of
repetition consider that such a policy: i) is a waste of
financial and human resources; ii) harms the self-
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