Purpose

In recent years, the evidence-based research, combined with managerialism of accountability, has become the mainstream idea in the enhancement of education. With its worldwide study, PISA also makes an important suggestion for the education policy-makers amongst the countries. Hence, this study aims to explore this issue in an attempt to propose a reflection on Taiwan’s education.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on the method of philosophical study, the researcher investigates G. J. J. Biesta’s philosophical reflections on evidence-based education, accountability, and PISA. Paying a particular attention to Biesta’s monographs and essays, the researcher addresses the critical articles reviewed by other scholars on him as the content analysis.

Findings/results

Biesta believes that evidence-based education is based on the linear and causal model in epistemology. Ontologically, it is applicable to a closed system; however, it is not to the practical needs of education. Biesta proposes value-based education as an alternative for evidence-based education. Accountability is derived from the audit system for businesses, in which its primary problem is to reduce the concept of responsibility in a narrow sense. Without the thinking of educational aim, accountability can be reduced to managerialism with an excessive emphasis on the consumers of education. This, however, may damage the values of democracy. The learning outcomes measured by PISA have lost their original intent by creating a social psychological phenomenon of international competition. Biesta’s metaphor of “teaching as dissensus” illustrates that the uncertainty of the educational process cannot be restricted merely to the logic of learning output based on a linear temporal model. Instead, he urges educators to reclaim, rediscover and restore the subjective freedom of students beyond the linear model that focuses only on learning performativity.

Originality/value

Taiwan’s education policy is generally formulated in accordance with the international trend or its actual domestic needs. While scholars recently call for evidence-based education, accountability, as well as PISA, G. J. J. Biesta assert that this logic of education focusing on the performativity of learning outcomes will weaken our original intention of exploring the nature of education. He contends that the aim of education should encompass the three dimensions of thinking: qualification, socialization and subjectification. Learning outcomes based on the quantitative data can only represent one’s partial learning achievement of qualification and socialization, failing to have a reflection of one’s subjectification. Thus, Biesta’s comprehensive reflections on evidence-based education, accountability, and PISA cannot only provide a reflection on Taiwan’s current education policy, but also enhances the methodology of educational research. While little research has been made to address the discourse of Taiwan’s education policy with a philosophical argumentation, this study will provide a good example of argument in the philosophy of education from this European scholar when exploring the education policy within Taiwan’s academia.

Suggestions/implications

By examining Biesta’s reflections on evidence-based education, accountability for performativity, and PISA, this paper will help one understand the deficiencies of learning outputs and key indicators— the goals that have become so pervasive in Taiwan’s recent education—so as to formulate educational policies that meet student’s subjectivity more.