The 2006 Pisa survey on OECD education.

The results of the 2006 Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) survey have just been released. They make interesting reading.

The Pisa report is a comprehensive survey of the skills in science, reading and mathematics of 400,000 15 year olds tested in 57 countries around the world. Singapore is not one of them.

The survey is conducted once every three years and serves as a snapshot of international students' comparative abilities.

The OECD is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. An average performance for the OECD across the three areas was calculated. Before I discuss who was below average, however, I will state the results for the top three positions in each category. There are some surprises, here, at least for me.

In Science:

Finland was no.1. (average score 563)
Hong Kong was no.2 (average score 542)
Canada was no.3 (average score 534)

In Reading:

South Korea was no.1 (average score 556)
Finland was no.2 (average score 547)
Hong Kong was no.3 (average score 536)

In Mathematics:

Taipei was no.1 (average score 549)
Finland was no.2 (average score 548)
Hong Kong and South Korea were equal at No.3 (average score 547).

Now, firstly, it is remarkable that both Finland and Hong Kong appear in the top 3 for all categories. This shows that there is a distinct correlation between performance in each of these areas. Perhaps it reveals that bright students, on average, do well in all subjects. Alternatively, that well-educated students do well on all subjects (depending on whether you ascribe the results to nature or nurture).

32 countries were statistically below the average of all OECD countries in science. These included the United States, Spain and Italy.

Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy and, oddly, given Finland's astonishing all-round performance, Norway, were below the OECD average in reading.

For mathematics, the United States, Italy, Spain, and Portugal were all below the OECD average.

Interestingly, South Korea beat Finland in reading. This is notable because Finland topped the reading results in both Pisa 2000 and Pisa 2003. Even more interesting, for what it says about the education system in South Korea is the source of the improvement. South Korea improved its average, not by bringing up the performance of the lower end students - whose quality of work remained essentially unchanged - but by enhancing the performance of its more able students. The stellar students shine more brightly in South Korea.

It seems to me that the South Korean approach is more likely to result in truly capable adults, who are able to do something worthwhile. As a nation, they seem to be aiming for peak performance of their best students. Most countries (like the United States and its famous - or infamous - No Child Left Behind Act) appear to aim at strengthening their weakest students. I think this has limited utility from the point of view of getting the best out of a student population. The results of Pisa 2006 seem to show this, with the United States lagging behind most other nations in Science and Mathematics.

The students were generally asked to carry out paper and pencil tasks, in the three areas of Science, Reading and Mathematics.

One of the most interesting results of this study is that Canada came third in Science, but the United States was below average for an OECD country. I am not familiar with the differences between the Canadian systems and the US systems. Perhaps a reader of this blog post can enlighten both myself and my readers by suggesting why Canada came third but the United States was below average. Do Canadians spend more time on Science than US students? Are they just more gifted at it? Is the education system simply better in general? I would welcome any insights on the conundrum.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and no months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and five months, and Tiarnan, twenty-two months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)