06/12/2004 - Finland once again came out top in the OECD's latest PISA study of learning skills among 15-year-olds, with high performances in mathematics and science matching those of top-ranking Asian school systems in Hong Kong-China, Japan and Korea. But some low-performing countries showed only small improvements or actually did less well, widening the gap between the best and poorest performers.
More than 250,000 students in 41 countries took part in PISA 2003, the second three-yearly survey of its kind. The survey involves pencil and paper tests lasting two hours, taken in the students' schools. The main focus in PISA 2003 was on mathematics, but the survey also looked at student performance in problem-solving, science and reading and at students' approaches to learning and attitudes to school.
Finland already led in the PISA 2000 reading assessment, and in PISA 2003 it maintained its high level of reading literacy while further improving its performance in mathematics and science. In mathematics, where the PISA 2003 tests sought to establish how well students can develop and apply mathematical models to deal with real-life tasks and interpret, validate and communicate the results, top-performing OECD countries also include the Netherlands.
Most other countries' relative positions in the PISA 2003 survey remained broadly similar to those in PISA 2000, but some showed notable changes. Poland's overall performance rose thanks to big improvements among lower-performing students in the wake of a major reform of the education system in 1999. Smaller but still noteworthy improvements in at least two assessment areas also occurred in Belgium, the Czech Republic and Germany.
Overall, wealthier countries tend to do better in educational terms than poor nations, but there are exceptions: Korea's national income, for example, is 30 per cent below the OECD average but its students are among the best performers in OECD countries. Nor is high expenditure necessarily a key to success: a number of countries do well in terms of "value for money" in their education systems, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Japan, Korea and the Netherlands, while some of the "big spenders" perform below the OECD average. (Data for the United Kingdom are not included, due to insufficient response rates of students and schools. In PISA 2000, data for the Netherlands were excluded for the same reason).
The results of PISA 2003 suggest that both students and schools perform best in a climate characterised by high expectations that are supported through strong teacher-student relations, students who are ready to invest effort and who show interest and lower levels of anxiety with mathematics, and a positive disciplinary climate. In most of the countries that performed well, local authorities and schools also have substantial responsibility for educational content and/or the use of resources, and many set out to teach heterogeneous groups of learners.
PISA also benchmarks educational quality against other important dimensions:
Journalists seeking further information or a copy of the report are invited to contact the OECD's Media Relations Division (tel. 33 1 45 24 97 00).
(see tables on Significant changes from 2000 to 2003 and Mean scores in mathematics, reading, science and problem solving in OECD countries and all countries)
See the complete report. Further information on Pisa can be found at www.oecd.org/pisa
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