A new report from PISA has just been released (24-Jan-2006), titled – Are Students Ready for a Technology-Rich World? What PISA studies tell us , containing results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003.

The report provides the first internationally comparative data on:

• The opportunities 15-year-old students have for using computers at home and at school
• How they use computers and their attitudes to them;
• The relationship between computer use and performance in key school subjects.

As part of the 2003 survey of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development??s (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), students were asked about their familiarity with ICT, principally about their computer use. The results show that almost all 15-yearold students in OECD countries have experience using computers, but the length of time for which students have been using computers differs greatly across countries.

Since the PISA 2000 survey access to computers at home and at school has increased and the majority of students now have access to computers in both places. Access to computers at school is most universal, but students report using home computers more frequently.The report also finds that access to computers at school has increased rapidly between PISA 2000 and PISA 2003.

There’s a lot of very interesting stuff in this report – particularly if you like analysing lots of graphs and tables – but the important thing to note is where New Zealand is ranked alongside the other countries in the study, and where our particular strengths and weaknesses are.

There is a full downloadable PDF version of the report available on the PISA website, but I found the Powerpoint Presentation really useful for accessing the key points (and I liked the animated graphs!)