Why participate? Cross-National assessments and foreign aid to education

Abstract

Participation in cross-national assessment is becoming a global phenomenon. While there were only 43 countries that participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2000, the number of participating countries/economies has increased to 65 in 2009. To understand this global trend, this chapter seeks to answer the following research questions: What are the real incentives for developing countries to participate in cross-national assessments? What do they gain from actual participation in cross-national assessments, given that there are many constraints and barriers associated with test participation? It employs country-level fixed effects to test the hypothesis that there is a positive association between participation in cross-national assessments and foreign aid to education. This study shows that countries that participate in major cross-national assessments receive, on average, 37 percent more foreign aid to education than countries that do not participate in major cross-national assessments, while holding all other variables constant. Although further research is necessary to make a causal warrant of the association between participation in cross-national assessment and education aid, the results of this study have great implications for developing countries that are considering participating in cross-national assessments.

Citation

Kijima, R. (2010), "Why participate? Cross-National assessments and foreign aid to education", Wiseman, A.W. (Ed.) The Impact of International Achievement Studies on National Education Policymaking (International Perspectives on Education and Society, Vol. 13), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 35-61. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3679(2010)0000013005