US Teenagers Below Average

UK teenagers fall in world science league
By David Turner in London
Published: November 30 2007 01:38 Last updated: November 30 2007 01:38
British teenagers have slipped 10 places – to a lowly 14th – in the world’s most prestigious league table charting scientific knowledge among schoolchildren.
But Germany, one of its biggest economic rivals, has again made steep progress after languishing well below the rich-country average in 2000.
The latest Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) league table, assessed in 2006, will disappoint the British government. It has boosted the education budget by billions of pounds in recent years and made education one of the linchpins of its agenda.
Jim Knight, Britain’s schools minister, said: “We’re well above average, but we know we need to do more to be truly world class.”
Because of technical statistical problems Britain’s entry in 2003 was not processed so its 2006 result is compared with 2000.
International comparison of secondary school students’ attainment in science
Ranking according to Pisa 2006 mean score
Country
Rank
Finland
1
Hong Kong
2
Canada
3
Taiwan
4
Estonia
5
Japan
6
New Zealand
7
Australia
8
Netherlands
9
Liechtenstein
10
Korea
11
Slovenia
12
Germany
13
UK
14
Czech Republic
15
Source: OECD
The Pisa league tables, produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development every three years, are regarded as the most comprehensive and rigorous international yardstick of 15-year-old school pupils’ abilities.
Scientific ability formed the dominant part of the two-hour test that students took for the 2006 study. For each Pisa survey, the OECD concentrates on a different area of knowledge.
Canada supplanted Japan as the top performer among the Group of Seven leading economic powers, although outright winner was again Finland.
While a European country came top, Asia produced three of the six highest performers – Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan.
The US continued to languish slightly below the OECD average.
Italy remained in bottom place among the G7, repeating its poor performance of 2003. Its education ministry said the poor results of the past two surveys led to the establishment of a special commission last year by the centre-left government. Under a new regulation, schools will be compelled to offer repeat classes for students that fail in maths and science. “Italy risks losing its competence in this,” a spokeswoman said.
“We are witnessing a real formative emergency” with respect to science in schools, said Giuseppe Fiorino, Italy’s education minister in a recent review.
Several east European countries, including fifth-placed Estonia, performed well, but otherwise most of the poorer countries in the survey did badly.
Among OECD members – most of which are relatively rich – there was little relation between the results and long-term economic performance. Japan, for example, remains mired in slow economic growth but has high educational standards.
Separate results for mathematical and reading ability will be published next week.
Additional reporting by Guy Dinmore in Rome
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007