Thought du Jour

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) yesterday released results for its 2009 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) tests. PISA assesses reading, maths and scientific skills of representative 15-year-olds in about 65 countries (30 OECD member countries and 35 partner countries) every three years.

Shanghai and Hong Kong posted exceptionally strong performances, ranking 1st and 4th, respectively. Here is a list of the top ten performers in PISA 2009:

1.  Shanghai
2.  Korea*
3.  Finland*
4.  Hong Kong
5.  Singapore
6.  Canada*
7.  New Zealand*
8.  Japan*
9.  Australia*
10. Belgium*

(*) indicates the country is a member of OECD.

Shanghai and Hong Kong are not representative of China but Andreas Schleicher, special adviser on education to the OECD, said the country should not be underestimated. “They have agile, mobile schools and a lot of parental pressure,” he said.

Citing further, as-yet unpublished OECD research, Mr Schleicher said: “We have actually done Pisa in 12 of the provinces in China. Even in some of the very poor areas you get performance close to the OECD average.” ….

The US came in at 14th [of 30 OECD countries], but its localised school system is extremely variable. Schools in the north-east US are the equal of those in seventh-placed Netherlands. In the mid-west, they are equivalent to 12th-placed Poland, In the west, they are as good as those in Italy (placed 23rd), but schools in the south are only as effective as those in Greece (placed 25th).

Chris Cook, “Shanghai tops global state school rankings”, Financial Times, 8 December 2010. (requires registration/subscription)

An ungated report is available at digitaljournal.com.

Full results are posted at oecd.org.

Tags: China

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