Yeah, I was sick today, so I didn't go to school and missed the Odyssey. Oh well.
I was at home reading the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study report for their 2003 study. I wasn't really surprised with the results, adn they actually quite conformed to my stereotypes. Singapore ranked first in everything, with Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, and the Netherlands plus Chinese Taipei (just call them Taiwan, its not like I'm calling them the Republic of China) consistently got the highest scores in the mathematics portion. From Canada, there was only Quebec and Ontario, which had above average scores, slightly higher or around the scores of Australia, and USA. Now, what surprised me was this. Norway got significantly lower than international average. Wow. And they left out a lot of countries that I was interested in. Not suprisingly, South Africa, Ghana, plus a couple of other sub-Saharan and Middle East countries consistantly got the lowest scores.
Now, I don't know about the Netherlands, Japan, or Korea, but I know that there is INTENSE peer and family pressure to succeed in schools in Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. There are many side effects of this intense competition, and most of it is not good. And once you go beyond high school, well, the universities in Hong Kong frankly are terrible. At least from what I've heard.
Oh, and in the scientific portion, Singapore again was the first, Taiwan second, with Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Estonia ranking in the top 6 (not listed in any particular order). Quebec and Ontario were slightly higher than Australia + USA. Ontario ranked slightly higher in science, while Quebec ranked slightly higher in mathematics.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment