PISA and general education

PISA has lead to a renewed debate on education. Contrary to the rather free use of the term education in this debate, the author looks at the relation between the PISA program and the concept of general education. He explains the socially grounded demands of the PISA literacy approach as well as its importance as a trend-setting reorientation of the core of a relevant basic education in the functional-programmatic sense. Furthermore, the limitations of the PISA program are pointed out and discussed in view of the literary-aesthetic, social, and political dimension of school education. On balance, the author argues that if PISA, as is at present the case, is misunderstood as an extensive concept of general education and an overall judgement on schooling - claims not raised by PISA itself - then school and instruction will, in the course of the efforts to improve their quality, be restricted in both content and social organization.