The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has requested OECD for postponing Field Trial of PISA to July 2020
Aim of the PISA test
The aim of the test is not to rank the countries which volunteer to participate in the evaluation but to give a comprehensive analysis of how education systems are working in terms of preparing its students for higher education and subsequent employment. About the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
- The PISA Programme was launched in 1997 by the OECD with the objective to develop regular, reliable and policy-relevant indicators on student achievement.
- Specifically, it was intended to deliver four types of products:
- A set of basic indicators that will provide policymakers with a baseline profile of the knowledge, skills, and competencies of students in their country
- A set of contextual indicators that will provide insight into how such skills relate to important demographic, social, economic and educational variables
- Trend indicators that will become available because of the on-going, cyclical nature of the data collections and
- A knowledge base that will lend itself to further focused policy analysis.
PISA-based Test
- The programme aims to assess knowledge, skills, and competencies, embedded in the context of important content domains such as literacy, mathematics and science.
- The assessment of cross-curriculum competencies relating to both in-school and out-of-school experiences of young adults has therefore been made an integral part of the data strategy. The target population for the assessment is 15-year-olds.
- PISA uses test items aligned with international benchmarks. Test items are adapted to the local context and language, pilot tested and validated before being used for the test.
- Apart from subjects like math, reading comprehension and science; since 2015 the test also includes an optional section on innovative subjects such as collaborative problem-solving and financial literacy.
- The PISA-based Test for Schools provides school-level estimates of performance and information about the learning environment and students’ attitudes gathered from student questionnaires. Find out more and how schools and their networks can take part.
- The PISA test is held every three years and the next test will be held in 2021, in which students from government schools in Chandigarh will represent India.