Strong basic literacy and numeracy skills are important foundations for making sound financial decisions. Curriculum design, pedagogical methods and stakeholder involvement can all be harnessed to build student financial knowledge and well-being. This "Trends Shaping Education Spotlight" touches on growing financial risks for…

As a teacher, author Verity Jones found for many years that the science knowledge and understanding of the children she taught in year 6 (age 10-11) was being compromised by the pressures of a government focus on maths and literacy and a short-sighted approach to how to teach those subjects in a cross-curricular way. As the science coordinator for…

In this interview with David Hursh, Bob Lingard comments on his current and/or recently completed research projects in respect to new modes of global governance in schooling and the complementarity between international large scale assessments and national testing. He also looks at a project that, in conjunction with school leaders, teachers,…

What is important for citizens to know and be able to do? The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) seeks to answer that question through the most comprehensive and rigorous international assessment of student knowledge and skills. The PISA 2015 Assessment and Analytical Framework presents the conceptual foundations of the…

This special edition of IJMSE focuses on the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) project now that it has completed a full cycle of administration--reading, mathematics, and science--to look at ways in which PISA has been used in participating countries and with what consequences, and to identify potential research and policy…

In 1999, the primary curriculum was published in Ireland, with emphases on "breadth and balance", recognition of the role of language and the arts and commitment to each child's potential and holistic development. In 2011, the Irish government published a strategy aimed to improve standards of literacy and numeracy among children and…

This document was produced by the authors based on their research for the report "School Completion: What We Learn from Different Measures of Family Background," and is an added resource for further information. This study relies on two main sources to analyse how Year 12 completion is related to disadvantage: the Longitudinal Surveys of…

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has been developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to provide participating nations with internationally comparative mean literacy scores in reading, mathematics, and science for students nearing the end of compulsory schooling. The number of nations from the…

In August 2010, ACER held its annual conference in Melbourne. The theme of the 2010 conference--"Teaching Mathematics? Make It Count"--was chosen to highlight that mathematics education is an area of high priority in Australia. In the author's own presentation to the conference, he outlined research into an area that he believes is very…

Quantitative literacy has been recognized as an important skill in the higher education and workforce communities, focusing on problem solving, reasoning, and real-world application. As a result, there is a need by various stakeholders in higher education and workforce communities to evaluate whether college students receive sufficient training on…

The article discusses the need for mathematical literacy in our world today and shares results from the 2003 PISA assessment of mathematical literacy. Some ideas are presented for incorporating similar problems in the classroom. (Contains 4 figures and 3 tables.)

Adult education has become a significant aspect of Finnish educational and developmental policy as well as of Finnish labor and social policies. Such factors as the need for occupational proficiency, employment, and economic growth have strongly influenced adult education in Finland. Besides the development of personality and support for the life…

Large-scale assessments of student achievement provide a window into the broadly defined concepts of literacy and generate information about levels and types of student achievement in relation to some of the correlates of learning, such as student background, attitudes, and perceptions, and perhaps school and home characteristics. This paper…

Mathematical literacy is more than numeracy; it is an individual's capacity to identify and understand the role that mathematics plays in the world and to make well-founded judgments that use and engage mathematics to meet his or her future needs as a constructive, concerned, and reflective citizen (Programme for International Student Assessment…

In 1999, Ministers responsible for school education agreed to the new set of "National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century," with the aim of providing high quality schooling in Australia which would secure for students the necessary knowledge, understanding, skills and values for a productive and rewarding life. As a…