PISA 2018: an opportunity to develop life skills in our classrooms


Global competence is defined in PISA as ‘the capacity to examine global and intercultural issues, to take multiple perspectives, to engage in open, appropriate and effective interactions with people from different cultures and to act for collective well-being and sustainable development’.”

It is obvious that   global competence is not only developed at school. However,  schools play a crucial role in helping young people to develop global competence and contribute to more inclusive societies. I must say that our multicultural  schools are already paying close attention to intercultural sensitivity and respect but  much more needs to be done to share internationally successful models of education that build bridges across cultural differences. 

For the first timePISA 2018 includes both assessment and background questionnaires on the Global competence.

The assessment will be based on scenario-based tasks. The tasks simulate activities that teachers can facilitate in the classroom or life situations that 15-year-olds can experience, they draw on different areas of global education (e.g. education for sustainable development, human rights education, intercultural education), have different levels of complexity, and require the activation of one or more cognitive processes.

The background questionnaires completed by students, teachers and school principals gather information about the conditions that may enable or hinder the development of students’ global competence. Students will be asked to report how familiar they are with global issues; how developed their linguistic and communication skills are; and how much they differ in attitudes such as adaptability and respect for people from different cultures. 

You can access the  file " Preparing our youth for an inclusive and sustainable world" here  and  very practical resources and case studies  are supplied by  the platform   Global Dimension.

Apart from welcoming the inclusion of the Global competence in PISA 2018, I would  like to provide teachers with some resources on all competences included in PISA 2018. Click on the links below to access the pdf files with the sample test items:





Related to this last competence, Young money platform is a very useful source of free downloadable  resources for those educators who teach topics related to Financial Education. 


Whether your school is participating in PISA 2018 or not, I believe that the resources above are a must if we wish to teach life skills and I am sure they will be very useful for CLIL teachers.

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