International Benchmarking
Comparing Scotland's education system and performance with other countries gives us an insight into our strengths and weaknesses in an international context.
We use a number of ways to compare ourselves to others:
- Participation in international attainment studies e.g. PISA, PIRLS and TIMSS.
- Engagement with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development ( OECD).
- Participation in Eurydice, the European information network on education policies and systems.
- Development of bilateral links that encourage co-operation and the sharing of approaches between learners, practitioners and policy makers e.g. the Cooperation Agreement with France.
- Encouraging ad-hoc contact between officials and practitioners here with systems that are displaying particularly good practice in priority policy areas.
Work in the areas outlined above is ongoing but a significant milestone was reached on 11 December 2007, with the publication of the OECD's review of national policy - Quality and Equity of Schooling in Scotland. This review was commissioned by the Scottish Government in July 2006 and involved a team of four international education experts and two OECD senior officials coming to Scotland in March 2007 for an extensive 10 day visit to see first hand how Scottish school education is organised and delivered.