Primary school completion rates are an important indicator of the accessibility of education services. In 2022, the average primary completion rate in SEA countries was 97% (Figure 6.7). Viet Nam, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore have all achieved universal primary school enrolment rates, and Brunei Darussalam (96%) is close to reaching this benchmark. With strong progress across the region in primary enrolment, it will be helpful for governments to assess a wider range of accessibility indicators, such as enrolment rates in early childhood education.
Supply of educational materials is key to improving the responsiveness of education systems. The index of shortage of educational materials is based on school principals’ opinions and shows how much they feel their schools lack resources or infrastructure. Positive scores indicate shortages. The average index score in SEA countries in 2022 was 0.2, compared to the OECD average score of -0.17 (Figure 6.8). Among SEA countries, Cambodia (0.85), the Philippines (0.71) and Indonesia (0.41) faced the largest reported shortfalls of educational resources. Singapore had the highest availability (-1.13), outperforming all SEA countries and OECD countries in the Asia Pacific region. All SEA countries for which data are available showed improvements or were stable between 2018 and 2022. The largest improvements were in Indonesia and Viet Nam, which reduced their index scores by 0.52 and 0.28, respectively, indicating an increase in the availability of educational materials (Figure 6.8).
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores are one indicator of the quality of education systems, reflecting how well they equip students with analytical and problem-solving skills. In 2022, students in SEA countries scored an average of 418 points in mathematics on the OECD PISA assessment. This was somewhat below the OECD average of 472. Among SEA countries, Singapore achieved the highest performance with an average of 575 points, significantly surpassing the OECD average. Viet Nam (469 points) and Brunei Darussalam (442 points) followed, both scoring similarly to the OECD average (
Figure 6.9).
Another measure of the quality of an education system is the extent to which socio-economic status (SES) affects academic performance. A measure of SES is derived from three indicators: highest parental occupational status, highest parental education in years and home possessions. Across SEA countries, socio-economic factors accounted for an average of 10.9% of the variance in mathematics performance. SEA countries outperform OECD Member countries, where socio-economic factors account for 15.5% of performance on average. Cambodia (17%), Indonesia (5.5%) and the Philippines (4.8%) were the best performers on this measure across the region, with students' SES having the most limited influence on their mathematics achievement (
Figure 6.9).
