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International comparative data can provide useful insights into education systems and student learning. However, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) coordinated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is far more than a technical assessment. The ways in which its results are interpreted, communicated, and used by governments, media, and international organisations can have significant consequences for education policy, public investment, and the working lives of teachers and education support personnel.

The criticism of PISA is therefore rarely about the data itself. Most education unions rely on evidence and comparative research to inform their advocacy, understanding the critical role of such information for policy development. The concern is that PISA is too often used by governments to promote simplistic rankings; narrow definitions of educational success; and policy solutions that overlook the broader social, economic, and political conditions that shape learning. This document outlines some of the key critiques and offers an alternative vision, one that places public education, equity, democratic participation, and the professional expertise and wisdom of educators at the centre of thriving education systems.

1. The Rankings Obsession

The most common criticism is that PISA is treated as a global league table of winners and losers based on a narrow and quite “western” view of education.

Media coverage typically focuses on:

• Who is "winning"
• Who is "falling behind"
• Which countries moved up or down

This can create a simplistic narrative that ignores:

• School funding levels
• Social conditions
• Student well-being
• Differences in education systems
• Economic injustice, inequality, and crisis settings

EI Perspective:

PISA should be a tool for understanding education systems, not a competition that labels countries, schools, teachers, or students as winners and losers. The most important lesson from international evidence is that strong public education systems depend on investment, equity, professional educators, social dialogue, and trust. Countries improve when governments work with teachers and their unions, invest in public education, and address the social and economic inequalities that affect learning. Previous iterations of PISA prove this, when analysed from a teacher-union perspective.

2. Blaming Teachers Instead of Addressing Systemic Problems

PISA results are often used politically to justify reforms that increase pressure on teachers or move towards the privatisation and/or corporatisation of public education.

When results are disappointing, governments frequently propose:

• More testing

• Performance-based pay

• Teacher evaluation systems

• Curriculum standardisation

• Increased surveillance of teachers

However, poor results are most frequently the result of one or more of the following systemic and societal factors:

• Underinvestment
• Teacher shortages
• Large class sizes
• Child poverty and economic injustice
• Lack of support services
• Growing inequality

(And when results show improvements, teachers are rarely given the creditor provided with improved pay or benefits)

EI Perspective:

Education systems cannot test their way out of underfunding, inequality, or austerity. Real improvement comes when governments invest in the conditions that enable teaching and learning to thrive --qualified teachers and education support personnel, smaller class sizes, inclusive learning environments, and comprehensive support services for students. When results do improve, it is often because educators have worked tirelessly despite difficult conditions. Teachers deserve recognition, trust, and just working conditions, not blame when systems fail.

3. Narrow Definition of Educational Success

PISA measures specific competencies in reading, mathematics, and science, and increasingly in digital skills. However, quality education is much broader.

What PISA does not and quite likely cannot adequately capture the more social-emotional aspects of learning and development or content and skills related to the following important areas of a well-rounded education:

• Citizenship education
• Democratic participation
• Arts education
• Indigenous knowledge

Importantly, PISA also does not account for cultural diversity.

EI Perspective:

What matters most in education is not always what is easiest to measure.

Strong education systems foster critical thinking, creativity, democratic participation, solidarity, well-being, and meaningful relationships between educators and students. These dimensions are fundamental to quality education and cannot be fully captured through standardised assessments.

4. Encouraging Unquestioned Policy Borrowing

Governments often search for "education miracles" after PISA results are released.

Examples:

• "Let's copy country X"
• "Let's do what country Z does."
• "Let's adopt the policies according to the rankings."

However, this ignores:

• Different social economic contexts
• Cultural differences
• Funding structures
• Linguistic differences
• Labour market realities
• Historical factors

EI Perspective:

Education systems do not magically improve through copying policies from elsewhere. They improve through dialogue and collaboration with teachers’ unions, and drawing from other contexts while respecting local realities. International exchange and union solidarity can help identify promising practices, but successful reforms must be developed with educators, education support personnel, unions, students, and communities. The strongest education systems are those where teachers and education workers have a meaningful voice in shaping policy, where social dialogue is respected, and where governments support the professionals who make learning possible.

5. Insufficient Attention to Inequality and Economic Injustice

It must be pointed out that PISA includes data on socio-economic status. However, media and policymakers often overlook these findings.

PISA often demonstrates that:

• Poverty affects performance.
• Segregation affects achievement.
• Inequality affects opportunity.

Yet headlines focus on rankings rather than structural issues.

EI Perspective:

The most important question is not who scored the highest, but which students are being left behind and why. Education justice requires governments to focus on the students facing the greatest barriers and to ensure that every student, regardless of background, has the right to a quality public education.

6. Commercialisation and Privatisation push

PISA results are sometimes used to promote:

• School privatisation
• Charter schools
• Market-based reforms
• Increased outsourcing
• For-profit education solutions such as vouchers.

When countries perform poorly, advocates of privatisation may claim that public education has failed.

However:

• High-performing systems are most often those with strong public funding.
• Equity is closely associated with strong public education.
• Market-based reforms frequently increase segregation and inequality rather than improving learning outcomes, costing governments, societies, and the individuals that comprise them, in many other ways over the longer term
• Education is a public good and a human right, not a market commodity.

7. Increased Standardised Testing culture

Although PISA tests only a sample of students, its influence can contribute to the manifestation of a broader culture of testing and measurement that reduces teaching learning

Some consequences:

• Teaching to the test
• Diminished emphasis on inquiry and critical thinking
• Curriculum narrowing
• Funding private testing companies (who are not motivated by contributing to the common good)
• Reduced teacher autonomy
• Less attention to non-tested subjects
• Increased stress for teachers and students

EI Perspective:

When improving rankings becomes the primary objective, education systems risk narrowing curricula, reducing teacher autonomy, and prioritising measurable outcomes over meaningful learning or critical thinking. Excessive testing can create pressure on students and educators while favouring investment in testing regimes and private assessment industries. Education should not be a race to improve international rankings.

8. Student and Teacher Well-being Can Be Overshadowed

Several education systems deemed to be high performing as per PISA results are also known for one or more of the following concerning realties:

• Significant numbers of students struggling with their mental health and well-being, including high rates of student stress, anxiety, and depression
• Excessive academic pressure
• Unreasonable teacher workload, which impacts educator well-being as well as teacher-retention

A narrow focus on scores often hides these realities

EI Perspective:

A successful education system is not necessarily one that achieves high test results, but one where students and educators can thrive.

9. Public Investment, Not Austerity, Drives Quality Education

PISA results are often discussed as if educational outcomes are primarily the result of classroom practices alone. However, broader evidence repeatedly demonstrates that educational success is linked to sustained public funding and strong public institutions.

Key factors for quality education include:

• Strong public education funding
• Investment in teacher education programs
• Competitive salaries and secure employment for teachers and education support personnel
• Adequate level of staffing of teachers and education support personnel
• Safe and inclusive schools
• Quality public early childhood education
• Student support services

Yet many governments continue to impose austerity measures, suppress public sector wages, reduce staffing levels, or pursue tax policies that weaken the public revenues needed to fund quality education.

If governments are serious about improving educational outcomes, they must invest fully in public education rather than searching for shortcuts. Strong public education systems are built through sustained funding, social dialogue, and a commitment to equity and inclusion.

Recent PISA cycles have repeatedly highlighted the importance of:

• Qualified teachers
• Teacher support
• Positive learning environments
• Equity measures
• Adequate resources
• Student well-being
• High-quality teacher centred professional learning

The challenge is not discovering new problems but convincing governments to act on what the evidence already shows.

10. OECD Influence on National Education Policy

Critics argue that the OECD may have too much influence over education policy. The criticism is not necessarily of the OECD's research, but of its agenda-setting power.

The organisation's priorities have historically emphasised the interests of rich countries, market outcomes, tax breaks for multinational corporations, and economic profit over human rights.

This raises important questions, particularly for low-income countries, including:

• How much influence should an economic organisation have over education policy?
• Are countries being assessed against models largely developed by wealthier economies?
• How can education systems be evaluated in ways that better reflect local realities, cultures, languages, histories, and development priorities?
• Who decides what counts as educational success?
• Whose values are reflected in assessments?

EI Perspective:

Educational priorities should be determined democratically through dialogue with educators, their unions, students, families, and communities. International evidence can inform decision-making, but it should never replace social dialogue, public accountability, or national democratic processes.

PISA should be used as one diagnostic tool among others, and not as a ranking exercise. Countries improve when governments work with teachers and their unions, fund public education, and address the social and economic inequalities that affect learning. Education is public good and a human right, not an economic instrument.