A Review of Kosovo's 2015 PISA Results: Analysing the Impact of Teacher Characteristics in Student Achievement

In light of existing research evidence student achievement is considered to be determined to a great extent by the characteristics of teachers. With this in mind, teacher characteristics have become an important variable not only in understanding PISA scores but also in drafting new education policies. By analysing PISA results and the data from additional inventories, this paper argues that the data on teacher characteristics is inconclusive and in contrast to what literature suggests; practices and techniques that enhance student achievement in other countries are the ones that result in decreased student performance in Kosovo. Importantly, PISA was the only beginning and its findings demand additional research in order to understand how teachers are practicing, what techniques they are using and what the level of their content knowledge is. Once a better understanding of trends and developments in education institutions is gained, government structures can consider a number of practices that have yielded results for other countries. In conclusion, in light of existing results, drafting new policies without conducting extensive research on teacher characteristics in Kosovo is likely to result in failure.