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The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has garnered increasing attention since its inception in 2000. Correspondingly, there has been heightened interest in 'PISA poster countries' like Singapore and Shanghai-China. Yet to date, little is known about the processes and dynamics of the construction of PISA discourses within these 'poster countries'. This paper examines the Chinese print media's reception and interpretation of PISA. Using content analysis of media reportage in 2010, 2013 and 2016, the paper identifies core patterns and themes within the media-generated PISA discourses in China and traces changes in the media discourses over time. The findings shed light on a 'mediatisation' process where the Chinese media's interpretation of PISA gets shaped by culture-specific factors such as dominant political ideology, national aspirations, and histories. As such, PISA has acquired localised meanings in China and serves as an instrument to promote national development agenda and justify education reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the evaluation of any political strategy, it is essential to carry out the collection and analysis of the available data. The presentation of a complex phenomenon by means of synthetic measures can improve both the political actors' understanding of the situation and the design of new measures. In this paper, we deal with the problem of the construction of a multidimensional composite indicator for the evaluation of educational systems in OECD countries. In our proposal, not only are those indicators included that measure the academic outcomes, but also a group of indicators that measures the social dimension of the educational system. A variation of a methodology based on Data Envelopment Analysis is developed to construct a composite multiplicative indicator that enables inter-temporal comparison and the detection of the sources of the variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]