Children need a good learning environment.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA, OECD) has gained an influential role in shaping educational systems and policies across the world, becoming a global ‘benchmark of standards’ in education.

PISA has been instrumental in the development of an assessment system of fundamental cognitive and reflexive processes to enable young people to face the global economic challenges of our time. However, the narrow focus on cognitive processes, assessment and ranking, and the consequent pressure on countries to improve their ranking and move up the league tables, is driving educational authorities and schools to invest more on what is measured by PISA, rather than on an education which balances cognitive with social, emotional and cultural education.

PISA claims to measure children’s and young people’s ability to complete tasks relating to real life, depending on a broad understanding of key concepts. In actual terms, however, PISA is only a measure of knowledge and skills in particular assessment situations.

As Nina Dohn put it, PISA assess students’ competence in one ‘real life’ situation, which is the PISA test situation. There is also concern about the inflation of results through cramming and rote learning of narrow indicators and through selection and exclusion of students, casting doubt on the validity of the results.

Another issue relates to PISA’s narrow conceptualisation of education, namely a market economy model promoting cognitive processes that enable young people to face the global economic challenges of our time.

Besides preparing the individual for the world of work, however, the goal of education is the formation of academically, socially and emotionally competent young people who have the requisite competencies and emotional resilience to grow and thrive in the face of the present and future challenges.

Children and young people also need a stress-free, enjoyable and caring learning environment where they can develop such competencies. Rather than serving as a medium for growth and self-development, PISA’s accent on competition, academic pressure and testing may lead to decreased motivation and engagement and increased stress amongst both school children and staff.

The drive towards the global convergence and standardisation of education, leading to country ranking on the basis of a common single instrument, may lead governments, educational authorities and schools, to strive to increase academic performance by streamlining policies and practices, thus limiting the ability of teachers to engage in culturally responsive and inclusive education on one hand, while leading to ranking and labelling of students, teachers, and schools on the other. Such a process may also take place at regional and national levels, with regions and countries being compared with each other and ranked into high or low performing without due attention to their particular social and cultural context.

In April 2014, a group of educationalists and researchers from Denmark, Italy, Malta, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland and the UK, expressed concern at the PISA phenomenon by drawing up a declaration on children’s growth and well-being. The declaration, originally drafted in Santander, Spain, is thus known as the Santander Declaration.

It argues for a humanistic, inclusive, culturally responsive, democratic, equitable, and holistic education across the world, and underlines the need for school communities to have a meaningful say in shaping and adapting the curriculum according to their culture and needs.

It seeks to broaden the educational agenda being promoted by PISA, by underlining the need to address the physical, social, emotional, spiritual and artistic development of the learner.

Santander Declaration 2014

We believe that every child and young person has the right to a balanced, meaningful, holistic, creative and arts-rich education. In order to advance the above, we commit ourselves to promote the following:

1. That schools and early years settings provide a learning environment where academic, social and emotional education competences are in creative balance;

2. That schools and early years settings operate as learning and caring communities in which all students, teachers and parents have the opportunity to experience sustainability and well-being;

3. That educational and learning contexts consciously seek to strengthen students’ connectedness with themselves, others and the environment;

4. That social and emotional education be embedded in all initial teacher education and that practising teachers and educators can access on-going professional education and support to continuously develop their relational and emotional competences;

5. That schools and early years settings have the autonomy and agency to determine their educational and social agenda according to their own respective cultures and contexts.

Prof Carmel Cefai is the Director of the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health, University of Malta.