The impact of PISA on education in Norway

Abstract

This chapter examines the possible effects on the structure of the Norwegian education system by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). PISA was introduced in 2000 and caused a ‘PISA Shock’ and a PISA debate in the nation, because Norway's results were lower than expected. These first test results were welcomed by the then Conservative Education Minister, who used them as an argument for educational reform aiming to change the system. The study employs Margaret Archer's conceptions of educational systems and their inherent mechanisms, unification, systematization, specialization and differentiation; her conceptions of centralized and decentralized educational systems and her model of morphogenetic cycles. An analysis of the structures and processes going on in the system before and after the PISA Shock and debate shows that the same types of systemic structures and processes continued to predominate, despite new reforms and other interventions justified by the PISA results. A fundamental change of the system did not happen. The decision to participate in PISA was made by the Labour government in 1996. But it was a Minister from the Conservative Party, in a coalition government, who found PISA useful in legitimizing her party's educational policy. The chapter raises the question whether PISA would have been introduced by an Education Minister from another political party. Although PISA results were used to legitimize conservative educational policy, it could be argued that the changes justified by the PISA results would not have been essentially different with an Education Minister from another political party, since the changes did not alter established vested interests in education.