Andreas Schleicher – Director for Education and Skills, and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) – gave a keynote speech at HEPI’s 12th annual lecture, their biggest event in the calendar.
Schleicher is known for his in-depth expertise and knowledge of education systems around the world: the views and opinions published in the large document Education at a Glance is under the responsibility of Schleicher, and he is also coordinates the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).
As a positive start, Schleicher believes that the HE English system is both a fair and sustainable system, which is also equally efficient. However, his role is not to compliment HE systems, but rather to improve them through what he sees as a fundamental strategy – international comparison.
He approaches the question ‘how do you measure whether universities are delivering for their students?’ by actually discussing why we should measure on an international level. ‘There are three reasons why we should look at the measurement question from an international angle’ he suggests. Internationalisation. Learning from diversity. And capacity to go further through pooling expertise and experience.
About internationalisation, Schleicher points out that ‘higher education has become a global endeavour.’ As such, he suggests that it is unfair to rate Asian universities, for example, on the metrics currently used to judge university success, which ultimately limits their chances to compete. He suggests that it is time that we look past reputation as a metric, but rather look at ‘current outcomes as our main determinant’. This, of course, requires a new system of ranking. While there has been discussion about a new system which compares HE national systems rather than institutions themselves, Schleicher does not see that as being constructive at present.
He then turns to how degrees and qualifications are being used as ‘signals’ to understanding what graduates know and what they can accomplish from such knowledge and skill, but suggests that these signallers are not good predictors. Because there is such a pronounced difference worldwide, regardless of the name of the degree, it is important to understand how we can measure these skills and knowledge to better understand graduate capability.
The fact is that there is ‘a rapid increase in jobs requiring higher-order cognitive skills’ which has demanded more graduates worldwide. This has led universities the duty of ‘providing up to half the population with the skills and knowledge relevant to employability.’ Through rapid expansion, changing in the funding regime, and rising costs for students, we see students are demanding more from HEIs so that they may secure ‘valuable future employment’.
Because of these changes, Schleicher suggests, data is vital. And this absent data for allowing credible benchmarking and comparison is damaging to a whole range of stakeholders, from government to student:
‘Governments need data to determine policy and funding priorities. Employers need data to assess the value of qualifications from different institutions. Perhaps most importantly, students themselves need data…to help them make informed decisions about their preferred place of study [and] to show prospective employers evidence of the levels they have attained in international assessments.’
Comparative measure of higher education will ‘allow governments to evaluate the quality of their university- educated human capital among the higher-educated cohorts against international standards;…institutions to compare and benchmark the learning outcomes of their students against international standards in order to improve the quality of teaching and learning; …and empower students to weigh their learned skills against the distribution of learning outcomes in their own institution and country and against international standards.’
The second point of the speech moves towards looking at measurement of learning outcomes from a department or faculty perspective, and how this might be possible internationally without excluding areas that may be difficult to assess. He also suggests that comparing learning outcomes should include a combination of both disciplinary and transversal measures,
Schleicher states: ‘There is no question that state-of-the-art knowledge in a discipline will always remain important. Innovative or creative people generally have specialised skills in a field of knowledge or a practice. But transversal skills are equally important, such as ways of thinking, involving creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making; ways of working, including communication and collaboration; tools for working, including the capacity to recognise and exploit the potential of new technologies; and the social and emotional skills that help people live and work together.’
He also mentions the importance of interdisciplinary approaches, because it lends towards connecting unlikely dots which push imagination and innovation. He recognises the importance in ‘curiosity, open-mindedness, [and] making connections between ideas that previously seemed unrelated, which requires being familiar with and receptive to knowledge in fields other than our own.’As is the rhetoric of our time, he celebrates collaboration and the sharing of knowledge, and acknowledges its role in innovation. Therefore, ‘universities need to prepare students for a world in which many people need to collaborate with people of diverse cultural origins, and appreciate different ideas, perspectives and values; a world in which people need to decide how to trust and collaborate across such differences; and a world in which their lives will be affected by issues that transcend national boundaries.’
To conclude, Schleicher suggests that the criteria for success‘should reflect central and enduring parts of higher education teaching that relate to quality of outcomes’ and that they should be culturally relevant so all HEIs can improve. The measurements, as such, should be largely performance-based.
What is a very important point made is that Schleicher emphasises that measurement is not static and should be flexible and ‘responsive to new developments.’ He does not believe in measuring progress on areas that are no longer relevant or important, but that metrics should change according to the times. While this is a very important point, it does raise issues in terms of comparative analysis to nations that may not quite be at the same level of, say, technology as another. Also, of course, using employment outcomes as a metric suffers a similar fate, as the opportunity of freedom of movement becomes more strenuous. Though that said, it should be highlighted that ‘the risk of unemployment is a lot higher for people without great skills and a lot lower for people with university qualifications.’ ‘Despite the rapid decrease in knowledge workers in virtually every OECD country, this has not led to a decline in the labour market value of qualifications. That tells us that the demand for better skills is rising faster than the supply.’
To conclude, as is demonstrated in Schleicher’s career, he supports the development of metrics internationally and sees it as a way to improve and respond to common challenges rather than – as critics have suggested – lead to standardisation and uniformity. Giving the opportunity for people to learn and explore other ways of thinking and practicing is essential to the improvement and progress of HE on a global scale. By pooling expertise and experience international, Schleicher says, we can progress much quicker in developing metrics for HE learning outcomes.
Presentation slides are available here.