The OECD, UNESCO, and Paris

The last full week of the project has brought me to Paris, primarily because Paris is the site for headquarters of the OECD and the UNESCO Secretariat. Of course, Paris is a very nice place to visit under any circumstances and it was good to get a chance to become reacquainted with the city and all its charms.My first visit during the week was to the OECD. Its headquarters are located on Rue Pascal Andre in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. It’s a pretty, quiet residential area with some lovely apartment buildings, parks, and museums surrounding it. The OECD is also located in the same areas as that of some embassies and similar consular buildings such as India and Canada.

The first impression of the headquarters building, itself, is quite impressive. The building is a modern, sleek looking structure (see Gallery 7 for some photos) and fits in very well, architecturally speaking, with the surrounding neighborhood. It doesn’t project an institutional or bureaucratic feel. It’s much lighter and airier. At the reception desk, I first needed to show my passport and then received a magnetic badge which allowed me access to the building. I was meeting a project director in the Directorate of Education at OECD whose major area of responsibility was policy in higher education. One of his assistants came down to escort me to the office. She was presently working at the OECD as an administrative assistant and came from the country of Ireland. After pointing out some notable parts of the building, she told me a little about her own background which was impressive indeed. She was also very friendly and warm and this set the tone for the rest of the visit.

Far from a clinical, bureaucratic approach, I was consistently impressed by the warmth, friendliness, and intelligence of the people. I explained I was there to find out, firsthand, more about the OECD because it’s an organization whose work, data, and documents I use quite extensively in my doctoral courses at LIU. My visit was illuminating. I learned a great deal about the OECD organization including information about its structure, staffing, mission, research projects (both past and present), and its overall organization. For example, I didn’t know that countries could contract with the OECD, itself, and have them apply their formidable analytical resources to issues of importance and relevance to the country to help them gather evidence for policy decisions. They noted that Brazil had recently done this. The idea that the OECD not only initiates reports but responds to request from nations was something new to me. I also learned that there might be expansion of OECD membership to other countries, especially given the rise in importance of nations located outside Western Europe and the US.

Eventually, our talk turned to the PISA test and its growing effect on education policy around the world. (I’ve talked about the PISA in several previous posts on the blog.) As you might already know, the OECD PISA metric is somewhat controversial in educational circles. Instead of functioning as a policy/ think tank organization, there are some people who feel that the OECD is fast becoming more like the World Ministry of Education, courtesy of its use of the PISA test to assess academic competencies of students around the globe. The PISA, which began in 1999 and has been administered triennially since then, is next scheduled in 2015. Countries (and especially their governments) pay close attention to the results of these tests using them for a variety of purposes—both positive and not so positive. This certainly was evident to me when I spoke to teachers, principals, administrators, ministry representatives in Sweden and the Netherlands. They were all well-acquainted with the PISA and how politicians were using the results to underscore the state of education in the country. Teachers were especially surprised when I told them about the low level of awareness of the PISA among teachers in the US. I would note that most classroom teachers don’t really know the PISA test (generally, they do know about the low rankings of American students on international metrics—they just don’t attach PISA, of for that matter, the TIMSS labels), and if they do know, they don’t really pay much attention to it.

Despite the diatribes, dire warnings, and hand wringing by politicians and think tanks about US PISA performance, it just doesn’t have the traction it appears to have in the EU.It seems the OECD understands the impact of the PISA and treats the issue accordingly. When I was in Sweden, I got to meet a faculty member at Stockholm University who was the coordinator for the reading portion of the PISA assessments for Sweden. He helped me to better understand how the testing process plays out in the country and the care that is taken to ensure results are valid and accurate--in statistical senses of the terms. He told me about the cycle of quality control that occurs and how he works to ensure the how the process plays out across the country. This was both interesting and reassuring to hear.

My read on the PISA right now is that it is so controversial because some people feel that has strayed, to a certain degree, from its original intent, at least as it was understood by them. Instead of helping nations compare, share, and evaluate global best practices, it has, regrettably, promoted (knowingly or not) competition between and among nations vying for top status and the prestige PISA ranking tables bring (see Finland and Singapore for examples of this). It will be interesting to watch the continued evolution of the PISA metric to see whether it can continue to be a viable, positive force in global education reform (if, indeed, that’s what it is right now) instrumental in affecting policy change and behavior among a variety of actors. This understanding of reform dynamics, will be key in its success. Judging from my OECD visit, I think that it is an organization with an impressive amount of resources at its fingertips, and it uses these resources to develop some very thorough, well-researched, and important data which it shares, admirably, in both online and published documents. Whether these data will be used to help steer or help row the ship of global reform will bear careful watching. (I think it’s the steering part that we need to keep close tabs on).

Later in the week, I followed the OECD visit with one to the UNESCO Secretariat located in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, literally in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower which you can see from the building’s front entrance (take a look at Gallery 8). Again I needed to show my passport to gain entrance but this time I had to leave it with the reception agent (the look on the face of the agent at my reluctance to surrender my passport was amusing). On my way up to the offices, I was impressed by some beautiful Japanese-style gardens and an art exhibit that was being installed, as well as other pieces of artwork that dotted the lobby area. I knew UNESCO’s work has traditionally involved using children’s art—in fact they have been quite noted for sponsoring global arts projects for a while. And of course their biggest “claim to fame” when it comes to visual art, is their compiling and managing of the well-known listing of World Heritage sites.

I met with two representatives from UNESCO, a section head and a program specialist. Both these individuals were welcoming and friendly. They gave me an overview of the work of UNESCO as it involved both education and teacher education. Again, since I use UNESCO reports as well as the Millennium Development Goals in working with my doctoral students, it was exciting to meet people directly involved (both directly and indirectly) in aspects of their creation. UNESCO’s work is particularly important as the world continues its march to globalize and it was interesting to hear about how UNESCO officials deal with diversity issues with various countries and their Education ministries. I think it’s pretty widely known and understood that UNESCO works with, mostly, developing countries. They rely on donor countries to assist in their mission. They reminded me that the US and UNESCO continue to butt heads over a variety of issues (mostly related to Palestinian participation in UNESCO beginning in 2011) and this has resulted in both the suspension of voting rights for the US and a loss of over 20% of the UNESCO budget due to US nonpayment of dues (although they continue to provide assistance in other ways). This is all the more regrettable because the US was instrumental in the cofounding of UNESO in 1946 and was an important voice in its operational directives. We all agreed this was a pretty unfortunate situation which we hoped would be resolved fairly and quickly for all parties involved.

I heard about some the details that need to be in place before UNESCO works with a country and how they, themselves, might partner with organizations like the World Bank in carrying out some of their work. It’s no secret that, in many developing countries, the clout of Education Ministries is often weak or even nonexistent. This presents a particular challenge to UNESCO, I was told, has to search for alternative people and pathways to accomplish their mission.One of the UNESCO representatives came from Uganda and it was quite illuminating to hear her insights into the continuing development of the African continent. UNESCO works with nations in this part of the world and she had some solid knowledge about the various ways of working with several developing African nations. She seemed to have a particularly strong handle on how to shape teacher education and was well-experienced in dealing with educators at various levels of development.

I told both of them that I was very interested in following up this meeting by getting in touch with UNESCO’s New York office. Hopefully, we can follow-through on this and I can begin to open some kind of channel of communication with them when I get back to New York.