The German Andreas Schleicher is the father of the PISA report, the largest and most influential international educational test, organized by the OECD. PISA measures the knowledge in mathematics, science and reading of 15-year-old students and offers a great comparative x-ray of education systems: in 2018, 79 countries participated. The next test, postponed this year due to the pandemic, will be in the spring of 2022. Born in Hamburg 56 years ago, graduated in Physics and Mathematics and specialized in statistics, Schleicher continues to coordinate PISA, directs the Education area of the OECD and continues The educational reform in Spain closely, from a model based on knowing how to repeat content to another that aims for students to know how to apply their knowledge. With very white hair and very blue eyes,Schleicher responds to the interview by video call from Paris, where the agency's headquarters are located.
Question.
What do you think of the Spanish educational reform?
Answer.
The orientation it is taking is very much in line with what we are seeing in many parts of the world.
Today, the evaluation of young people does not consist simply in asking them to reproduce what they know, but in saying to them: Can you make sense of what you know? Can you apply your knowledge?
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Q.
In Spain it represents a great change from the current curriculum (the learning and assessment system), which is often described as encyclopedic, with hundreds of very specific items for each subject that students must learn and teachers evaluate.
R.
The current curriculum in Spain is, let's say, one kilometer wide and one centimeter thick, and I think it is not good for students. The future for Spain should go through teaching less things, but in a more profound way, generating more understanding. Stacking, for example, a lot of Physics and Chemistry contents by itself is not going to be of great help. The question is: can you think like a scientist, design an experiment? Do you understand the concept of cause and effect? That is the most important. And the same happens with History. Remembering all the names and places doesn't help you. The question is: can you think like a historian,understand how the narrative of a society has emerged and evolved? The greatest success of the school is giving young people strategies and attitudes so that every day they can learn and can also unlearn and relearn when the context changes.
P.
In Spain, a part of society fears that the reform will impoverish the education of students.
A.
Changing the curriculum always takes a lot of courage.
We all get very anxious when our children stop learning what used to be important to us.
And we get even more anxious when they start to learn things we no longer understand.
It is a common phenomenon.
But the world around us is changing.
Things that were easy to teach and evaluate are also easy to digitize, automate and outsource, and they are disappearing from our environment.
Q.
One of the critics of the change maintains that it will particularly harm students from families who do not have the culture or the money to provide them with additional knowledge outside of school.
R.
There are many people in Spain who complete advanced university degrees and have difficulty finding a good job.
And at the same time, Spanish employers say they can't find people with the skills they need.
That is the fundamental problem.
You have the educational system preparing for a world that no longer exists and not preparing for the world that we are seeing emerge.
It is hard for parents to accept that our children's world is different from the image we have of our own.
But that's what education is about.
In preparing students for their future, not for our past.
ESO students at the El Espartidero school in Zaragoza Carlos Gil-Roig
P.
A sector of teachers also rejects the new educational model.
R.
It is hard, if you have always taught in a certain way, to change your habits, approaches and beliefs.
I think it is very important to support teachers well in the change.
You can't just say: we changed the curriculum, fix it.
The system must invest to help and prepare them.
Otherwise, the changes do not develop deep roots.
P.
Some Spanish autonomies have started learning by areas of knowledge, the mixture of subjects, for example Language and History or Mathematics and Technology, to make learning less compartmentalized and more applied.
What do you think?
A.
It is very important that students are able to think beyond the limits of the subjects. Innovation today is not about being very, very good at a very restricted area, but about being able to connect the dots. So it looks very promising to me. But it is very difficult to get it right. If you want students to think beyond the limits of disciplines, teachers have to collaborate beyond those limits. The History teacher and the Language teacher must work together to implement it well. It's a good and simple idea, but getting it right requires a lot of skill.
Q.
There has been a big difference in the duration of school closings, even among developed countries. In Spain the schools have always been open this year, but in other places the closings have lasted more than a year. What do you attribute it to?
R.
The case of Spain has been very impressive.
When the school closed, the country was also very fast in establishing a digital alternative.
The authorities have done well.
The differences have to do with the priority that each society gives to education.
Do you close shopping malls or schools first?
Sweden never closed primary schools.
Even when the pandemic situation was very serious, they considered it a priority.
They also had the ability.
It depends a lot on having teachers who can handle the pandemic well at school.
Q.
Do you expect the impact of the pandemic to be reflected in the next edition of PISA?
A.
Yes. For students from disadvantaged backgrounds, who have not been able to benefit much from digital learning, they do not have much support at home or teachers who will connect with them I am afraid it can be quite dramatic. But it will depend on the context, it is difficult to generalize. For some students it may have had interesting effects by prompting them to learn more on their own, develop self-discipline, use new resources… I think it will vary depending on the students' previous preparation, and that it will amplify the inequality.
P.
In Spain, the regional governments plan to do without a good part of the 35,000 teachers incorporated due to the pandemic.
The educational community and the Ministry of Education itself ask to keep them to improve the quality of the system.
Do you agree?
A.
It is difficult.
That was a measure in response to a crisis and at some point we have to readjust.
And I don't think the quality of education depends so much on the number of people.
If I were in Spain, not only would I hire more people, but I would also invest more in their training, in the environment in which students learn ... The quality of learning has more to do with how well the teachers are prepared, what kind of support they receive, how well they collaborate, or the relevance of the curriculum.
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