PISA 2009 at a Glance is a companion publication to PISA 2009 Results, the six-volume report on the 2009 survey conducted by the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). PISA assesses the extent to which students near the end of compulsory education have acquired some of...

This chart compares the EC Procurement Directives and the UNCITRAL Model Law on Procurement of Goods, Construction and Services. Most central and eastern European countries used the Model Law as the basis of their public procurement laws in the early 1990s. Now that many countries of the region...

A well-functioning government office acts as a co-ordinator of the decision-making system and as such is crucial for the government’s capacity to define and pursue its collective objectives. The “Government Office” is a generic term that refers to the institution(s) at the centre of...

This paper is the result of a comparison of the audit practices with respect to the audit of secret and politically sensitive subjects by the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI’s) of France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Not only do the practices differ but the mandate and...

Volume II of PISA's 2009 results looks at how successful education systems moderate the impact of social background and immigrant status on student and school performance. The volume opens with an introduction to PISA and a Reader's Guide providing information that will help readers understand...

Following the initial report on the results of the first PISA survey, this report looks more closely at performance in reading. It shows reading literacy levels of students aged 15, in 32 countries, in terms of how well they can use written materials to meet the challenges of the real world and...

This book describes the instruments underlying the PISA 2000 assessment. It introduces the PISA approach to assessing reading, mathematical and scientific literacy with its three dimensions of process, content and context. Further, it presents a sample of PISA 2000 tasks, and explains how these...

The PISA 2003 Technical Report describes the complex methodology underlying PISA 2003, along with additional features related to the implementation of the project at a level of detail that allows researchers to understand and replicate its analyses. It presents information on the test and sample...

What are students like as learners as they near the end of compulsory education? The answer matters greatly, not only because those with stronger approaches to learning get better results at school but also because young adults who are able to set learning goals and manage their own learning are...