The education system is responsible for equipping individuals with the knowledge, skills and tools needed for their life-long development. The quality of education can be gauged by how effectively students incorporate the skills needed to thrive in the society in which they live. Early investments in education offer higher returns than later investments and supportive school environments are essential for providing better opportunities to socioeconomically disadvantaged children (OECD, 2012).
There are two main international assessments of education, the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) by the International Association for Education Achievement (IEA). PISA focuses on 15-year-old students, TIMSS focuses on 4th and 8th grade students, and PIRLS on 4th grade students (aged 13-14). These assessments offer cross-country comparisons and allow for identifying differences between groups of students and schools.
Overall, the PIRLS scores of participating OECD countries in 2016 have remained stable since 2011, with Ireland and Finland as the top performers. France and Wallonia (Belgium) had the lowest scores among participating OECD countries. The largest improvements were observed in Lithuania (+22 scale score points), Australia (+17), Hungary (+15), Ireland (+15) and Spain (+15), while scores decreased the most in Portugal (-13) and Israel (-11). The scores of the 2016 PIRLS are highly correlated with those of the 2015 PISA round across participating countries, which indicates that the average performance of education systems remains stable throughout school years and that such assessments are reliable.
Children who access early learning opportunities are more likely to increase their skills throughout their lives and achieve better outcomes. PIRLS identifies schools where over 75% of the students enter primary education with basic reading skills, e.g. as reading some words. In OECD countries, 21% of the students attend such schools, with 96% in Ireland and 94% in Northern Ireland. The difference in performance between those who attend schools where the majority of children enter with basic skills and the mean is largest in Chile. Israel, Italy and Poland show the opposite; – however, in such countries, fewer than 15% of students attend schools where the majority enter primary education with basic reading skills.
Integration of students in the school can explain performance variations. The PIRLS questionnaire assesses whether students feel they belong to their school by enquiring whether they like being in school and whether their teachers treat them fairly, among others. While 82% of Portuguese students indicated a high sense of belonging, only 42% did so in the Czech Republic. In most OECD countries, students expressing a high sense of belonging scored better than those with a lower sense of belonging. The gaps are largest in Northern Ireland and Finland. Israel is the only country where those expressing a low sense of belonging outperform those who express a high sense.
