Paweł Poszytek, PhD, Director General of the Polish National Agency of Erasmus+ Programme. Member of several working groups by the European Commission and the Ministry of National Education of the Republic of Poland, coordinator of the Country profile Project implemented by the Council of Europe. Reviewer of the national core curriculum in foreign language teaching in 2008 and co-author of 2016/2017 curriculum update. Former member of the executive board of the European Association of Language Teaching and Assessment. Former coordinator of Lingua, European Language Label and eTwinning programmes in Poland and member of the board of the Polish National Agency of Lifelong Learning Programme. Mr. Paweł Poszytek presented the Higher Education-Business Engagement Index on several international conferences, i.e. during UIIN conference in Adelaide in February 2017.
The present world is flooded by various kinds of indices. They aim at describing the reality, however rarely do we discuss about the limitations they pose. On the one hand, composite indicators by their nature:
• can summarise complex or multi-dimensional issues in view of supporting decision-makers
• are easier to interpret than trying to find a trend in many separate indicators
• facilitate the task of ranking countries on complex issues in a benchmarking exercise
• can assess progress of countries over time on complex issues
• reduce the size of a set of indicators or include more information within the existing size limit
• place issues of country performance and progress at the centre of the policy arena
• facilitate communication with general public (i.e. citizens, media, etc.) and promote accountability.
On the other hand, they can lead to creating misleading policy messages and simplistic policy conclusions, disguising serious failings and leading to inappropriate policies, misuse, and political influence. How to avoid these threats? The author will give two examples of educational research projects where these obstacles have been encountered and surmounted.
