ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the wider international governance issues relating to data and education. It begins by considering the power of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) as a data source in international comparisons, and the plans to expand this to include younger children within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)'s proposed 'pre-school PISA'. The chapter looks at the broader international significance of the role of private companies in processes of datafication. It then discusses the roles of different interests in the data and education 'game', and how they provoke, facilitate and expediate policy. Much of the literature in the field of data and education focuses on the role of data in governance, particularly the use of data to compare schools', areas' and even countries' educational 'performance'. International Early Learning Study (IELS) was first proposed in 2012 and, at the time of writing (2017), is reaching the piloting stage in three countries, including England.
