The new Swedish Minister for Primary, Secondary and Adult Education, Ibrahim Baylan, has just risen to the challenge of facing the PISA 2003 results:

The report goes well beyond an examination of the relative standing of countries in mathematics, science and reading. It also looks at a wider range of educational outcomes that include students' motivation to learn, their beliefs about themselves and their learning strategies.

It's available here.

As Swedish 15-year-olds of today are worse off than in year 2000, Mr. Baylan intends to change a few things. That's what he says, anyway. One of the main disturbances seem to be the problem with the youths carrying mobile phones into class, switched on. Even though the ring signal may be turned off, they still have the ability to send SMS's and MMS's, chat, surf, et.c. So, Mr. Baylan wants teachers to be given the right to take the students' phones during class. Why not? It seems a perfectly reasonable alternative to not having the students learn. Even the ones without phones get distracted from the attention they bring. So anyway, read the PISA 2003 report.