Golden relics & historical standards: how the OECD is expanding global education governance through PISA for Development

Setting this paper against the backdrop of scholarly research on recent changes in the OECD’s approach and workings in education, I analyse how the OECD has reinforced its infrastructural and epistemological global governance through the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Development (PISA-D). Drawing on qualitative data, this paper makes three arguments. First, there has been a reinforced effort at the OECD to align national and international large-scale assessments; second, the OECD-ensured PISA-D was enhanced only in so far as it remained comparable with PISA, with a view to joining up lower- and middle-income data infrastructures with the global PISA infrastructure; and third, the OECD has bound together the aims of PISA, PISA-D, the Education and Skills Directorate, the Organisation’s Strategy on Development and the global education agenda (Sustainable Development Goals), thus strengthening its global education governance potential. With a note of concern, I suggest these recent changes in the OECD’s work in education may be spreading a very narrow framework of educational values, which does not sufficiently recognise the complexity of learning and teaching.