Andreas Schleicher

Andreas Schleicher (born 7 July 1964) is a German-born statistician and researcher in the field of education. He is the Division Head and coordinator of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the OECD Indicators of Education Systems programme (INES).

Education

When Schleicher was 10, his father removed him from the state school system and sent him to the Waldorf school in Hamburg-Wandsbek, where he achieved an average of 1.0, the top mark possible, on his school leaving certificate. He studied physics in Hamburg and then mathematics at Deakin University, where he graduated with a Master of Science degree in 1992. In 2006, the University of Heidelberg named him Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Behavioral and Cultural Studies.

Career

From 1993 to 1994, Schleicher worked at the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement at the Institute for Educational Research in the Netherlands. In 1994 he became project manager at the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) of the OECD in Paris. He began to develop the PISA study there in 1995. In 1997 he became leader of the OECD's Indicators and Analysis Division, Directorate for Education. In 2001 he presented the first PISA study. Since 2002 he is responsible for the PISA program and takes part in other educational research. In June 2012, Schleicher gave a TED Talk showing the use of PISA data in identifying the impact of policy changes related to teacher pay, extended educational time, and professional development and changes in educational performance.