people and planet

10
and classroom climate to policy-makers’ attention. It
is thus important to keep searching for tools that are
adaptable yet reliable, valid, cost-efficient and easy to
use at scale.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Education systems have traditionally measured whether
children go to school rather than whether learners
benefit from their schooling experience, let alone what
happens inside schools and classrooms. The focus has
gradually shifted over the past 15 years, however, with
the rapid increase in the use of national, regional and
international learning assessments.
Target 4.1 echoes this shift. Its message is that the
completion of primary and secondary education should
lead to ‘relevant and effective learning outcomes’. The
GEM Report welcomes this change in focus. All education
systems need to find ways to improve a wide range of
learning outcomes. Benchmarks can help policy-makers
understand where and with whom progress is not
taking place, and what steps are needed to remedy the
situation. However, questions arise as to which learning
outcomes are ‘relevant and effective’, how they can be
measured, and whether and how the information is used
by those who enable learning.
Proponents of a swift move to learning measurements
that are comparable across countries argue they are
long overdue (Study Group on Measuring Learning
Outcomes, 2013). The plight of millions of children,
especially in poorer countries, who do not master basic
skills and competencies in primary school is insufficiently
recognized and threatens the chances of achieving the
SDGs. These learning outcomes need to be monitored
in an internationally comparable fashion to maintain
interest and mobilize policy responses.
At the same time, focusing on a relatively limited set
of skills that are more amenable to measurement risks
marginalizing subjects and skills that are prioritized in
each country’s curriculum (Muskin, 2015). Moreover,
‘relevant and effective’ learning outcomes cannot be
reduced to literacy and numeracy skills. They include
much broader sets of knowledge, attitudes and skills,
whose value is independent of their measurement
status. Also, learning contexts are diverse; differences
between countries can undermine the comparability
of even a narrow set of skills like literacy and numeracy
(Goldstein and Thomas, 2008). Finally, while largescale
assessments are useful in tracking system-level
performance, evidence is limited on how useful they are
in guiding teacher training and classroom practices and
improving learning outcomes over time (Best et al., 2013).
These vantage points – the need for comparison and
the challenges and consequences of comparison –
represent a key issue in the global debate on learning.
This directly relates to the need to report on the global
indicator for target 4.1, i.e. the percentage of those in
early primary, late primary and late lower secondary
education achieving at least a minimum proficiency level
in reading and mathematics (IIEP, 2015).
In some ways, these
The need for
views can be bridged.
The adage ‘don’t value
comparison and
what you measure,
the challenges and measure what you
consequences of
value’ is instructive.
Improved proficiency
comparison represent
in the key foundation
a key issue in the global skills of reading and
debate on learning, mathematics has value
and clearly indicates
and directly relate
a well-functioning
to country efforts to education system. And
report on the global data on reading and
mathematics skills are
indicator for target 4.1
often used to explore
the effects of learning
on other development
outcomes. But measuring proficiency in these areas
requires sensitivity to national needs and circumstances.
The project should be ‘open source’ and developed
collaboratively and transparently.
The next subsections describe three preconditions for
the measurement of reading and mathematics skills:
consensus on the content of the learning outcomes to be
assessed, agreement on quality standards and a process
to assure they are met, and a process to link information
from various sources to produce a common measure.
Challenges include (a) ensuring that assessments also
serve other purposes beyond the relatively narrow
objective to support global monitoring, (b) resolving the
political – and not just the technical – dimensions of
agreeing what is to be measured and compared and
(c) finding sustainable solutions with respect to finance
2016 • GLOBAL EDUCATION MONITORING REPORT 193