Peer-reviewed article
The OECD and IELS: Redefining early childhood education for the 21st century
Euan Auld, Paul Morris ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This article examines the OECD's new International Early Learning Study (IELS), a comparative assessment tool for five-year-olds being piloted in three countries. It situates IELS within the OECD's broader education governance agenda and compares it to existing assessments like PISA. The paper argues that comparative testing of young children represents a shift toward prioritizing cognitive skills and viewing children as future sources of human capital.
Key points
- IELS is a new comparative test for five-year-olds being piloted in three nations
- The study situates IELS within the OECD's broader education governance agenda
- Comparative testing of young children introduces a paradigm that emphasizes cognitive skills
- The OECD's approach positions children as future sources of human capital
Limitations
This article is a conceptual analysis and critique rather than an empirical evaluation, so it does not provide data on IELS outcomes or effectiveness. It does not report findings from the pilot testing itself.
Abstract
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has unveiled plans to move into the field of early childhood education through the introduction of the International Early Learning Study (IELS), a new comparative test of five-year olds that is being piloted in three nations. This article explores the dynamics of this new project and serves three purposes. First, we situate IELS within the OECD’s broader agenda in education governance, and with regard to its existing comparative assessments, namely the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Second, we identify the main commentaries and critiques of the OECD’s activity and assessments, specifically relating to PISA. In the concluding section we anticipate a possible future when such tests are established in the early childhood education sector and reflect on its possible impact. We argue that the advent of comparative testing of five-year olds heralds an attempt to introduce a new paradigm for early childhood education, one which stresses cognitive skills and children’s role as future sources of human capital.