1. Using international benchmarks for improving national performanceby
Jouni Välijärvi, Professor
Institute for Educational Research
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
10th OECD/Japan Seminar on
Raising the quality of educational performance at school

2. Equity and equality in the Basic Education?
THE QUESTION:
Equity and equality in the Basic Education?
Specific features of the Education System
>comprehensive school
>dense network of schools
>high quality of teacher education
>students’ wellbeing
>local responsibility
>supportive curriculum, standards and evaluation

3. Equity: important dimensions
Variation between students
>weak performances
>need of special support
Gender differences
>girls outperform boys in reading literacy
>equal in mathematics and science
>differences in attitudes and motivation
Between-school variation
>learning outcomes
>socio-economic status
Socio-economic background
Regional differences
>north-south
>city school – rural schools
>Finnish - Swedish

9. Boys (grey) and girls (brown) below or at the level 1 on reading
literacy scale 2003

16. Effects of students’ and schools SES-background on student
performance on the mathematics scale