Debate contribution: Programme for International Student Assessment
Debate contribution by Mr Paul Givan on .
- MLA
- Mr Paul Givan
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 25 June 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Programme for International Student Assessment
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4498482
Read the official Assembly record
Text
International studies such as the programme for international student assessment (PISA) provide essential insights into our system’s strengths and highlight opportunities to learn from approaches used in other high-performing countries. The 2022 study, published in December 2023, showed that Northern Ireland pupils continued to significantly outperform the majority of education systems in each subject, as they did in the previous study in 2018. In the most recent study, our pupils significantly outperformed 48 education systems in mathematics, 57 in reading and 49 in science. The PISA 2022 study was especially important in providing the first results for a comparative international study of academic assessment collected during the pandemic for that cohort of 15-year-old pupils. I place on record my thanks to the 80 participating schools for making that possible in very challenging circumstances. While the score for science in Northern Ireland had not changed significantly since 2018, the scores for both mathematics and reading had declined significantly. It is notable but unsurprising, given the impact of the pandemic, that that was also the case, on average, across OECD countries. While those results show our post-primary system to be a strong performer on the international stage, they also demonstrate that we have more to do.
204 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.02 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.02 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.01 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.01 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.40 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.02 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.91 |
| Education structures, integration and community division | 0.09 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
| Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:55 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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