MP questions government focus on education after poor PISA results

Jón Pétur Zimsen, an MP for Iceland’s Independence Party, says it will be revealing to see how much of Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir’s policy speech will address education following Iceland’s poor PISA results, mbl.is reports.

In a post on Facebook, Jón Pétur discussed Nordic politicians’ responses to the results in their respective countries. He said Iceland’s results were worse than those of the other Nordic countries and argued that the Social Democratic Alliance and Viðreisn had not made education a priority.

According to Jón Pétur, Danish media have described Danish students’ performance as a “disaster”. Denmark’s education minister reportedly said the country was facing a serious educational crisis, after which the government held a news conference on the results. Denmark also plans to address mobile phone and screen use.

Jón Pétur said Sweden’s government had described the results as confirming the need for the biggest changes to the country’s school system in three decades, including more books, fewer screens and greater emphasis on reading, writing and mathematics.

Norway’s education minister, he said, had called the results very serious, acknowledged that not enough had been done in recent years and taken full responsibility for the situation. The minister also said tablets and other digital teaching materials had been introduced without research.

“It will now be interesting to hear during the prime minister’s policy speech and the debate on it how much time will be devoted to education, given that Iceland’s position is much, much worse than in the other Nordic countries,” Jón Pétur wrote. He questioned the government’s priorities and said education had so far not been visible in the policies of the Social Democratic Alliance or Viðreisn.