The idea of the International Research of Student Achievements (IRSA) Project derived from CICED’s activities in education assessment and capacity building. CICED serves as a supervising entity and implementing agency. The core of the IRSA Project is a longitude research supported by training, knowledge exchange, contributions to public good and wide results dissemination. The current participants include Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Russia. The IRSA design and intermediate outcomes are getting recognition through international events such as CIES annual conference, EAE-Europe annual conferences, global expert groups such as Building Evidence in Education and World Bank seminars.

The IRSA Project is implemented within the Russia Education Aid for Development (READ). The READ program is a joint initiative of the Government of the Russian Federation and the World Bank. The main task of the READ program is to support participating countries in building the capacity of institutions responsible for measuring learning achievements and use these data to improve teaching and learning.

• To promote and implement the use of innovative methodologies for education quality assessment that will assist countries with improving national systems for educational assessment, starting with everyday classroom assessment and going beyond country level by participating in international comparative research

• To enhance educators’ capacity building through “learning by doing”, educational training and participation in international dialogue on the future of education

• To gain scientific data for improvement of policymaking that should be deeply grounded in research evidence

• To accelerate regional cooperation and stimulate knowledge and technologies exchange between countries that carry similar legacy in many approaches to education.

National testing centers and institutes of education serve as focal points for project teams. The focal points, being national assessment bodies, ensure the linkage between project outcomes and policy makers and come with country-specific products (e.g. seminars or reports available in national language) for the purpose of informing policy makers on recommendations produced within the project.