International Organizations and Evidence-based Education Policy: Their evident relation

Authors

Javier M. Valle

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Lucía Sánchez-Urán Díaz

Universidad Camilo José Cela

DOI

doi.org/10.4438/1988-592X-RE-2023-400-572

Abstract

This article aims to demonstrate the close relationship between international organizations and evidence-based education policy. It begins by showing the impact of the proposals of three international organizations (UNESCO, the OECD, and the European Union) on education systems (soft policy) through an example: lifelong learning. The aim is to illustrate how the discourses of international organizations become educational trends. It describes how three international organizations with great influence on educational trends (UNESCO and OECD in their global perspective and the European Union in its regional perspective) have been crafting a discourse over the last several decades in favor of evidence-based educational policies. Then, by applying the analysis of supranational education, it compares the views of these three international organizations, seeking out their common ground by gathering perspectives from programs and documents that justify and highlight this matter. Subsequently, recently published OECD (2022) and European Union (2021) reports on the state of education are analyzed, sorting out the kind of indicators used to evaluate education systems. These indicators are considered a tool for decision-making characteristic of evidence-based education policy. Finally, the article concludes by presenting a critical reflection on evidence-based education policy, noting that the indicators used in the reports assume an economistic view of education, in which future employability conditions the evaluation of education systems. The article calls into question the quantitative view in the evaluation of education systems as "objective truth" without considering other explanatory and reflective elements such as the context or the humanistic vision of education itself.

Keywords

educational policy, international organizations, Supranational Education, evidence, educational indicators, educational improvement.