PISA 2006 survey

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a triennial world-wide test of 15-year-old school children's scholastic performance, the implementation of which is coordinated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The aim of the PISA study is to test and compare schoolchildren's performance across the world, with a view to improving educational methods and outcomes.

Here is an overview of the 20 places with the highest scores in 2006:

	Mathematics	Science	Reading
1.	Taiwan	Finland	South Korea
2.	Finland	Hong Kong	Finland
3.	Hong Kong	Canada	Hong Kong
4.	South Korea	Taiwan	Canada
5.	Netherlands	Estonia	New Zealand
6.	Switzerland	Japan	Ireland
7.	Canada	New Zealand	Australia
8.	Macau	Australia	Liechtenstein
9.	Liechtenstein	Netherlands	Poland
10.	Japan	Liechtenstein	Sweden
11.	New Zealand	South Korea	Netherlands
12.	Belgium	Slovenia	Belgium
13.	Australia	Germany	Estonia
14.	Estonia	United Kingdom	Switzerland
15.	Denmark	Czech Republic	Japan
16.	Czech Republic	Switzerland	Taiwan
17.	Iceland	Macau	United Kingdom
18.	Austria	Austria	Germany
19.	Slovenia	Belgium	Denmark
20.	Germany	Ireland	Slovenia

Reactions to the results: For many countries, the first PISA results were a nasty surprise; in Germany and the United States, for example, the comparatively low scores brought on heated debate about how the school system should be changed. Other countries had an agreeable surprise.

Excerpt from a commentary on the above results - at http://isteve.blogspot.com/2007/12/thats-pretty-pathetic.html

But maybe it all doesn't much matter, since the international test results seem to correlate with Lynn and Vanhanen's IQ scores reasonably well.

Anyway, here's the Financial Times' summary of the 2006 PISA:

Asia-Pacific’s strong showing is one of the clearest themes of the Pisa survey, which was carried out in 57 countries that account for 90 per cent of the world gross domestic product. The region contributes five of the top 10 in the mathematics and science league tables, and four of the top 10 in reading – thanks to strong contributions from Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Macao, Australia and New Zealand. Mainland China did not participate.

But the league tables show Finland is the most consistently high performer – repeating its sterling performance in the last survey in 2003. It comes top in science, and second in maths and in reading – where it is bested only by South Korea.

The US, the world’s largest economy, is below the OECD average in science and maths, and fails even to make the tables in reading because a misprint in the test confused too many students and invalidated the results.

Makes you proud to be an American, doesn't it?

PISA 2006 results by score and standard deviation

	science		math		reading
	Mean	S.D.	Mean	S.D.	Mean	S.D.
OECD
Australia	527	100	520	88	513	94
Austria	511	98	505	98	490	108
Belgium	510	100	520	106	501	110
Canada	534	94	527	86	527	96
Czech Republic	513	98	510	103	483	111
Denmark	496	93	513	85	494	89
Finland	563	86	548	81	547	81
France	495	102	496	96	488	104
Germany	516	100	504	99	495	112
Greece	473	92	459	92	460	103
Hungary	504	88	491	91	482	94
Iceland	491	97	506	88	484	97
Ireland	508	94	501	82	517	92
Italy	475	96	462	96	469	109
Japan	531	100	523	91	498	102
Korea	522	90	547	93	556	88
Luxembourg	486	97	490	93	479	100
Mexico	410	81	406	85	410	96
Netherlands	525	96	531	89	507	97
New Zealand	530	107	522	93	521	105
Norway	487	96	490	92	484	105
Poland	498	90	495	87	508	100
Portugal	474	89	466	91	472	99
Slovak Republic	488	93	492	95	466	105
Spain	488	91	480	89	461	89
Sweden	503	94	502	90	507	98
Switzerland	512	99	530	97	499	94
Turkey	424	83	424	93	447	93
United Kingdom	515	107	495	89	495	102
United States	489	106	474	90	m	m
OECD total	491	104	484	98	484	107
OECD average	500	95	498	92	492	99
Partners
Argentina	391	101	381	101	374	124
Azerbaijan	382	56	476	48	353	70
Brazil	390	89	370	92	393	102
Bulgaria	434	107	413	101	402	118
Chile	438	92	411	87	442	103
Colombia	388	85	370	88	385	108
Croatia	493	86	467	83	477	89
Estonia	531	84	515	80	501	85
Hong Kong-China	542	92	547	93	536	82
Indonesia	393	70	391	80	393	75
Israel	454	111	442	107	439	119
Jordan	422	90	384	84	401	94
Kyrgyzstan	322	84	311	87	285	102
Latvia	490	84	486	83	479	91
Liechtenstein	522	97	525	93	510	95
Lithuania	488	90	486	90	470	96
Macao-China	511	78	525	84	492	77
Montenegro	412	80	399	85	392	90
Qatar	349	84	318	91	312	109
Romania	418	81	415	84	396	92
Russian Federation	479	90	476	90	440	93
Serbia	436	85	435	92	401	92
Slovenia	519	98	504	89	494	88
Chinese Taipei	532	94	549	103	496	84
Thailand	421	77	417	81	417	82
Tunisia	386	82	365	92	380	97
Uruguay	428	94	427	99	413	121