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A Millennium Learning Goal for

education post‐2015: a question of
outcomes or processes
a
Angeline M. Barrett
a
Graduate School of Education , University of Bristol , Bristol, UK
Published online: 18 Feb 2011.

To cite this article: Angeline M. Barrett (2011) A Millennium Learning Goal for education
post‐2015: a question of outcomes or processes, Comparative Education, 47:1, 119-133, DOI:
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 Comparative Education
Vol. 47, No. 1, February 2011, 119–133

A Millennium Learning Goal for education post-2015: a question of

outcomes or processes
Angeline M. Barrett*

Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

Comparative
10.1080/03050068.2011.541682
CCED_A_541682.sgm
0305-0068
Original
Taylor
102011
47
[email protected]
AngelineBarrett
00000February
and
& Article
Francis
(print)/1360-0486
Francis
Education
2010 (online)

As the target year for the current Millennium Development Goal of universal
completion of primary education approaches, three World Bank economists have
proposed its replacement with a Millennium Learning Goal. This is part of a trend
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of increased privileging of learning outcomes. The proposal is assessed from the

perspective of human rights-based and social justice conceptualisations of
education quality. A Millennium Learning Goal may enhance information on
inclusion, conceived as equal opportunity to achieve learning outcomes. However,
there is a danger that it would be misused to generate high stakes tests that can be
detrimental to the achievement of goals that are not readily measurable and hence
to the relevance of education. It is argued that a process goal with qualitative targets
for the assessment of learning, for the monitoring of educational processes and for
the processes by which learning goals are determined would be more appropriate
for the international level and more likely to improve education quality.

Introduction
The field of comparative education is characteristically critical towards policy
homogenisation and international mechanisms of policy influence (Phillips and Ochs
2003; Steiner-Khamsi 2003). The international influences on education policy in low-
income countries, orchestrated globally and leveraged through reliance on donor aid,
are frequently the subject of critical examination by international and comparative
researchers (Samoff 1994; King 2007; Robertson et al. 2007). The international influ-
ence on policymakers’ and practitioners’ conceptualisations and implementation of
education quality, particularly at the level of basic education, has intensified in the
first decade of this century. One of the chief mechanisms through which this has been
achieved across sectors is the UN-ratified Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),
two of which set targets for enrolments in primary and secondary education. This arti-
cle critiques a proposal to replace one of these, the current MDG of universal partici-
pation in primary school, with a learning goal that would set targets for learning
achievement.
The eight MDGs collectively represent not only international commitment to
human development but also a system for auditing progress at the global level
(Unterhalter 2005). Each is made measurable through associated quantifiable
targets. Neither of the two MDGs that concern education has an associated target
that explicitly mentions quality, although quality is widely recognised as essential
to their achievement (UNESCO 2004). The second MDG is known as the education

*Email: [email protected]

ISSN 0305-0068 print/ISSN 1360-0486 online

© 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/03050068.2011.541682
http://www.informaworld.com
 120 A.M. Barrett

MDG and sets a target of universal completion of primary education for all boys
and girls by 2015. The third MDG, known as the gender equality MDG, has a
single associated target of eradicating gender disparity in primary and secondary
education by 2005 and gender disparity at all levels by 2015. Efforts to achieve the
second MDG have, in many low-income countries starting from a low enrolment
base, been detrimental to quality standards. In several countries, politicians, assured
of external financial assistance, have made election pledges of free primary
education. This has resulted in some countries that started from a low enrolment
base, such as Uganda and Malawi in the mid-1990s, racing towards universalisation
of access, inevitably impacting negatively on indicators of quality, such as pupil–
teacher ratio and, ironically given the wording of the education MDG, completion
rates (Chimombo 2009; Somerset 2009). National debate on quality, sometimes
highly politicised and often with the involvement of international advocacy groups,
has ensued (e.g. HakiElimu 2000; Mundy and Murphy 2001). Education researchers
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comparing across countries question whether rapid expansion is sustainable

(Clemens 2004; Lewin 2007, 2009).
Educational economists, operating from a classical economic utilitarian paradigm,
are now demonstrating the importance of the quality of education, as indicated by
learning achievement, for national economic development (Hanushek and Wößmann
2007). This has led to the suggestion by three World Bank economists, Filmer, Hasan
and Pritchett (2006) that as 2015 approaches, the education MDGs should be replaced
by a Millennium Learning Goal (MLG). This means that the current international
focus of auditing educational development in publications such as the Education for
All Global Monitoring Report and the Human Development Report will shift from
expansion of enrolment in primary schools to performance of an age cohort of
children or young people in standardised tests.
Many educationalists would welcome the acknowledgement by eminent and influ-
ential economists that what matters is not just enrolment in school but also pupils’
learning. However, before steps are taken to formulate and implement a MLG, the
likely impact on quality needs to be critically assessed. This article draws on rights-
based understandings of education quality (UNICEF 2008, 2009) and conceptualisa-
tions of education quality developed from a social justice perspective to do this
(Unterhalter and Brighouse 2007; Tikly and Barrett 2011; Tikly in this issue). The
article divides into two main sections. The first provides background on the current
MDG and the proposed MLG. It outlines how the current MDGs were formulated and
the impact that national policies influenced by the MDGs have had on quality stan-
dards. The term ‘quality standards’ is used in this article to refer to levels of inputs
that influence quality, such as pupil–teacher ratios, class-sizes and the availability of
teaching and learning resources. The rationale behind proposing a MLG and the form
of MLG that Filmer, Hasan and Pritchett have proposed is then outlined. The second
section assesses the proposal for a MLG from the perspective of rights-based and
social justice understandings of education quality. It starts by introducing rights-based
and social justice approaches to quality, focusing on a quality framework promoted by
UNICEF and their Child Friendly Schools model and three principles of quality devel-
oped by Tikly and Barrett (2011) from theories of social justice. The idea of a MLG
is then assessed against three aspects of education quality, namely inclusion, relevance
and democratic participation. The article concludes by proposing the form that a
MLG, focused on improving learning and not just measures of learning outcomes,
might take.
 Comparative Education 121

From MDG to MLG

Formation and critique of current MDG
Educational policy borrowing between education systems is a key area of study and
theorisation in the field of comparative education (Halpin and Troyna 1995; Phillips
and Ochs 2003). However, international mechanisms such as the MDGs are instru-
mental in generating policy homogenisation of a different order. Whilst the MDGs are
global in their remit, their influence in donor countries is limited to aligning interna-
tional development expenditure and activities. In aid-recipient countries they are
supposed to direct high level policy-making across sectors. By 2004, more than 50
countries had a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (Roberts 2005), which provides an
overarching framework for operating the goals at country-level. A Poverty Reduction
Strategy Paper is a condition of receiving World Bank loans and is seen by donor
agencies as enabling coordination between multiple development partners working
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within a country (Robertson et al. 2007).

The current MDGs were set in the normal way by the United Nations (UN)
General Assembly. Unlike past UN goals, they have enjoyed the support of the
Bretton Woods institutions and their broad base of support has generated some
optimism concerning their likelihood of success (Roberts 2005). However, the slow
rate with which donors are fulfilling their financial pledges and the current global
recession have caused some to strike a cautious note (Fukudu-Parr 2004; Othieno
2009). Easterly (2009, 26) explains that the MDGs were meant as ‘a major
motivational device to increase development efforts in and on behalf of poor
countries’ but at the same time are used as measures of performance at the regional
and country level. Unterhalter (2005) links the measurement function of the MDGs to
a shift towards audit as a form of accountability, particularly in northern democracies.
They have been critiqued by Saith (2007) as ghettoising ‘development’ by locating it
in the South and neglecting the interconnectedness of poverty, wealth, vulnerability
and risk across the North and South (Sumner and Tiwari 2009, 835). Sumner and
Tiwari (2009) note variation in the sense of ownership of the MDGs at the national
level. Whilst in some countries enthusiasm for the development goal approach is such
that there is evidence of a ninth local MDG being developed, in other countries there
is little or no evidence of MDG ownership.
The education MDG is one of the goals with which the international community
is registering some success. According to the 2010 EFA Global Monitoring Report
(UNESCO 2010, 55), the number of out-of-school children in the world has dropped
from 105 million in 1999 to 72 million in 2007 [although these figures are disputed
(Carr-Hill 2010)]. All world regions have net enrolment ratios (NER) over 90% with
the exception of Western Asia (86%) and sub-Saharan Africa (73%). However, for
countries starting from a low enrolment base, rapid expansion legitimised by the
education MDG, has led to low completion rates. Drawing on participation figures by
age and by grade across a spectrum of countries, Lewin (2007, 2009) has demon-
strated that rapid progress to high national enrolment rates can mask the fact that
exclusion has not been tackled as in many countries a large number of enrolled pupils
are overage for their grade and repetition and drop-out rates are still high, particularly
amongst the most socio-economically disadvantaged. He also critiques the UPE goal
for viewing EFA in isolation from secondary and higher educational levels, hence
leading to imbalanced investment that can have implications for teacher supply and,
as a result of falling transition rates to secondary, falling demand for primary
 122 A.M. Barrett

education. A similar criticism has been made by King (2009), who points out that such
imbalanced investment fails to create conditions for sustainable development.
Meanwhile, those concerned with literacy draw attention to the important role of non-
formal programmes in meeting EFA goals, which are also overlooked by the MDG
(Robinson 2005).
Lewin (2007) goes on to propose that targets be differentiated between countries
and, for large countries even at sub-national levels, to reflect different starting points
and pathways towards EFA. Calls for greater adaptation of targets have also been
made with respect to the other MDGs. Sumner and Tiwari suggest that a way to do
this would be to set process rather than outcome goals, which include goals for the
participation of national stakeholders, including representatives of civil society, in
setting more localised targets:

This might include new or different kinds of thinking related to adaptation and locally-
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defined development or a core of the same MDGs with a surrounding outer-ring of some-
thing new that was locally defined. (Sumner and Tiwari 2009, 842)

Proposed MLG
There is a growing concern that enrolment in school is not producing the expected
learning outcomes. The EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010 (UNESCO 2010, 104–
105) tells us that:

● only 17% of 16 year olds surveyed in Ghana by the Trends in Mathematics and
Science Study (TIMSS) in 2007 scored above the international low benchmark;
● less than half of all Grade 3 students in the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and
Guatemala had more than very basic reading skills according to data from the
Segundo Estudio Regional Comparativo y Explicativo (SERCE) assessment
published in 2008;
● the Annual Survey of Education Report 2008, produced by Pratham Resource
Centre, found that just 28% of Grade 3 students in rural India could subtract
two-digit numbers and only a third could tell the time.

It is these kinds of findings that prompted three economists associated with the World
Bank, Filmer, Hasan and Pritchett (2006), to recommend replacing the current educa-
tion MDG with a Millennium Learning Goal (MLG) post-2015. The core of their
argument is that by holding countries accountable not just for enrolling children into
schools but for the measurable learning outcomes that they achieve, international
targets will help to ensure that education is providing young people with the skills that
they will need to contribute to economic growth and human development within their
countries.
Filmer, Hasan and Pritchett draw on the Programme for International Student
Assessment (PISA) to propose the form that such a MLG may take. To demonstrate
how in practice a MLG could be constructed, they perform analysis of PISA data
from 2003 for eight countries. They start by defining two achievement levels, a
lower or threshold level of competency and a higher level. They suggest that a
target could be set for the proportion of learners achieving at each level. Despite
their own use of international comparative data, Filmer, Hasan and Pritchett go on
to recommend that a realistic set of competencies be set at the country level or for a
 Comparative Education 123

group of countries. Countries grouped together then need to agree on how the
desired competencies from schooling be measured. So, although their own exem-
plary analysis uses PISA data, they do allow that different instruments may be used
for different countries.
A MLG could, therefore, set targets at the national level and would meet Lewin’s
requirement of differentiation between countries with different starting points. It could
be adapted to different economic development as well as educational development
pathways, allowing countries to set targets for educational outcomes that will contrib-
ute most directly to their envisaged national development strategies. It can be
designed to respond to the criticisms of the MDG’s exclusive focus on formal primary
education by setting targets for an age cohort, rather than school grade, including
those who are not enrolled in formal education or have already reached the post-
primary stage. Hence, a MLG should be a step forward on the current MDG, creating
a more complex agenda for international educational development that is more
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responsive to diversity in national contexts.

Although the specific idea of a MLG has not yet been taken up widely, there is a
growing interest in international benchmarking and the measurement of learning
outcomes (Barber and Mourshed 2007; Patrinos and Horn 2010). The World Bank is
currently funding a research programme to develop an international benchmarking
tool (World Bank 2010). Inspired by the Annual Survey of Education Report in India,
the Hewlett Foundation and others, including the UK’s Department for International
Development, are funding a large-scale household survey of children’s reading and
mathematics performance in East Africa (Uwezo 2010). Such initiatives are indicative
of a trend whereby international donors are increasingly turning to measures of learn-
ing outcomes, as opposed to measures of inputs to education, as the most meaningful
indicators of quality (see also Independent Evaluation Group 2006). This trend may
be welcomed as a shift from a focus on schooling to a focus on the actual learning
going on in schools. However, after 50 years of mixed experiences with the UPE
development goal, it seems sensible to critically interrogate the possible impact on
quality of measuring learning outcomes as a global exercise. The second half of this
article looks critically at the idea of a MLG and its potential impact on education qual-
ity. In order to do this, however, it is necessary to define what is meant by a good qual-
ity education. In the last 10 years, advocates of the rights-based approach to education
and those concerned with social justice in and through education have kept quality on
the international agenda. The next section, therefore, turns to these perspectives for a
definition of education quality before considering the potential of a MLG to support
and improve quality in education.

Rights-based and social justice approaches to quality

The current MDG is supported by a consensus between the Bretton Woods
institutions, UN agencies and international non-governmental organisations (INGOs),
such as Oxfam International and Action Aid, formally allied with civil society
organisations through the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) (Mundy 2007). The
involvement of the UN agencies and INGOs is underpinned by their commitment to
promoting and ensuring human rights (see for example, GCE 2002; Pigozzi 2008;
UNICEF 2008). In contrast with the economic utilitarian perspective, the rights-based
approach is very centrally concerned with the intrinsic value of education and the
quality of educational processes. This is because, beyond the right to education and
 124 A.M. Barrett

aiming for outcomes of education that are instrumental to achieving other rights, the
rights-based approach also encompasses the protection of children’s rights whilst they
are still in education (see for example, Subrahmanian 2002; Pigozzi 2008).
Tomaševski (2001), the former UN special rapporteur on the right to education, anal-
csoa[rn]

ysed international human rights legislation together with both international and
domestic case history to conclude that as well as being available and accessible, chil-
dren have a legal right to education of an acceptable quality and that adapts to the
needs of each individual child. UNICEF (2008) promotes a framework for conceptu-
alising what a quality primary education means for girls, which is very close to a
framework published by the Global Campaign for Education (2002). This framework
is centrally concerned with meeting diverse learners’ needs and as such gives special
attention to Tomaševski’s fourth ‘A’ of adaptability. The framework’s five dimen-
csoa[rn]

sions define a quality education as recognising the home and pre-school experiences
of the child; providing a safe gender-sensitive environment; using relevant and inclu-
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sive curriculum and materials; using child-centred approaches that enhance girls’
learning; and resulting in outcomes for girls that are linked to national goals for educa-
tion and promote positive participation in society (UNICEF 2008). The influence of
this framework is apparent in the 2005 EFA Global Monitoring Report, The Quality
Imperative (UNESCO 2004), although this is also heavily influenced by school effec-
tiveness research (Barrett and Tikly 2010). The influence of school effectiveness
research can also be seen in the quality framework developed by Pigozzi, which in its
latest version has placed ‘learning’ rather than the ‘learner’ at its centre [Inter-Agency
Task Team (IATT) on Education 2006; Pigozzi 2008].
Whilst UNICEF’s quality framework is directed towards an abstracted notion of
‘the (girl) learner’, the child-friendly schools model has developed out of and informs
school-focused initiatives to improve quality in diverse settings, ranging from Nicara-
gua to Southern Sudan, Macedonia to China. The child-friendly schools model is
compatible with UNICEF’s remit to promote children’s rights, including and going
beyond education. Hence, the model emphasises children’s health and safety (refer-
ring to psycho-social as well as physical well-being) together with educational
concerns for learning and inclusion [UNICEF 2004; United Nations Girls Education
Initiative (UNGEI) 2006]. UNICEF has defined the model in terms of a set of princi-
ples, which are based upon the Convention for the Rights of the Child (UN 1989). The
principle of inclusion is expressed as a ‘child-seeking school’ that ‘actively seeks out
all eligible children for enrolment’ (UNICEF 2009, 9). The principle of ‘democratic
participation’ means that children, parents, communities, employers, political leaders
and others have a role in determining the structure content and process of education.
The ‘child-centred’ principle is referred to as ‘perhaps the most important principle’
and described as making the interests of the child central to all decision-making in
education (UNICEF 2009, 12). This is explicitly linked to child-centred processes of
teaching and learning in which children are active agents.
The rights-based approach is important because it is rooted in established interna-
tional legislation which in turn has influenced much national legislation, because of
worldwide popular recognition of the rights-based discourse and because of its influ-
ence on the EFA agenda. However, it has been critiqued by academics for being
conceptually and politically limited by its legal basis (Robeyns 2006; McCowan
2010). Hence, Tikly and Barrett (Tikly and Barrett 2011; Tikly in this issue) have
proposed a framework founded on three dimensions of social justice defined by Fraser
(1996, 2008) and informed by Sen’s capabilities approach (Sen 1999). Their
 Comparative Education 125

framework is of particular relevance to this article because quality is defined in terms

of learning outcomes. Fraser has set out a framework for conceptualising social justice
in the contemporary globalised era, making her theory an appropriate starting point for
conceptualising education quality at an international level. Fraser defines social
justice as ‘parity of participation’ in social life and is concerned with ‘dismantling
institutionalized obstacles’ to social justice in a globalising world, in which arguments
about justice often cross borders of modern territorial states (Fraser 2008, 16 ). So
where the rights-based approach is concerned with defining entitlements and attribut-
ing concomitant responsibilities, Nancy Fraser’s social justice is concerned with
social equality. She defines three dimensions of social justice. The first, redistributive
justice, is concerned with justice in the domain of economics, namely the fair distri-
bution of material resources. Tikly and Barrett relate this dimension to equity, a theme
highlighted by other academics (Hawes and Stephens 1990; Sayed 1997; Nikel and
Lowe 2010), defined in terms of opportunity to achieve learning outcomes. In other
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words, a quality basic education does not just provide access to schools for all children
but provides boys and girls from all social groups with the opportunity to achieve
valued learning outcomes, including those needed for secure and productive liveli-
hoods and to contribute to peaceful and democratic societies. Tikly and Barrett call
this the principle of inclusion, since it demands that educational resources be distrib-
uted between learners according to their situated needs.
The second dimension of social justice, recognition, is concerned with the socio-
cultural domain and takes up the concerns of authors such as Iris Marion Young
(1990) that social groups, whether defined by ethnicity, religion, gender or sexuality,
have equal access to the institutions of justice. Tikly and Barrett (2011) relate this
dimension to another common theme in the literature conceptualising education qual-
ity, namely relevance (Hawes and Stephens 1990; Nikel and Lowe 2010). However,
Tikly and Barrett go beyond the conventional definition of relevance as a relationship
between curricula and context to draw a direct line between relevance and inclusion.
Relevance is understood as content, environments and processes that accommodate
the culture and educational priorities of different socio-cultural groups, with an
emphasis on the interests of marginalised groups. Hence, recognition in education
quality also covers the concerns for meeting learners’ needs that is central to the
UNICEF framework.
Fraser added to the two widely recognised dimensions of social justice a third polit-
ical dimension, which she called representation and described as the underlining gram-
mar of social justice, brought to the fore by globalisation. Representation concerns who
is included in the group, which can make social justice claims of each other and who
determines the institutions and processes of social justice. Fraser (2007, 253) argues
that as globalisation means that the ‘chances for living good lives depend at least as
much on processes that trespass the borders of territorial states as those contained
within them’, the state can no longer be assumed to be the unit for thinking about claims
of social justice. For Fraser, this problematises questions of representation, who is eligi-
ble to make social justice claims of whom and who determines the structures and
processes through which those claims are made. Tikly and Barrett (2011) relate this
dimension to the processes by which learning outcomes for education are defined and
to the practice of accountability within education systems. Hence, processes for defin-
ing valued learning goals should be open and democratic, involving learners, parents,
employers and civil society organisations as well as governments. Democratic partic-
ipation in education underwrites inclusion and relevance by addressing the processes
 126 A.M. Barrett

by which learning outcomes are established within a given context or system. In addi-
tion, governance in education should be transparent with functioning mechanisms for
accountability at every level. Nikel and Lowe (2010), drawing on the Global Campaign
for Education (2002) framework, refer to this as responsiveness. This principle of
democratic participation speaks to the concerns raised by Pigozzi (2008), when she sets
requirements of transparency and participation on educational policy formulation, the
design and management of educational institutions and determination of learning
outcomes. Alexander (2008, 9) also asserts that defining aims and relevant content for
public education systems ‘is eminently and necessarily a matter for debate’.

MLG as a measure of inclusion

The remainder of this article assesses the potential of a Millennium Learning Goal to
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address quality as it is constructed within rights-based and social justice approaches.

It starts by asking what extra information a MLG will give on inclusion over and
above that provided by the current MDG. As a principle of quality highlighted across
rights-based and social justice frameworks, inclusion turns issues of access,
sometimes conceptualised as an input to educational systems, into an educational
process of actively seeking out eligible children for enrolment, implying engagement
with communities and parents. Tikly and Barrett’s (2011) definition of inclusion is
concerned not only with access to education but also access to the benefits of
education. They argue that good quality education systems allocate resources
differentially according to the needs of the individual learner within his or her context.
Hence, additional resources may well be allocated to a child with a physical disability,
a child who has suffered emotional trauma or a child living in a household that is
chronically poor, so that he or she has the same opportunity to achieve learning
outcomes as a child unaffected by these forms of disadvantage. This definition implies
that learning outcomes are an important indicator of inclusion, as are progression rates
from basic into post-basic education. A MLG, therefore, would provide extra
information on progress with respect to inclusion. It would not, however, preclude the
need for information on access to educational institutions in country contexts where
substantial numbers of children and adults are still excluded from basic education
altogether [as highlighted in the most recent Education for All Global Monitoring
Report UNESCO (2010)].
Economists working within a human capital perspective tend to view outcomes in
terms of skills and benefits for future life and some of these, such as literacy, mathe-
matical skills and knowledge about health may be measured using standardised tests.
However, other valued outcomes from education are less amenable to quantifiable
measurement. Arguing from a social justice position informed by both the primary
goods and capabilities approaches, Unterhalter and Brighouse (2007) identify three
types of benefits of education, namely instrumental, positional and intrinsic. Positional
benefits relate to how successful an educated person is relative to others and include
certification, the reputation and location of one’s school, who one attends school with,
how well teachers in a school transmit ‘cultural capital’, and how far new meanings
of gender or race have been developed. Intrinsic benefits are explained as follows:

The educated person might have a more rewarding and complex mental life than she had
before being educated, regardless of whether the education helps her gain or keep
employment. (Unterhalter and Brighouse 2007, 80)
 Comparative Education 127

The human rights approach is concerned with intrinsic benefits to the extent that
it is concerned with the promotion or protection of children’s rights within, as well as
through, education. Hawes and Stephens (1990, 14) were referring to intrinsic benefits
when they argued that ‘“quality of life” is not just for adults. A child has as much right
to enjoy the time he is in school as an adult has to enjoy work and leisure’. McCowan
considers instrumental, positional and intrinsic benefits of education to be so impor-
tant that he proposes the right to education be elaborated into two separate rights that
encompass all three:

(1) The right to engage in educational processes that are both intrinsically and
instrumentally valuable, and that embody respect for human rights.
(2) The right of access to educational institutions and experiences that confer posi-
tional advantage. (McCowan 2010)
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A MLG with quantifiable targets focused on acquiring basic skills, would overlook
those intrinsic, positional and instrumental benefits that are not readily quantifiable. A
MLG that also has targets for qualitative indicators of a broader range of learning
outcomes would be harder to monitor but may do more to promote inclusion in terms
of access to a broad and balanced range of learning outcomes. This is demonstrated
by experiences with high stakes testing in the Anglophone Western world. Goldstein
(2004) refers to the examples of England and the state of Texas in the USA, where
standardised testing was introduced as a means of auditing the quality of schools, with
repercussions for schools and teachers whose pupils under-performed in the tests. In
both places, pupil performances in the tests did improve. However, in England there
were reports of de-motivated pupils, increased test anxiety amongst low achievers,
and constrained teacher professionalism and capacity for creative innovation. In
Texas, cross-state research concluded that the concentration on preparation for state
tests hindered all round development of mathematics and reading skills.
The distorting influence of high stakes testing is even more apparent in low-
income countries where highly competitive end-of-cycle examinations select for the
next level of education (Barrett 2009). This has contributed to what Ronald Dore
(1976) memorably dubbed ‘the diploma disease’, whereby the search for certification
becomes the tail that wags the dog of education. Schools are ranked and their quality
judged according to the proportion of pupils that progress to the next educational
level. Consequently, practices that are believed to raise examination scores but erode
the intrinsic benefits of education have become widespread. Students sit through long
school days focused on preparing for examinations and private tuition cuts into chil-
dren and young people’s leisure time outside of school. Meanwhile, in the founda-
tional early years of primary, pupils cram into sparsely furnished classrooms without
a teacher or with an unqualified teacher, because their schools choose to focus
resources on the examination year groups.
The measurement of learning outcomes is never just neutral measurement of learn-
ing but is always a part of the learning experience and inevitably impacts on peda-
gogic processes. In the field of language learning the influence that assessment exerts
on teacher and learner behaviour and even on policy has come to be known as ‘wash-
back’ (see for example, Shohamy, Donitsa-Schmidt and Ferman 1996; Rea-Dickins
and Scott 2007). At its best, assessment is formative, an essential and integrated part
of planned classroom learning. Ill-conceived tests, however, are detrimental to the
very thing they are supposed to measure, education quality. What evidence there is
 128 A.M. Barrett

from low-income countries suggests that summative national examinations are very
often poorly designed and part of the quality problem in education (Rea-Dickins, Yu
and Afitska 2009). A MLG focused exclusively on the learner performance in standar-
dised tests may exacerbate washback in low-income countries. A more useful MLG
would broaden the focus from the results of assessment to also encompass means or
assessment. Such a MLG would have associated targets for the design and practice of
international and national assessment that is fair and supportive of learning across all
curriculum areas. It would also have targets for the management, analysis and dissem-
ination of information on learning outcomes, so that groups of learners who are being
excluded from the benefits of education can be identified.

A MLG and relevance

Filmer, Hasan and Pritchett (2006) use the PISA survey to illustrate the feasibility and
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merits of a MLG. As an international comparison of quality, much effort is invested

in designing the tests used in PISA so that they cover skills and knowledge that are
generic to all national curricula and so that they are ‘culturally’ neutral. Yet, the extent
to which this is possible or desirable is still a matter for debate. Goldstein (2004), in
a critique of the EFA literacy target points, observes that:

If a measuring instrument is restricted only to those items for which we might assume
there are no locally specific differences, there is then a real question about whether such
an instrument is measuring anything useful. (Goldstein 2004, 9)

Different countries have different comparative advantages within the global economy
and have therefore planned for different development pathways. The skills that will
extend capabilities, enhance wellbeing, contribute to national development and partic-
ipation in the global economy will therefore be different, most especially at the post-
basic level. For a MLG to promote relevance therefore, targets would have to be set
at the national level, as Filmer, Hasan and Pritchett (2006) suggest, and in large coun-
tries, possibly at a sub-national level also.
Relevance, however, does not just concern outcomes but also processes. As rele-
vance also refers to the recognition of learners’ multiple socio-cultural identities, it
demands that school processes and the intrinsic benefits of education are responsive
to these identities. For example, Ahlquist and Hickling-Hudson (2004) show how
school processes may recognise or overlook the histories, identities and cultural prac-
tices of indigenous groups with implications for children’s engagement in learning.
Tshireletso (1997) observed parents from indigenous minority groups in Botswana
disowning schools that have practices counter to their own cultural values, such as the
use of corporal punishment. The choice of language of instruction is one powerful
way in which education systems either recognise or diminish the ethnic and/or linguis-
tic identity of learners. Recent research has drawn attention to the gendered experi-
ences of girls and boys in schools, including the sexual harassment of girls in
particular (e.g. Leach et al. 2003), with implications for the formation of their
gendered identities and emerging sexual identities. Measuring learning outcomes tells
us very little about how schools respond to and influence learners’ socio-cultural iden-
tities. As Alexander (2008) has forcefully observed, quantifiable measures of quality
are always partial as some aspects of educational processes can only be judged
through observation against qualitative indicators (see also O’Sullivan 2006). The
observation and judgement of processes is the complex work of school inspectorates
 Comparative Education 129

and other educational supervisors and managers that international targets are too blunt
an instrument to tackle. There is a very real danger that a MLG composed of reduc-
tionist quantifiable targets will undermine quality of education if it becomes the main
criterion by which governments are held to account on the international stage.
However, just as a broader reconceptualised MLG could have a target for the
processes of assessment it could also have a qualitative target for the processes of
monitoring quality, requiring that education systems have functioning inspectorates or
systems of school supervision that promote quality educational processes.

Participation in determining learning goals

Unterhalter and Brighouse (2007) list eight areas that should be measured for a greater
understanding of EFA. Four of these are related in some way to public discussion on
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the content and form of education and throughout the list the diversity of social groups
is recognised. As seen above, the participation of children, parents, communities,
employers and political leaders is also included within the UNICEF child-friendly
schools model, as the ‘principle of democracy’ (UNICEF 2009). Democracy in Tikly
and Barrett’s framework underpins inclusion and relevance. Viewing democratic
participation in debating and making decisions about educational goals, processes and
content as a fundamental principle of quality, places the debate on education quality
in a new light (Barrett 2011). Far from being subsumed by a MLG, as Filmer, Hasan
and Pritchett suggest, debate on education quality should be integral to the process of
formulating a post-2015 goal on education. Education is a value based, contextually
and culturally contingent activity and as such, the goals of education should always be
subject to review and debate at all levels, from local up to international. The need for
debate cannot be displaced by technical measurement but rather technical measure-
ment should aim to serve debate, through providing information on what is valued.
The argument that Shepherd puts forward for increased public debate and national
ownership of the MDGs is also specifically relevant to a MLG:

Global goals are all well and good, but countries need to be able to set their own targets.
What is important is a vibrant public debate about progress, informed by indicators that
are backed by solid data. (Shepherd 2008, 1)

Conclusion – process goals for education

Fifteen years is too long to wait for a marginal improvement in the education MDG
and so, the opportunity of 2015 should be met with a response that will support the
improvement of education quality for all in all countries and most especially education
quality for social groups that are currently excluded from the benefits of education.
Alexander (2008) suggests that indicators at each level of an education system should
focus on the work of those at that level. Extending this to the international level
suggests that future MDGs should be focused on the international work of holding
governments accountable for provision of an education of acceptable quality for all
and supporting governments in their efforts to provide education for all within their
borders. The suggestions made by researchers in the field of development studies that
the MDGs be replaced by process goals, point the way forward for an education MDG
or MLG. A MLG that promotes education quality would have to do more than set
quantitative targets for achievement in standardised tests, indeed it is questionable
 130 A.M. Barrett

whether such targets should form part of a MLG given the potential for harmful wash-
back effects. A MLG focused on processes rather than outcomes would set targets in
terms of qualitative indicators. This would mean that their achievement will be a
matter of professional judgement and therefore subject to contestation. Whilst this
may be frustrating for those attempting to audit progress against the MLG, such debate
should be welcomed as a necessary and important feature of good quality education
systems.
So what form would such a MLG take? It would not be framed in terms of achieve-
ment in tests as Filmer, Hasan and Pritchett suggest but rather in terms of learning.
The arguments in this article suggest it would aim for all children everywhere to
participate in learning that is inclusive, relevant and democratic. It would have asso-
ciated targets for inclusion, including quantitative targets for participation in different
educational levels and non-formal education programmes set at the national level. It
would have a process target for national assessment tools and practices, requiring
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them to be fair and supportive of learning. It would include process targets for inspec-
tion systems, requiring functioning inspection systems that are effective in monitoring
and improving educational processes so as to ensure education has both instrumental
and intrinsic benefits for learners. To ensure relevance, such a MLG would require
that learning outcomes and pedagogic processes are the subject of open public and
professional debate. Whilst all these targets could be set in general terms at the global
level, associated indicators can only be identified at the national level. Most impor-
tantly, however, the goal itself should be formulated through open debate between the
representatives of nation states, NGOs and civil society organisations. Further, its
associated national targets should be the subject of open democratic debate, including
the voice of educational professionals and children, at the national and local level.

Acknowledgements
The theoretical work behind this article was made possible by funding from the Department for
International Development for the EdQual Research Programme Consortium. I am grateful to
Guy Le Fanu for his insightful written comments on a draft of this article.

Notes on contributor
Angeline M. Barrett is a Lecturer at the Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol.
For the last five years she has been Research and Communications Coordinator for the DFID-
funded EdQual RPC. Her research interests are education quality in low-income countries and
teacher professionalism and pedagogy, particularly in primary schools in sub-Saharan Africa.

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