Annex A. OECD assessment team members

The following team of OECD and external experts was assembled specifically for the implementation assessment of Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence (CfE):

Dr Beatriz Pont is a Senior Education Policy Analyst at the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills. She leads the OECD Education Policy Implementation team. She has extensive international experience in education policy reform in areas including equity and quality in education, school leadership, adult learning and adult skills. She has worked with countries and jurisdictions, such as Mexico, Norway, Sweden and Wales (United Kingdom), in their school improvement reform efforts. Beatriz holds a PhD from the Complutense University, Madrid and an honorary doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University. She studied Political Science at Pitzer College and holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from Columbia University. She has been a research fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences (Tokyo University) and the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Public Policies (LIEPP, Sciences Po, Paris). She was previously a researcher on education and social policies in the Economic and Social Council of the Government of Spain.

Romane Viennet is a Policy Analyst with the OECD Policy Advice and Implementation division at the OECD’s Directorate for Education and Skills. She co-ordinated the OECD implementation assessment of Scotland’s CfE and has previously taken part in similar OECD assessments of school education policies in Ireland, Mexico, Norway and Wales (United Kingdom). She holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Economics, both from Sciences Po, Paris. She has worked previously as a social impact analyst in France and as a research assistant in behavioural economics projects at Cornell University, New York. Her research interests include education policy implementation and change processes in public policy.

Professor Anne Looney is the Executive Dean of Dublin City University’s Institute of Education, Ireland’s largest faculty of education. From 2001 until 2016, she was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, the agency responsible for curriculum and assessment for early years, primary and post-primary education in Ireland. She also held the position of Interim CEO at the Higher Education Authority until March 2017. She completed her doctoral studies at the Institute of Education in London. In 2014/2015, she was Professorial Research Fellow at the Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education, based at the Australian Catholic University in Brisbane. Her current research interests include assessment policy and practice, curriculum, teacher identity and professional standards for teachers and teaching. She has also published on religious, moral and civic education, and education policy. She has been a team member for reviews for the OECD on school quality and assessment systems, and is the current president of the International Professional Development Association.

Professor Jan van den Akker is Professor Emeritus at the University of Twente (the Netherlands), where he held a Chair on Curriculum Design and Implementation for many years. Moreover, from 2005 until 2016, he was Director-General of SLO (Netherlands Institute for Curriculum Development), overseeing all curriculum developments in primary and secondary education. Since 2016, he has been acting as an independent curriculum researcher and consultant, building on very broad international experiences in dozens of countries and including various visiting professorships (most recently at the Humboldt University in Berlin). Jan’s main areas of expertise include: curriculum policy making (in comparative perspective); curriculum development, in interaction with teacher learning and school development; and methodology of design research in education.