Andreas Schleicher

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Andreas Schleicher (2013)

Andreas Schleicher (born July 7, 1964 in Hamburg ) is a German statistician and educational researcher . He is Director of the Education Directorate at the OECD ; previously he headed the department for indicators and analyzes in this directorate. He is known to a wider public as the International Coordinator of the Program for International Student Assessment ( PISA studies ).

resume

Schleicher's primary school teacher classified him in 1974 as "unsuitable for high school". His father, a professor of educational science, made sure that the 10-year-old was still able to attend a higher school and sent him to the Waldorf school in Hamburg-Wandsbek, which he said he completed with a grade point average of 1.0.

In his last school year he took part in Jugend forscht with a speech recognition software program and received a special prize for it. Schleicher described these experiences as formative.

He studied physics with a focus on methods in Hamburg and completed a postgraduate course in mathematics at Deakin University , which he completed in 1992 with a Master of Science . There he also worked on the TIMSS study .

Lecture by Andreas Schleicher at re: publica 2013: "21st Century Skills"

From 1993 to 1994 he worked for the International Association for Educational Achievement at the Institute for Educational Research in the Netherlands. In 1994 he moved to Paris as a project manager at the Center for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) of the OECD. From 1995 he designed the PISA studies there. In 1997, he was promoted to deputy head of the Department of Education Statistics and Indicators ( Indicators and Analysis Division , Directorate for Education ). In 2001 he presented the first PISA study, which received much attention in Germany. He has been responsible for the PISA program since 2002 and is involved in numerous other educational projects. In this function, Schleicher also coordinated the PIAAC study published in 2013 .

Schleicher is married and has three children. His wife Maria Teresa Siniscalco is also an educational researcher; Among other things, she was the technical director of PISA 2003 in Italy.

Criticism of the German education system

Schleicher is considered a sharp critic of the German education system. His points of criticism include u. a. the early selection of students with a high degree of homogeneity and low permeability between the school types in higher grades. He also repeatedly criticized the poor ability to transfer knowledge and the connection between social background and educational success. He also repeatedly described the German reform efforts as too slow and inadequate.

Criticism of Schleicher

Germany

Harsh criticism is also leveled at Schleicher himself. He is accused of being one-sided and simplistic in his analyzes, without going into the peculiarities of the German education system. Bavaria's Minister of Culture Siegfried Schneider (CSU) threw Schleicher a. a. proposed to completely ignore the importance of vocational training in Germany in his “mantra repeated and one-sided demand” for more high school graduates and university graduates , although in Germany a number of 25 to 64-year-olds that is well above the average in OECD comparison have a degree in upper secondary level . It was even considered to leave the OECD if Schleicher did not step down.

After the results of the 2nd PISA study became known prematurely in November 2007, Ministers of Culture of the CDU / CSU -governed German federal states once again asked Schleicher to resign. He did not adhere to the embargo when commenting on the performance of the German students. The OECD then demonstratively backed the educational researchers. In interviews, Schleicher denied any improvement in Germany, pointing out that the two PISA studies were not comparable.

Wolfram Meyerhöfer says: “Standardized tests de-professionalise the teaching staff. You have to train the students for the tests instead of exploring the area of ​​tension of the formation of autonomy with them [...] I would like Mr Schleicher's job to be abolished, so I am not asking him by letter to make Pisa more educational. These tests should be abolished. "

United States

In May 2014, two American professors published an open letter to Andreas Schleicher, which was first signed by more than one hundred and thirty people. Among other things, it criticizes the focus on the labor market empowerment of schoolchildren, which falls short of other essential goals of school education. In addition, among other things, the test frequency, the constant assessment of schools in the form of various rankings and the inadequate resilience of the PISA tests were criticized. The Society for Education and Knowledge has prepared an authorized translation of the letter, which, like the original, is available as a petition.

honors and awards

In 1993 Schleicher received the Bruce Choppin Prize for his master’s thesis . Other awards followed. In April 2003, against the background of the broad discussion about the PISA study, he received the Theodor Heuss Prize for “exemplary democratic commitment”.

In 2006 Heidelberg University appointed him honorary professor at the Faculty of Behavioral and Empirical Cultural Studies.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Afanasia Zwick: “Mr. PISA "Andreas Schleicher:" Jugend forscht has achieved a lot for me ". In: Deutschlandfunk broadcast “Campus & Karriere”. May 19, 2015, accessed September 21, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Per Hinrichs, Julia Koch: "The system has failed". (PDF) In: spiegel.de. 2004, accessed April 27, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Thomas Kerstan: How smart are the Germans ?: Practice, practice, practice . In: The time . No. 42 , October 10, 2013, p. 71 f . ( online [accessed September 21, 2018]).
  4. ↑ Jenni Roth : Bad grades for the Pisa test. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . June 22, 2015, accessed on September 21, 2018 (interview with Wolfram Meyerhöfer ).
  5. ↑ Open Letter to Andreas Schleicher, OECD, Paris .
  6. ^ A b Jürgen Kaube : From the nonsense of eternal educational reforms . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . No. 109 , May 12, 2014, ISSN  0174-4909 , p. 11 (similar version online ).
  7. ↑ Open letter to Andreas Schleicher, OECD, Paris .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Schleicher, Andreas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German statistician and educational researcher
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1964
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg