评论
打印
Every three years, the OECD tests the skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds around the world, using the results to rank participating education systems. In 2015, more than half a million teenagers — representing 28m students in 72 countries — took the test, known as the Programme for International Student Assessment, or Pisa.
每三年，经济合作与发展组织(OECD)都会测试世界各国15岁的孩子的技能与知识，并利用测试结果对参与的教育体系进行排名。2015年，50多万青少年——代表72个国家的2800万学生——参加了这一名为国际学生评估项目（Programme for International Student Assessment，简称Pisa）的测试。
The first Pisa test was performed in 2000, but since then it has grown to become a global school league table, carefully watched by governments, policymakers and journalists alike. Its influence provokes fear in education ministries, and criticism by academics.
Pisa于2000年问世，自那以来它已发展为一个全球学校排行榜，受到各国政府、政策制定者及新闻工作者等各界的密切关注。它的影响力在教育部门内部引发担忧，也招致学者们批评。
If a country does poorly — or even just not as well as in previous years — that can be a career-limiting result for an education minister. In a 2014 open letter to the OECD, academics accused Pisa of stifling innovation, encouraging rote learning and being too narrow.
如果一个国家表现不佳——或者甚至只是不如往年那么好——那可能限制该国教育部长的仕途。2014年，在一封致OECD的公开信中，学者们指责Pisa扼杀创新、鼓励死记硬背，而且过于狭隘。
The problem is not with the test in principle — having impartial data that show whether education systems are delivering the basics is a good thing — but with the way it has become the dominant metric of success. As soon as Pisa became a global benchmark, ministers began to focus on working their way up its league table. In theory, rankings should encourage innovation; in practice, it is easier to copy the approach of the league leaders.
问题并不是这项测试在原则上有什么不对——有不偏不倚的数据表明教育体系是否传授了基本技能是一件好事——而在于它已成为衡量成功的主要标准。一旦Pisa成为全球基准，教育部长们就开始专注于提升本国在Pisa测试中的排名。理论上，排名应该鼓励创新；实际上，效仿名列前茅的教育体系是更加便利的做法。
Although some European countries, such as Finland and Switzerland, do well in Pisa results, Asian countries tend to dominate the leaderboard. The latest round, in 2015, tested students in maths, reading, science, collaborative problem solving and financial literacy — but it was the maths and reading results that made headlines.
虽然一些欧洲国家（如芬兰和瑞士）在Pisa测试中的结果不错，但亚洲国家倾向于在Pisa榜单上占据高位。2015年举行的最新一轮考试检测了学生们在数学、阅读、科学、协作解决问题上的能力，以及金融基本知识——但只有数学和阅读成绩成了头条新闻。
In 2015, the top seven countries for maths were Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, China and South Korea, all of which have a reputation for pushing children hard, emphasising rote learning and focusing on exams. Pisa is explicit about not encouraging rote learning, yet the experts who prize high positions in the rankings are nevertheless turning to it to achieve their ends.
2015年，数学成绩最优异的7个经济体分别是新加坡、香港、澳门、台湾、日本、中国和韩国，这些国家都以给孩子们施加很大压力、强调死记硬背和重视考试而闻名。Pisa明确表示不提倡死记硬背，但那些渴望提高排名的专家们纷纷转向这种方式来实现目标。
There are risks in copying the Asian model. The future of education cannot be a move towards exam factories with narrow curricula. Even in Asia, there are doubts over whether the model is working. While the west turns to Singapore and Shanghai as models of excellence, Asian parents are looking to the western system — or at least parts of it — for an alternative. More UK independent schools are establishing Asian franchises and more Asian parents are sending children to UK boarding schools, where numbers of mainland Chinese children rose 10 per cent last year to nearly 8,000. These wealthy parents hope 19th-century institutions might hold the key to 21st-century success — that these schools will develop creativity, innovation, critical thinking and character.
效仿亚洲模式是有风险的。教育的未来不能向着教学大纲狭窄的考试工厂发展。即使在亚洲，这种模式的有效性也受到了质疑。当西方把新加坡和上海视为优秀榜样时，亚洲的父母们则将西方的教育体制——或至少是其中的某些部分——视为一种替代选择。越来越多的英国独立学校正在亚洲建立特许经营校区，而越来越多的亚洲父母将孩子送往英国的寄宿学校；去年，在英国寄宿学校就学的中国大陆学生增加10%，达到近8000人。这些富有的父母们希望19世纪的学府能抓住21世纪成功的精髓——即这些学校会培养学生的创造力、创新能力、批判性思维及性格。
The conflict over the Pisa test raises a more fundamental question: how should we measure success in education? This is hard to answer. When I asked an education minister what education outcomes he would pay for, the answer went like this: “Of course we need literacy and numeracy, but we can’t ignore sciences, or languages. History, geography and IT are vital. Citizenship, wellbeing and healthy eating matter, as does behaviour management. We can’t drop sport, or things like poetry, music, drama and after-school clubs.”
围绕Pisa测试的冲突引发了一个更为根本的问题：我们该如何衡量教育的成功？这个问题很难回答。我问过一位教育部长，他愿意花钱买到的教育成果是什么，他这样回答：“当然，我们需要识字和算术，但我们也不能忽视科学或语言。历史、地理和信息技术同样是至关重要的。公民权利和义务、幸福和健康饮食相当重要，行为管理也是。我们不能放弃体育运动，或者诗歌、音乐、戏剧和课外活动等。”
It is easy to mock bureaucrats who cannot decide on the specific results they want to measure, but setting goals for a perfect education system is far harder and more complex than for a business. If we want to build a successful global education system, we need to decide what success looks like. Then we can decide how to measure it. If Pisa provokes that debate, it does us all a service.
我们很容易嘲笑那些无法决定自己想要衡量什么特定结果的官僚们，但是，为一个完美的教育体系设立目标，要比为一家企业设定目标困难得多，也复杂得多。如果我们想要建立一个成功的全球教育体系，我们首先需要界定什么是成功。接着我们才能确定如何衡量它。如果Pisa引发了那样的辩论，那么它帮了我们所有人一个忙。
