Is your country in the rankings?
Dear friends,
Education really can open some people up. If they are ‘trained’ to learn from young, they perhaps would be open to learning the whole of their adult lives. You can see interesting school rankings throughout the world. Is your country in the rankings?
Tsem Rinpoche
Asia tops biggest global school rankings
By Sean Coughlan
Education correspondent
Sean Coughlan breaks down the OECD’s findings on global education
The biggest ever global school rankings have been published, with Asian countries in the top five places and African countries at the bottom.
Singapore heads the table, followed by Hong Kong, with Ghana at the bottom.
The UK is in 20th place, among higher achieving European countries, with the US in 28th.
The OECD economic think tank says the comparisons – based on test scores in 76 countries – show the link between education and economic growth.
“This is the first time we have a truly global scale of the quality of education,” said the OECD’s education director, Andreas Schleicher.
“The idea is to give more countries, rich and poor, access to comparing themselves against the world’s education leaders, to discover their relative strengths and weaknesses, and to see what the long-term economic gains from improved quality in schooling could be for them,” he said.
The top performer, Singapore, had high levels of illiteracy into the 1960s, said Mr Schleicher, showing how much progress could be made.
In the UK, the study shows about one in five youngsters leave school without reaching a basic level of education – and the OECD says that reducing this number and improving skills could add trillions of dollars to the UK economy.
“I think it’s partly a mindset, an expectation. There are plenty of examples of schools that have raised the bar dramatically,” said education minister Lord Nash.
But a leading UK head teacher, Sir Anthony Seldon, criticised such league tables as “arguably doing more harm than good”.
“They are skewing schools and national education systems away from real learning towards repetitive rote learning,” said Sir Anthony, head of Wellington College in Berkshire.
The analysis, based on test scores in maths and science, is a much wider global map of education standards than the OECD’s Pisa tests, which focus on more affluent industrialised countries.
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This latest league table, ranking more than a third of the world’s nations, shows how countries such as Iran, South Africa, Peru and Thailand would appear on an international scale.
It shows once again the poor performance of the United States, slipping behind successful European countries and being overtaken by Vietnam. It also highlights the decline of Sweden, with the OECD warning last week that it had serious problems in its education system.
Figures mapped above show estimated growth in GDP over the lifetime of pupils. The figures assume that all pupils are enrolled in schools and that they achieve at least basic skills.
The rankings are based on an amalgamation of international assessments, including the OECD’s Pisa tests, the TIMSS tests run by US-based academics and TERCE tests in Latin America, putting developed and developing countries on a single scale.
The findings will be formally presented at the World Education Forum in South Korea next week, where the United Nations is to convene a conference on targets for raising global education by 2030.
‘Every student to succeed’
The top five places are all taken by Asian countries – Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.
The five lowest-ranked countries are Oman in 72nd, Morocco, Honduras, South Africa and Ghana in last spot.
“If you go to an Asian classroom you’ll find teachers who expect every student to succeed. There’s a lot of rigour, a lot of focus and coherence,” says Mr Schleicher.
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“These countries are also very good at attracting the most talented teachers in the most challenging classrooms, so that every student has access to excellent teachers.”
The report, published by the OECD and written by Eric Hanushek from Stanford University and Ludger Woessmann from Munich University, argues that the standard of education is a “powerful predictor of the wealth that countries will produce in the long run”.
“Poor education policies and practices leave many countries in what amounts to a permanent state of economic recession,” says the report.
Millennium targets
Improving education would produce “long-term economic gains that are going to be phenomenal”, says Mr Schleicher.
If Ghana, the lowest ranked country, achieved basic skills for all its 15-year-olds, the report says that it would expand its current GDP by 38 times, over the lifetime of today’s youngsters.
Only a minority of countries in Africa had sufficient test data to be included in these rankings – and it could be that countries such as Ghana are among the higher achievers in the continent, performing better than the majority for which there are no comparable figures.
Education standards are a 'powerful predictor of the wealth' says the OECD
The report will provide evidence for next week’s World Education Forum of how achieving education targets can deliver economic gains.
The milestone conference, under the auspices of the United Nations, will mark 15 years since the setting of education targets by world leaders.
These millennium targets for education, such as providing all children with a primary education, have not been fully achieved.
But the World Education Forum will set another round of global targets for the next 15 years.
Countries ranked on maths and science
- Singapore
- Hong Kong
- South Korea
- Japan (joint)
- Taiwan (joint)
- Finland
- Estonia
- Switzerland
- Netherlands
- Canada
- Poland
- Vietnam
- Germany
- Australia
- Ireland
- Belgium
- New Zealand
- Slovenia
- Austria
- United Kingdom
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- France
- Latvia
- Norway
- Luxembourg
- Spain
- Italy (joint)
- United States (joint)
- Portugal
- Lithuania
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Russia
- Sweden
- Croatia
- Slovak Republic
- Ukraine
- Israel
- Greece
- Turkey
- Serbia
- Bulgaria
- Romania
- UAE
- Cyprus
- Thailand
- Chile
- Kazakhstan
- Armenia
- Iran
- Malaysia
- Costa Rica
- Mexico
- Uruguay
- Montenegro
- Bahrain
- Lebanon
- Georgia
- Brazil
- Jordan
- Argentina
- Albania
- Tunisia
- Macedonia
- Saudi Arabia
- Colombia
- Qatar
- Indonesia
- Botswana
- Peru
- Oman
- Morocco
- Honduras
- South Africa
- Ghana
(Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32608772)
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The future of the country lies with the children and schools education. Their quality and personality will determine the kind of destiny that leads the nation. The countries which utilize their youth in the right direction are more developed. The youth will be the future leaders of their country and are role models to emulate in the future. With the biggest ever global school rankings have been published, Asian countries were in the top five places. Wow…Singapore ranked top list on maths and science but too bad Malaysia ranked 51. Education plays an important part in the country development. The authorities concerned are trying to ensure equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Every child has the fundamental right to quality education. With higher quality of education, it will benefits the entire country as well as it has been shown to increase economic growth and stability. Interesting to see school rankings throughout the world and with these rankings those of the weaker ones could do more to improve their education system or see what can be done.
Thank you Rinpoche for this sharing even though its an old post , good to know about it.
I wonder if how to be truly happy can be a subject in schools. Everything people do is to be happy it is strange despite happiness being the end all of what we chase after, it is sometimes neglected in education programs. Instead what is thought is knowledge that may or may not bring long lasting happiness..
It is indeed that the younger generation is the pillar of the future. If the youth of the country cannot be trained well to equip them for the future, not only that we will be destroying them, but we will be destroying the future as well. Most people think that it is alright for the children to do what they wish to, only pointing out their mistakes when they are very serious mistakes.
It is wrong to do so as when that happens, it has already developed into a habit that is difficult to change and the youth will be unwilling to change as well. Through that, it will do more damage to them then helping them.
Good habits are nurtured when we are young. This is why it is so important for that children are educated properly as they are a blank canvas that will need the people around them to complete their painting.
The young generation is that going to be the one that live in the future and if we start teach them correctly when they are still young, not only on education but to add on to dharma, it will form a better society that has integrity, hardworking, honest, ability to live coherently and commitment.
Devastating to learn that Malaysia is ranked 51st among the world…