Global Survey Finds Little Progress in Science Education High-school students in Singapore and Japan lead the rankings and there is little evidence that higher spending on education is improving results, according to the OECD By Paul Hannon

Posted By on December 6th, 2016

http://www.wsj.com/articles/global-survey-finds-little-progress-in-science-education-1481018403

High-school students in many parts of east Asia continue to have a better command of science and other subjects than their counterparts in the rest of the world, but there is little sign that increased spending on education is producing better results in most countries.

That is a worrying development for the long-term economic outlook, since most economists believe that growth is partly driven by improvements in education levels—or what they call human capital—although the strength of the relationship is uncertain.

Students in Singapore had the highest average score in science, followed by their counterparts in Japan, Estonia, Taiwan and Finland, in triennial testing of 540,000 15-year-olds across 72 countries and regions during 2015. The U.S. ranked 25th, ahead of France but below the U.K. and Germany.

While the rankings have changed slightly since the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development last conducted its examinations under the Programme for International Student Assessment in 2012, the most arresting outcome is that higher spending on schooling around the world is having little impact on outcomes.

Scientific understanding was the focus of the third iteration of PISA in 2006. Since then, smartphones have become ubiquitous, while social media, cloud-based services, robotics and machine learning “have transformed our economic and social life,” said OECD Secretary General Ángel Gurria.

“Against this backdrop, and the fact that expenditure per primary and secondary student rose by almost 20% across OECD countries over this period, it is disappointing that, for the majority of countries with comparable data, science performance in PISA remained virtually unchanged since 2006,” he said.

One feature of weak global growth over recent years has been very low rates of productivity growth, in both developed and developing countries. The PISA results suggest stalled progress in educational attainment may be partly responsible.

That lack of progress will likely reignite the controversy around the PISA process itself, which critics say has gone beyond testing school systems, and is actively shaping them by emphasizing testing and rote learning rather than creativity and invention. PISA is the most comprehensive, costly and influential comparison of educational attainment across countries, and has in the past led to changes in the way national education systems have functioned.

PISA’s impact is based in part on the claimed link between educational attainment and economic performance, with governments fearing that long-term growth prospects and their ability to attract investment will be harmed if their school systems fall in the rankings.

“Underlying the concern about placement on the rankings of countries is the fear of a loss of economic competitiveness and the panic that creates for governments, and the media and the public,” said Svein Sjøberg, a professor of education at the University of Oslo.

But despite the many changes in schools systems that PISA has inspired, and the added resources governments have devoted to securing higher rankings, the results of the 2015 test suggest there has been little advance in educational attainment. CONTINUE AT SITE

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