Jürgen Baumert awarded first European Latsis prize

Recognised as one of the leading authorities on education, Baumert’s work has highlighted previously unidentified differences between the educational attainments of students in European countries, as well as their causes. More crucially, his research and proposed solutions have not just reshaped academic thinking, they have prompted policy makers to adopt new, successful models to improve educational standards, notably in his home country of Germany.

One of Baumert’s most important contributions has been to the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). This study, which compared the educational achievement of students in selected age groups in 30 countries, including EU countries as well as the USA and Japan, revealed large differences between European countries and showed that some countries had surprisingly low levels of success. In Germany, for example, approximately 20-25% of students in the 8th grade had 4th to 5th grade skills for maths and science – comparable with results from the USA. Worse still, a further longitudinal study of Baumert’s, ‘Educational Careers and Psychosocial Development during Adolescence and Young Adulthood’ (BIJU), begun in 1991 and still running, showed there was little noticeable improvement of these at-risk students when they moved into higher grades. In Japan and Korea, 8th grade students were found to be two or more years ahead of German and American students in these subjects.

To date, Baumert’s work has concentrated on maths and science, subjects that are central to the new technological age. However, similar discrepancies in other subjects, including reading literacy, also exist. Baumert attributes these developments to several factors including:

Lack of balance between centralisation and decentralisation: the majority of the less successful countries, in terms of educational attainment, operate either a centralised ’command and control’ system or a completely decoupled system of schools where professional standards are neither integrated nor shared. Systems involving a strong element of accountability produced the best results. The Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland are good examples of this.

Lack of incentives: teachers have few incentives to alter the system if their combined performance does not determine their income nor the recognition they receive from the public or in their professional communities.

Lack of professionalisation: teachers in the most educationally successful countries - for example, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Japan - often collaborate across subjects in order to create a balanced curriculum. This approach is designed to meet the needs of the real, ‘industrial’ world and at the same time to develop an instructional environment enhancing mindful and self-regulated learning.

Ironically, a country that appears to defy these rules - China - has one of the strongest records of educational achievement. Baumert claims that this country’s experience is consistent with his analysis: it is a centralised political state but its geographical size ensures that it can only be decentralised from an educational/pragmatic perspective; there are no financial incentives to improve the system but there are strong social impulses to do so as education is a key measure of success and of status; sharing and integrating lies at the heart of the country’s system, as it does in Japan and other Eastern/Asian countries.

More recent research conducted in Baumert’s department indicates that Chinese children are also considerably better than their Western peers at presenting information in different graphical forms. As visual imagery through the Internet and other technologies becomes more widespread, this could give them a significant advantage, says Baumert.

The German government is currently testing one of the main findings of Baumert’s research in an experiment involving 150 schools across the country. Initial results are promising.

ESF Secretary General, Enric Banda, who chaired the selection panel, comments: "Professor Baumert epitomises the very best of European education research - high quality analyses that provide practical solutions to major social and economic policy issues. He is a very worthy winner of the first European Latsis Prize."

The European Latsis Prize will be presented to Professor Baumert on the occasion of the 25th Annual Assembly of the European Science Foundation, Thursday 25th November 1999.

Press contacts:

Andrew Smith
ESF
+33 (0)6 85 03 65 78
typo3/esf_contacts_form.php?mail=5b10f52345cecc66799659689efa37f0

Professor Jürgen Baumert
Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education
(49 30) 82406 303 / 304

 Notes for editors:

1. A copy of Professor Baumert’s curriculum vitae is available on-line at his research insitute’s web page   gotowebsite

2. A print quality photograph of Professor Baumert is available in Jpeg format from the ESF Communication and Information Unit

3. The European Science Foundation is a European association of 65 major national funding agencies devoted to scientific research in 22 countries. The ESF assists its member organisations in two main ways: by bringing scientists together in its scientific programmes, networks, exploratory workshops and European research conferences, to work on topics of common concern, and through the joint study of issues of strategic importance in European science policy.

Issued 29.10.99

For further information contact: Andrew Smith

Category: Media Centre, Press Releases 1999