Proposal:ISCED 2011 Education Programme

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ISCED 2011 Education Programme
Proposal status: Rejected (inactive)
Proposed by: Skorbut
Tagging: isced_2011_programme=*
Applies to: node, area, relation
Definition: The education programme(s) of a school based on the ISCED (International Standard Classification of Education) of 2011.
Statistics:

Draft started: 2022-01-30
RFC start: 2022-01-31
Vote start: 2022-04-08
Vote end: 2022-04-24

Proposal

This proposal aims to remove the ambiguity associated to the existing tag isced:level=*. This tag denotes the level(s) of an education programme a school is offering. The definitions of the levels are based on the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) framework. There are multiple versions of this framework. These versions are distinguished by the year of appearance, i.e. primarily 1997 and 2011. Unfortunately, isced:level=* does not specify the version/year that it refers to. This proposal therefore introduces a new tag isced_2011_programme=* for which the underlying framework version is explicitly defined as 2011. The older tag isced:level=* will be obsoleted. Further, this proposal clarifies which values for key isced_2011_programme=* are acceptable. ISCED 2011 is defined in http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/international-standard-classification-of-education-isced-2011-en.pdf

The isced_2011_programme=* tag can be used on all elements that represent some kind of school (e.g. amenity=school, amenity=college, amenity=university), i.e. on nodes, (closed) ways and areas. The usage is therefore identical to isced:level=*.

Rationale

Why a new tag? / Incompatibility to ISCED 1997

The initial discussion for tagging ISCED levels assumingly started at Talk:Tag:amenity=school#Level of education. Since early messages were exchanged before 2011, it is to assume that the original proposal referred to the 1997 version of the framework. However, mappers might unknowingly add keys that refer to the ISCED 2011 version. While the two are compatible to a large part, there are nonetheless incompatibilities:

  • ISCED 1997 level 5 ("First stage of tertiary education") corresponds to ISCED 2011 level 5 ("Short-cycle tertiary education"), 6 ("Bachelor's or equivalent") or 7 ("Master's or equivalent").
  • ISCED 1997 level 6 ("Second stage of tertiary education") corresponds to ISCED 2011 level 8 ("Doctorate or equivalent").
  • Contents of level 3 and 4 were slightly adjusted.

In other words, isced:level=5 and isced:level=6 are ambiguous.

Why programme, instead of level?

ISCED 2011 introduces a three-digit coding scheme for the levels of education programmes. There are three dimensions of information that are encoded in these three digits:

  • First digit: Level of education (corresponds to isced:level=*)
  • Second digit: Programme orientation, e.g.
    • 4 = general/academic
    • 5 = vocational/professional
  • Third digit: Sufficiency for level completion / access to higher ISCED levels

Example (taken from ISCED 2011 documentation):

Level label Level Category Sub-

category

Notes on sub-categories
Upper secondary education 3 34

General

341 Insufficient for level completion or partial level completion, without direct access

to tertiary education

342 Partial level completion, without direct access to tertiary education
343 Level completion, without direct access to first tertiary programmes (but may

give direct access to post-secondary non-tertiary education)

344 Level completion, with direct access to first tertiary programmes (may also give

direct access to post-secondary non-tertiary education)

35

Vocational

351 Insufficient for level completion or partial level completion, without direct access

to tertiary education

352 Partial level completion, without direct access to tertiary education
353 Level completion, without direct access to first tertiary programmes (but may

give direct access to post-secondary non-tertiary education)

354 Level completion, with direct access to first tertiary programmes (may also give

direct access to post-secondary non-tertiary education)

As can be seen from the example, there are three ways to use the three digits from ISCED 2011 to refer to education programmes:

  1. Use only the first digit, called "Level"
  2. Use the first and the second digit, called "Category"
  3. Use all three digits, called "Sub-category"

Because in ISCED 2011 the term "level" refers to only the first digit (see table above) and because this proposal aims to support all three usages to refer to education programmes, it would be inadequate to call the key isced_2011_level=*. Instead it is called isced_2011_programme=*, as a compromise between length and the more exact term "education programme". Further, "programme" is preferred over "program", since it is the British English term (what would be preferred in OSM) and also what is being used in the ISCED 2011 document.

Why isced_2011_*=* instead of the previously proposed isced:*:2011=* ?

The page Key:isced:level proposed the usage of isced:level:2011=*. This proposal however says to use isced_2011_programme=*. (Note the switched order of "2011" and "level"/"programme"!) This is for the following reasons:

  • It is the level/programme as given by ISCED 2011, i.e. "isced" and "2011" belong together.
  • There is also the date namespace, that interprets "isced:programme:2011" as "the isced:programme as it was in 2011", see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Date_namespace
  • By not using the colon at all, there won't be any namespace conflicts for sure.

Reference: https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2022-January/063651.html

Tagging

Basic level tagging

A most simple example: A school (amenity=school) offering lower secondary education:

isced_2011_programme=2

Levels, categories, sub-categories

A school offering lower secondary vocational education:

isced_2011_programme=25

A school offering lower secondary vocational education, where graduating will complete ISCED level 2 and give direct access to upper secondary education (ISCED level 3):

isced_2011_programme=254

Multiple values

A university (amenity=university) offering Bachelor's and Master's degree as well as doctorates:

isced_2011_programme=64; 74; 84

or

isced_2011_programme=64;74;84

per https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Semi-colon_value_separator#Syntax_details

Mixing numbers of digits

It is allowed to mix the number of digits (especially if a mapper is unsure which category or sub-category to choose):

isced_2011_programme=6; 74

However, if longer codes can be obtained, they are preferred over shorter ones.

Especially, if it is known that a school offers more than one category (or sub-category), then it is better to write

isced_2011_programme=34; 35

instead of

isced_2011_programme=3

because it is unambiguous.

Examples

Migration

The following information will be added to the wiki:

For mappers

For data consumers (both new and existing)

  • Data consumers may start or continue consuming isced:level=*, but need to be aware that
    • the number of OSM elements with this tagging will be decreasing
    • the referred ISCED version is ambiguous
    • only levels 0, 1, 2, 6 of ISCED 1997 can be exactly matched to ISCED 2011 levels (see table below), meaning only values 0, 1, 2, 8 of isced:level=* can be used unambiguously
    • the ISCED 2011 document describes the correspondence of 1997/2011 levels in detail in section 10
  • Data consumers should start consuming isced_2011_programme=*

The following table from the ISCED 2011 document (Table 19, page 63) describes the correspondence of 1997/2011 levels:

Correspondence between ISCED 2011 and ISCED 1997 levels
ISCED 2011 ISCED 1997
ISCED 01 -
ISCED 02 ISCED 0
ISCED level 1 ISCED level 1
ISCED level 2 ISCED level 2
ISCED level 3* ISCED level 3
ISCED level 4* ISCED level 4
ISCED level 5 ISCED level 5
ISCED level 6
ISCED level 7
ISCED level 8 ISCED level 6
* Content of category has been modified slightly.

For authors of OSM editors

  • isced:level=* should be marked as "not to be tagged" anymore, in the way that is natural to their editor (if any)
  • isced_2011_programme=* should be supported, see Annex A for a list of all possible values.

Features/Pages affected

External discussions / References

Extensibility

ISCED 2011 also defines a three-digit code for the field of education (sometimes called ISCED-F) a school is offering (e.g. Engineering, Agriculture, etc.). Introducing a tag isced:2011:field=* is conceivable and should not generate new conflicts. However, ISCED-F is not part of this proposal!

Out of scope

The following aspects are not part of this proposal. If you would like to see them realized, you are invited to author a separate proposal:

  • ISCED-F codes defining fields of educations a school is offering (e.g. Engineering, Agriculture, etc.)
  • Specifying a range of multiple levels by stating first and last level instead of enumerating all concerning levels
  • Specifying words (e.g. primary) that can be used as alternatives to ISCED programme number values, e.g. 1
  • A "better" tagging system (independent of ISCED) that defines education programmes more logically and doesn't mix concepts into one tag. A previous (rejected) proposal that tried to do that is Proposed_features/Education_2.0.

To reiterate: The goal of this proposal is really just to remove the ambiguity associated to the existing tag isced:level=*. All possibly controversial additions have been left out in order to create a common ground onto which further proposals can be built. Please consider this when voting.

Comments

Please comment on the discussion page.

Annex A: List of all possible values

This (complete) list of allowed values was extracted from UNESCO's "International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED 2011)" document. Note that this table is rather unsuited for deciding how to map a given school in a given country. For doing so it will be much better to consult UNESCO's country-specific ISCED mappings instead. Ideally, mappers from each country would extract the respective information and document it on the wiki. For an example see the ISCED 2011 documentation for Switzerland.

Level Level description Category Category description Sub-category Sub-category description
0 Early childhood education 01 Early childhood educational development 010 Education programmes targeting children under 3 years old
02 Pre-primary education 020 Designed for children from age 3 years to the start of primary education
1 Primary education 10 100
2 Lower secondary education 24 Lower secondary general education 241 Insufficient for level completion or partial level completion, without direct access to upper secondary education
242 Sufficient for partial level completion, without direct access to upper secondary education
243 Sufficient for level completion, without direct access to upper secondary education
244 Sufficient for level completion, with direct access to upper secondary education
25 Lower secondary vocational education 251 Insufficient for level completion or partial level completion, without direct access to upper secondary education
252 Sufficient for partial level completion, without direct access to upper secondary education
253 Sufficient for level completion, without direct access to upper secondary education
254 Sufficient for level completion, with direct access to upper secondary education
3 Upper secondary education 34 Upper secondary general education 341 Insufficient for level completion or partial level completion, without direct access to post-secondary non-tertiary education or tertiary education
342 Sufficient for partial level completion, without direct access to post-secondary non-tertiary education or tertiary education
343 Sufficient for level completion, without direct access to tertiary education (but may give direct access to post-secondary non-tertiary education)
344 Sufficient for level completion, with direct access to tertiary education (may also give direct access to post-secondary non-tertiary education)
35 Upper secondary vocational education 351 Insufficient for level completion or partial level completion, without direct access to post-secondary non-tertiary education or tertiary education
352 Sufficient for partial level completion, without direct access to post-secondary non-tertiary education or tertiary education
353 Sufficient for level completion, without direct access to tertiary education (but may give direct access to post-secondary non-tertiary education)
354 Sufficient for level completion, with direct access to tertiary education (may also give direct access to post-secondary non-tertiary education)
4 Post-secondary non-tertiary education 44 Post-secondary non-tertiary general education 441 Insufficient for level completion, without direct access to tertiary education
443 Sufficient for level completion, without direct access to tertiary education
444 Sufficient for level completion, with direct access to tertiary education
45 Post-secondary non-tertiary vocational education 451 Insufficient for level completion, without direct access to tertiary education
453 Sufficient for level completion, without direct access to tertiary education
454 Sufficient for level completion, with direct access to tertiary education
5 Short-cycle tertiary education 54 Short-cycle tertiary general education


(To be used at ISCED level 5 in the absence of internationally agreed definitions for academic and professional orientations at the tertiary level.)

541 Insufficient for level completion
544 Sufficient for level completion
55 Short-cycle tertiary vocational education


(To be used at ISCED level 5 in the absence of internationally agreed definitions for academic and professional orientations at the tertiary level.)

551 Insufficient for level completion
554 Sufficient for level completion
6 Bachelor’s or equivalent level 64 Bachelor’s or equivalent level, academic 641 Insufficient for level completion
645 First degree (3-4 years)
646 Long first degree (more than 4 years)
647 Second or further degree, following successful completion of a Bachelor’s or equivalent programme
65 Bachelor’s or equivalent level, professional 651 Insufficient for level completion
655 First degree (3-4 years)
656 Long first degree (more than 4 years)
657 Second or further degree, following successful completion of a Bachelor’s or equivalent programme
66 Bachelor’s or equivalent level, orientation unspecified


(To be used at ISCED level 6 in the absence of internationally-agreed definitions for academic and professional orientations at the tertiary level.)

661 Insufficient for level completion
665 First degree (3-4 years)
666 Long first degree (more than 4 years)
667 Second or further degree, following successful completion of a Bachelor’s or equivalent programme
7 Master’s or equivalent level 74 Master’s or equivalent level, academic 741 Insufficient for level completion
746 Long first degree (at least 5 years)
747 Second or further degree (following successful completion of a Bachelor’s or equivalent programme)
748 Second or further degree (following successful completion of a Master’s or equivalent programme)
75 Master’s or equivalent level, professional 751 Insufficient for level completion
756 Long first degree (at least 5 years)
757 Second or further degree (following successful completion of a Bachelor’s or equivalent programme)
758 Second or further degree (following successful completion of a Master’s or equivalent programme)
76 Master’s or equivalent level, orientation unspecified


(To be used at ISCED level 7 in the absence of internationally-agreed definitions for academic and professional orientations at the tertiary level.)

761 Insufficient for level completion
766 Long first degree (at least 5 years)
767 Second or further degree (following successful completion of a Bachelor’s or equivalent programme)
768 Second or further degree (following successful completion of a Master’s or equivalent programme)
8 Doctoral or equivalent level 84 Doctoral or equivalent level, academic 841 Insufficient for level completion
844 Sufficient for level completion
85 Doctoral or equivalent level, professional 851 Insufficient for level completion
854 Sufficient for level completion
86 Doctoral or equivalent level, orientation unspecified


(To be used at ISCED level 8 in the absence of internationally-agreed definitions for academic and professional orientations at the tertiary level.)

861 Insufficient for level completion
864 Sufficient for level completion
9 Not elsewhere classified

Voting

Voting closed

Voting on this proposal has been closed.

It was rejected with 27 votes for, 15 votes against and 3 abstentions.

With a 64% approval rate, this proposal was supported by a simple majority of voters but failed to meet the 75% supermajority threshold required to pass.

  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Skorbut (talk) 15:24, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Polyglot (talk) 14:35, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. It's better than isced:level=* and isced:level:2011=*. --- Kovposch (talk) 16:39, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I oppose this proposal I oppose this proposal. While I trust that some ambiguity is revolved, Internationally this is still at best one-sided and educations can't be compared this way and ambiguity is to be tolerated as it can't be avoided. --Kaartjesman (talk) 11:58, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
@Kaartjesman: What aspect of the proposal could be changed to make it acceptable? Do you know about any other system than ISCED that would provide better comparability? --Skorbut (talk) 19:15, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
Discussion thread
@Skorbut: I find that using ISCED is creating several problems. First is that it is overly complicated for OSM. I understand the idea behind ISCED and for them that works, but OSM is different. It doesn't have to have the full depth of social interactions in the database, all that is needed is that it needs to be understandable by people that visit the place. Meaning that social implications are implied and don't have to be encoded. On the mailinglist someone pointed out that school=* and grades=* are going to cover a lot of the needs of tagging. Which makes much more sense as "grades 1-10" is universally applicable. Both for a school in the USA as well as one in Kenya. The simple conclusion is to not make it too complex (KISS) and focus on getting a simple system that will likely have much more reach and be much easier to apply without errors by people that may just want to simply tag their environment.
  1. Grades 10 to 11 and 12 to 13 don't work in differentiating viz GCSE and A-Levels for general education. (as for determining based on the country, a school can in fact offer both 3-year and 2+2-year upper secondary curriculum) They are not designed for vocational education either.
  2. Not everywhere uses Grade 7 to 12 directly. Many restart counting at secondary education, or even numbering middle and high schools separately. These need a conversion anyway, and many will inadvertently add their non-conformal local levels.
--- Kovposch (talk) 06:12, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
@Kaartjesman, Skorbut, and Kovposch: Let's continue this discussion on the talk page. – Minh Nguyễn 💬 02:09, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
Moved to Talk:Proposed_features/ISCED_2011_Education_Programme#ISCED_alternatives
--- Kovposch (talk) 09:18, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. Solid proposal. A complex matter improved significantly with an international standard guideline. Well done ! --Bert Araali (talk) 09:42, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I oppose this proposal I oppose this proposal. And that, is how we got 5 or so parallel tagging schemes for public transportation. While the idea is great, I’m doubtful about the migration happening any time. --Lejun (talk) 06:32, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
@Lejun: The situations with public transportation and ISCED are not directly comparable: Tagging (ISCED) education programmes relies on an external definition, while public transportation does not. While the OSM community could have continued with the first public transportation tagging scheme indefinitely, it is not the case with ISCED for two reasons:
  1. It was forgotten to explicitly state that isced:level=* refers to the 1997 standard
  2. Even if it had been stated explicitly: The 1997 standard is not in use anymore (mainly due to the changes brought by the Bologna education reform)
Unfortunately, it is to be anticipated that in a few years there will be again a new ISCED standard. However, by including the year/version into the tag's key, it will always be obvious, which standard is being referred to.
--Skorbut (talk) 19:09, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
A more comparable counterpart would be gtfs*=* and ref:IFOPT=*. (can't think of a PT service classification yet) These "official" systems are in a separate dimension from OSM tagging. ---- Kovposch (talk)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal.--Romanf (talk) 14:04, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Crox (talk) 20:43, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I abstain from voting but have comments I have comments but abstain from voting on this proposal. I am worried by massive proposal and proposal to start superdetailed tagging with triple-level codes, while this ambiguity is really unwanted and a poor position to be in. --Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 05:37, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I oppose this proposal I oppose this proposal. The current proposal will not work well, because it requires mappers to use 2 digit numbers instead of human-readable values. The current isced:level tag also has this problem but at least there are only numbers 1 to 6. This proposal is too complex and will not be simple for mappers to use. If isced:level is going to be changed, it should change to a system that uses human-readable tags in natural language--Jeisenbe (talk) 19:50, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
@Jeisenbe: The proposal allows to use single-digit numbers as well... And I wrote a comment at Talk:Proposed_features/ISCED_2011_Education_Programme#Words_instead_of_numbers.3F --Skorbut (talk) 11:00, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
These numbers are not random ones invented here, as in the later expansion of protect_class=*. On the contrary, the latter started with formal IUCN classification categories. (Eg I found some at my place not gradable because they don't meet certain requirements or are unclear)
You need at least 3 tags to cover the 3-diigit code, if not 4 to have 2 tagging completion and access to higher level separately in each one. Multiple-digit is optional, and this proposal only formalizes their tagging.. There are already ~470 ISCED 1997 A-suffix, and ~140 B-suffix instances used https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/isced:level#values
--- Kovposch (talk) 06:27, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I oppose this proposal I oppose this proposal. For the same reasons as Jeisenbe: OSM must not introduce new tags with numerical values, but rather use natural language / human-readable values. Stevea (talk) 20:14, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
@Stevea: I wrote a comment regarding this at Talk:Proposed_features/ISCED_2011_Education_Programme#Words_instead_of_numbers.3F --Skorbut (talk) 11:00, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
Yes, my beef IS with the ISCED and this specific numbering: that "standard" won't work in OSM. It is raw, new (ten years young) and full of disagreements or won't-work-here. It feels like a bad, itchy sweater of too-few numbers to capture the nuance of human existence regarding education...no. This Proposal uses a clever, won't-work-worldwide numeric mapping and that means no. Offer a meaningful tag, not planetary-numbering fu-bar that might sorta work there but doesn't work here. "Bring it back better," sure (as a v2 or 2023...), but this ain't it. Let words, morphemes, natural language glyphs...capture what we (OSM) mean to capture. Tag accordingly. If, in your barrio, "escuela" doesn't quite mean something specific enough, tag with what does. Not numbers. Stevea (talk) 02:29, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
Adding onto myself with real-life examples, I earlier used "escuela", the Spanish word for "school." In Spanish, there are also "buque escuela" and "granja escuela". The former is something like "a training ship/vessel" where mariners/seamen are taught. The latter is something like "farming school" where subjects like animal husbandry and agricultural pest control are taught. Dozens, hundreds or even thousands of other such things (in a multitude of languages) exist through out the world. These numbers here? They simply don't work for these. But I could tag amenity=buque_escuela or amenity=maritime_school which I think is MUCH more OSM-correct. Stevea (talk) 19:55, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I oppose this proposal I oppose this proposal. The described problems exist. But I consider the present proposal as not workable --voschix (talk) 20:47, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
@Voschix: Why do you think it is not workable? What should be changed to make it workable? --Skorbut (talk) 07:46, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I abstain from voting but have comments I have comments but abstain from voting on this proposal. To those who disapprove of this proposal because it isn't human-readable: your beef is with ISCED, not this proposal. In my opinion and experience, ISCED level/program tagging is dubious and almost useless compared to school=* and grades=*. [1] It's as if we decided to tag NAICS or NACE codes on individual businesses. But isced:level=* is already widespread, so if we're going to tag ISCED programs, then we might as well avoid ambiguity about which standard is being used and allow the same level of precision that the standard itself allows. [2] – Minh Nguyễn 💬 01:15, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
    Though if "ISCED level/program tagging is dubious and almost useless" then approving tagging for it is likely not helpful Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 07:15, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
    @Mateusz Konieczny: I'm not sure if others share my opinion that any ISCED tag is a novel use of the standard, but if so, then deprecation of isced:level=* could be proposed separately. – Minh Nguyễn 💬 03:18, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Imagoiq (talk) 06:42, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. this is just to remove ambiguity, isced tagging in general seems established --Dieterdreist (talk) 08:22, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. Makes sense to make the tagging scheme a bit clearer --ThePacki (talk) 19:23, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I oppose this proposal I oppose this proposal. I aggree we should not use non-human readable tags. It's just not proper place to maintain such database. Kubahaha (talk) 22:03, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Fijord (talk) 13:37, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Fiszi37 (talk) 21:41, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Dmalischke (talk) 06:29, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --mhaelsig (talk) 07:46, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --SafetyIng (talk) 07:32, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --chnuessli (talk) 11:30, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I oppose this proposal I oppose this proposal. I recognize that ISCED is an (evolving, apparently) international standard for classifying an educational facility or program(me). However, it appears that this proposal would ask a mapper to consult a collection of subjectively-worded descriptions in order to apply a numeric code. I believe that is a poor fit for OSM because it's somewhat subjective and doesn't use plain-english words for tag values. In addition, I am not aware of any resource I can consult in which an expert on the topic has assessed a particular school to determine it's ISCED level or code -- it appears that this proposal is asking ordinary mappers themselves to read these descriptions and determine which category applies to a school in question. This proposal does not satisfactorily answer, for example, how these codes might be applied in my country (USA) or most others in the general case.   For these reasons I object to the mapping of ISCED codes except where they can be determined objectively from some type of authoritative source, and only then as an attribute that goes along with more foundational education tagging using plain language. I may change my mind in the future with more development of this proposal and a better indication about how it might be applied unambiguously in practice, however, at this point I don't believe this proposal is ready for prime time. Perhaps the classification work that was done by the ISCED could be extended into a series of plain-language tags that would better aid in mapper understanding and application. --ZeLonewolf (talk) 18:30, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
@ZeLonewolf: To my understanding the documents at http://uis.unesco.org/en/isced-mappings (which are linked to in the proposal text) do exactly what you would expect. It has mappings for all schools in all(?) countries worldwide. As a side note: Have a look at some other countries: The education landscape in the US seems to be significantly less complex than e.g. in Germany or Austria. I wonder how you would create a system that is easy to understand/differentiate/map on one hand and then also works internationally. I don't believe it can be done and therefore propose we (continue to) use ISCED where already a lot of thought has gone into it. --Skorbut (talk) 05:53, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
Seems massively and unnecessarily complicated to me. --ZeLonewolf (talk) 18:21, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
I know, right? In my examples (here in the Voting section as well as on the Talk page), I offer a couple of imagination-exercise examples (one of which has deep complexity that seriously frustrates this Proposal) and with ONE TAG (like amenity=maritime_school or amenity=farming_school) I can completely and properly enter the "Education Programme" into OSM. WithOUT this Proposal, neither its horrific complexity nor its frustrating limitations. Stevea (talk) 18:30, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I oppose this proposal I oppose this proposal. Although the idea to switch from ISCED 1997 to ISCED 2011 seems straight-forward, I have a few issues with this proposal. The first is that the proposed tag ofbuscates the connection between isced:level=* and isced_2011_programme=*. (As an aside, the latter seems to long for a tag that would presumably be widely-used, and thus something that many mappers would want to memorize.) Additionally, I'm generally opposed to categorical numerical variables in OSM that could be more intuitively described with words. The reference table here is insufficient for two reasons: for one, the tag itself should be self-descriptive, not reliant on an external lookup table. Secondly, it's difficult to interpret if you don't have any specialized knowledge in education. As an American, I'm not certain what the correct two-character code for any school I've attended would be, much less any I haven't attended. I obviously have a great deal of knowledge about their programs, but I don't know how they translate to the labels "general", "vocational", "academic", "professional", or "orientation unspecified". Also, does "orientation unspecified" mean that the school itself isn't specifying the type of education, or that the person creating the label isn't? Also, since schools can have more than one code, shouldn't basically any facility with one of the "sufficient" codes also have an "insufficient" code, since you can always only complete a portion of the education and then drop out? Overall, this is overly confusing and unclear, and has a couple extra issues sprinkled on top such that it seems to clearly warrant a "no" vote from me. Eiim (talk) 19:17, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I oppose this proposal I oppose this proposal. I don't like the key proposed. It should just be isced:programme=* while deprecating the old one. --Riiga (talk) 19:38, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnwhelan (talk • contribs) 19:50, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
    Intended to be helpful: I believe this is Johnwhelan's vote. Apparently, he didn't "sign" it with four tildes. Stevea (talk) 20:10, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
    @Stevea: Thanks, that's correct. It came from Special:Diff/2313298, and I've taken the liberty of moving it down here for consistency. – Minh Nguyễn 💬 21:16, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Dafadllyn (talk) 19:52, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I oppose this proposal I oppose this proposal. I'm inclined to agree with other commenters who are unconvinced of the rationale for using ISCED on OSM to begin with, but I also am not convinced this warrants an unconventional tagging scheme that requires major changes each time the standard changes. A tag like isced:version= or isced:standard= with 1997 or 2011 is more in line with existing tagging conventions, and allows specificity to be added to existing tags rather than changing their meaning. In practice, I am sure some of what is already tagged with isced:level is already more in line with the 2011 standard than the 1997 one, so if someone is already using that data they are already using information based on a mix of standards. If a data consumer relies on ISCED values but is not aware of the difference between the standards (or just assumes that all OSM contributors are aware of the difference just because it is in the wiki), I am not sure why they are using it. The fact that some ISCED levels for the "first digit" are compatible between the two standards and some are not is something they should be aware of if they want to use the standard. This proposal requires a change on their part across the board, whereas I do not see why anybody doing something useful with this tag would not be able to accommodate for it as it exists in some way. --Bgo eiu (talk) 20:15, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. It's a good thing to remove ambiguity, even if I have no particular idea against or for ISCED tags. -- yvecai
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. Basically 'just' an update of the existing isced:level=* tag which makes the version of the standard explicit. As with other tags, I'd appreciate to have presets in the most common editors eventually - the numeric codes might be a bit harder to remember, but that's not that different for me from other tags that I don't use regularly and which have textual values. --Mstock (talk) 20:58, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I abstain from voting but have comments I have comments but abstain from voting on this proposal. 2011 is 11 years ago now. I think we can wait a bit for a new version, or this whole thing will be outdated in a few years, which would add a lot of unnecessary work. --501ghost (talk) 21:55, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. Adavidson (talk) 22:23, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. Not a fan of ISCED tagging in general, but this does fix a problem with the existing tags. --Carnildo (talk) 05:17, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I oppose this proposal I oppose this proposal. I quite like isced:level=*, and I think it works quite well. Although it's a little clumsy to work out initially, it's relatively straightforward once you're familiar: pre-primary, primary, secondary, etc, are fairly easy concepts to understand and roughly align with many school systems. While it's not particularly granular, it suits the purpose as roughly correlating schools across jurisdictions. This proposal goes beyond updating the code to the new version: it documents an additional layer of complexity that I think would fundamentally undermine its usefulness. Namely, the practicality of category and sub-category tagging. It's unclear how this tagging could be used in a multi campus institution: if a school has two campuses, say, a grade=9 campus and a grade=10-12 campus, how would you tag the category and sub-category? It seems wrong to allocate the "insufficient for level completion" subcategory to the former campus, because students would continue their study at the latter? So then, do you allocate the code for the instution across both campuses, causing duplication? Or do you create a relation for these campuses, to capture this data once? By introducting the concept of degree completion to what was previously just "education level", the geographic/spatial aspects of a school are now much harder to pin down.
    The more I consider this tag, the more I feel as though it's defined at the wrong level. A "high school" might differ between jurisdictions, but I can't imagine a "high school" would differ within a jurisdiction to the point where it would change isced:levels. Would it not be easier to link isced levels to tags, rather than to individual institutions? If, for example, school=upper_secondary was a tag for isced level 3, but my country called those types of schools "Senior Schools", or something, I could simply remember that my "Senior School" is "upper_secondary", in the same way that I have to remember that what I call a freeway is a "motorway", and so on. That would be much more rememberable and easily comparible. Diacritic (talk) 07:05, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
For the cases you considered:
  1. It's about a "programme", akin to what certificate you get after it ends entirely. A programme can certainly be split between campus. This doesn't mean the code should change.
  2. This proposal doesn't preclude the existence school=* or other taggings, or reject the idea they are better. But allow me to illustrate one issue here. In a jurisdiction with both 3-year high school and 2+2-year GCSE+GCE model education system, school=upper_secondary or any other single tag for the level would apply to all of them, including when the latter is split. The use of grades=* has been mentioned as complementary, but there might be a want to explicitly use a unique tag for each of them too. A more fundamental question: if you don't confine tagging to ISCED, should the 1st-level attribute not be school=secondary (cf education_level:secondary=* in Proposed features/Education 2.0)? Then grades=* become quite needed to reasonably differentiate lower and upper secondary --- how do you balance it? This is something a proposal would have to consider.
--- Kovposch (talk) 15:20, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply @Kovposch:. In re: point 2 - I suppose my unease with the proposal is that while this shouldn't preclude the existence of other taggings, the scope of the text as written implies that it would make a future, better idea redundant. There is a non-controversial idea within this proposal (which I imagine would be much more supported) that is hampered by the framing of the proposal and associated tags. It's interesting reading Education 2.0; it looks like the author did a lot of work to be comprehensive, but probably would've have been better off just starting with a basic: school=school level, and then let the subtleties organically develop from there. I'm reminded of the "iterative refinement" model mentioned on any tags you like. I'm not going to draft a new proposal now, but in the example you mentioned, if there are two different high school models, both could, legitimately be tagged as upper_secondary, or what have you, then a further refinement tag could be upper_secondary=GCSE or similar. The hypothetical "better" tagging system is what I think a lot of the opposition to this proposal is looking for: it's not just the ISCED tags, it's that these will become the de-facto standardisation. Diacritic (talk) 08:13, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. Seems sensible to me. Sdoerr (talk) 14:21, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. I agree with Mstock's and ThePacki's statements above. --Das-g (talk) 21:29, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I oppose this proposal I oppose this proposal. I oppose this proposal because the use of ISCED codes is generally not verifiable on the ground. As I understand it, schools don't generally publish an ISCED code they consider applies to themselves, and neither do national or other authorities. Rather, the expectation is that OSM editors should interpret the categorial descriptions and make a guess. That's not ground truth, and doesn't belong in OSM. So making such inappropriate tagging more unambigous is counter-productive. Thanks for the effort, but without an authoritative source (ideally one visible on the ground) we shouldn't be adding these codes at all. JesseFW (talk) 21:51, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I oppose this proposal I oppose this proposal. I agree that numeric codes should be avoided. I've been updating a number of the schools around me lately. None of the school websites offer an ISCED code. Glassman (talk) 23:51, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I oppose this proposal I oppose this proposal. I think that adding a new isced:version=<version year> tag would be sufficient and much simpler: abscence of this tag would imply ISCED 1997. In ISCED 2011 the 2nd and 3rd digit are named respectively category and sub-category (of level), so using isced:level remains semantically correct. Moreover I would not use the version as part of tag name since it's data that can change and as such should be a value of a tag. IlBano (talk) 09:55, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I oppose this proposal I oppose this proposal. I oppose this proposal. It is massively and unnecessarily complicated. Musuruan (talk) 10:22, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Mueschel (talk) 11:57, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Eginhard (talk) 17:03, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Votes received after the close of voting

  • I approve this proposal I approve this proposal. --Soltha (talk) 10:10, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Post-Voting summary

This section summarizes the reasons for voting no (or abstain from voting).

Tagging syntax

  • Bad key
  • Bad values
    • Usage of numbers instead of words in values
      • Hard to remember
      • Appears foreign when used in OSM
  • ISCED version should be tagged separately, using e.g. isced:version=* or isced:standard=*
    • more in line with existing tagging conventions
    • proposed obsoletion would require changes for existing data consumers
    • simpler transition (by assuming absent version tag implying ISCED 1997)

Tagging semantics

  • Category and sub-category add additional complexity

Process

General critique

  • Proliferation of differing tagging standards for the same thing
  • ISCED standard is too young
  • ISCED standard is too old, wait for the next version
  • Won't work worldwide / Won't cover special cases like "buque escuela" (farming school) or "granja escuela" (training ship)
  • Seems massively and unnecessarily complicated
  • Assignment of ISCED programme can't be determined objectively / needs expert to determine code
  • Non-obviousness of ISCED-specific terms:
    • general
    • vocational
    • academic
    • professional
    • orientation unspecified
    • sufficient vs. insufficient
  • By potentially becoming the de-facto tagging scheme for school levels, this tagging scheme will suppress a hypothetical better system
  • Not verifiable on the ground, nor by (governmental) authorities since schools don't have an ISCED sign or similar

Follow-up Proposal

There is a follow-up proposal at Proposed_features/ISCED_2011_Level_of_Education.

Retrieved from "https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Proposal:ISCED_2011_Education_Programme&oldid=2514777"