“Who is responsible?”

“Who is responsible?” Jón Pétur Zimsen says he is looking for the answer after Iceland’s latest PISA results. The Independence Party lawmaker and first deputy chair of Parliament’s General and Education Affairs Committee says the findings did not surprise him.

“Almost half of children do not graduate with basic reading-comprehension skills after 10 years of schooling. Who is responsible? I am simply looking for that individual,” Zimsen told mbl.is after Education and Children’s Minister Inga Sæland held a news conference responding to the results.

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Almost half of children do not graduate with basic reading-comprehension skills after 10 years of schooling. Who is responsible? I am simply looking for that individual.

He said the outcome had been predictable because little had been done to suggest that the negative trend had been reversed. In his view, certain influential figures have directed education policy in Iceland for years and decades, continuing with the same vision and approach despite the lack of results.

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For the sake of children.

Zimsen said he was not merely looking for a scapegoat, but for the root of the problem. Those who continue pursuing the same policy should either accept responsibility and step aside or change course “for the sake of children” and “swallow their own egos and self-image,” he said.

He stressed that teachers were not generally responsible. Teachers work hard, he said, and many schools have shown that excellent results are possible. Policymakers, however, have not looked closely enough at what has worked. Iceland should compare itself with countries at the top of international education rankings, he argued, rather than with those performing worse.

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Swallow their own egos and self-image.