The Chinese University of Hong Kong held an international conference, Data Speaks: Lessons from Large-scale Educational Data Surveys for Educational Policy Reform and School Improvement on 30 and 31 January 2015. The conference was sponsored by the Education Bureau. Large-scale student achievement data within (e.g., NAEP) or across countries (e.g., PISA, PIRLS and TIMSS) offered important insights into the directions of educational policy reform and the ways to facilitate school improvement. As a regional representative from Japan, Akiko Ono shared her experiences on the use of achievement data in education policy and reforms in Japan under the topic of ‘Practices on the Use of Data in Educational Policy/School Improvement in Other Regions/Economies’. Results of PISA 2003/2006 shocked Japan. Afterwards, educational reform was carried out, including National Curriculum revision, Teaching Guidebooks, and the start of National Assessment. There was a recovery in PISA 2012. Ms Akiko Ono has served as Director of Department for International Research and Co-operation, the National Institute for Educational Policy Research (NIER) of Japan since April 2014 and is responsible in implementing PISA and other international collaborative research.