Education Quality and Opportunities for Skills Development in Albania : An Analysis of PISA 2000-2012 Results

World Bank Group

Washington, DC

关键词: ABILITY OF STUDENTS;    ACCESS TO PRESCHOOL;    ASSESSMENT SYSTEM;    AVERAGE SCORE;    BASIC EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN;   

RP-ID  :  90742

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Albanian students improved theirperformance on PIS A1 reading, math, and science assessmentsbetween 2000 and 2012, a period over which access to uppersecondary education expanded dramatically. The improvementsare equivalent to a quarter to half a year of schooling inmath and science and more than one year of schooling inreading. The improvements were realized despite substantialincreases in enrollment and the attendant changes in thePISA sample composition. The gross enrollment rate in uppersecondary education was only about 40 percent in 2000, butincreased markedly to 72 percent in 2009 and 83 percent in2012. A spike in enrollment usually results in lower averagestudent performance due to the inclusion of poorer andtraditionally excluded students. In the context of a rapidlyexpanding education system, it is remarkable that Albaniamanaged to improve its average PISA scores. It is even morenotable that the improvement came from significantadvancements made by low-achieving students. Albania simproved PIS A scores coincide with the launch of intensivereform efforts in its education sector. The Government ofAlbania initiated the education sector strategy formulationprocess in 2002, which resulted in the 2004 passage of theNational Education Strategy (NES) and the first attempt todevelop a long-term roadmap for the sector. The NES servedas the catalyst for a range of reforms, including: improvedteacher recruitment, compensation, and management; a revisedcurriculum for basic and general upper secondary education;enhanced transparency and accountability through reform ofthe Matura, the national student assessment; reduced priceand improved textbook quality through a reformed procurementprocess; and provision of textbook subsidies to the pooresthouseholds. While it is beyond the scope of this report todetermine a causal relationship between the range of policyreforms and improved PISA scores, this report shows thatsocioeconomic variables played an important role.Explanatory analyses show that the effect of educationvariables cannot be disentangled from the effect ofsocioeconomic variables. Furthermore, with economic growthaveraging 4.9 percent per year from 2000-2012, a viableexplanation is that the general improvement in economicconditions helped to raise the tide on all socialindicators, including PISA performance.