Singapore
students aged 15 years old were ranked No. 1 in maths, science and
reading in the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment
(Pisa) test, whose results were released on Tuesday.
Pisa is a
prestigious international benchmarking test, dubbed the "World Cup
for education", and has been held six times since 2000.
The top score
follows good results in the last Pisa test in 2012, when students
here were ranked second in mathematics and third in science and
reading.
While the
results must be gratifying, such global rankings have in fact
stirred controversy.
Over the
years, Pisa, the triennial study conducted by the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), has come under attack.
Besides queries on the validity of the tests, there have also been
accusations of cheating by some countries.
Just two years
ago, an open letter was sent to Dr Andreas Schleicher, who oversees
the test at OECD, urging him to scrap Pisa. The letter, signed by
120 academics and teachers from a dozen countries, said the tests
were imperfect and narrowly focused on economic goals.
"Pisa, with
its three-year assessment cycle, has caused a shift of attention to
short-term fixes designed to help a country quickly climb the
rankings," it said.
Here, however,
Ministry of Education (MOE) officials have made it clear that the
regular reviews of curriculum and pedagogy - including the current
overhaul of the Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE) - that it
undertakes are not done to "game" the Pisa test or any other
test.
It is to
ensure that Singapore students gain the necessary knowledge and
skills to lead a successful and meaningful life, the ministry has
said.
A big-picture
take on the usefulness of Pisa comes from Dr Schleicher, often
referred to as "the World's Schoolmaster". He argues that the
test's international comparisons have opened up a perspective to a
wider range of policy options.
Underperforming countries have looked beyond their borders for
evidence of effective policy, and Pisa, by picking out the
characteristics of high-performing systems, has allowed educators
to identify those that work and adapt them to local contexts.
By some
estimates, half the countries that have taken Pisa tests since they
started in 2000 have reformed their education systems in the light
of the results.
For one, Pisa
has shown that rote-learning and hours of tuition do not work.
The top
placings of East Asian nations, including Singapore, were initially
attributed by some detractors to rote-learning and the many hours
of tuition that Asian students receive outside school hours.
However, Pisa
has shown no positive correlation between tuition and
performance.
And the charge
on rote-learning proves false when one looks at the kind of
questions posed in the tests.
Remembering
formulas or chunks of content won't do. Pisa's questions require
students to use their knowledge and skills to solve problems in
unfamiliar contexts.
It's also not
about money. Pisa studies comparing student scores with spending
per student explain only about less than 20 per cent of the
performance variation among countries. Also countries with similar
spending achieve very different results.
Pisa results
also show that parents sending their children to private schools
are wasting their money.
In countries
where a substantial proportion of students attend private schools,
pupils in public schools score lower in science than students in
private schools. But this is not the case once you take into
account the socio-economic background of the pupils.
Parents here
and in many other Asian nations clamour for smaller class sizes,
but Pisa data again shows that it is not about smaller class
sizes.
The
top-performing East Asian nations have larger classes.
Another useful
insight from the Pisa data: computers and classroom technology do
not improve student performance.
The study,
done last year, found "no appreciable improvements" in reading,
mathematics or science in countries that invested heavily in
information technology.
In fact, the
frequent use of computers in school is more likely to be associated
with lower marks,
Of the seven
territories that had the highest levels of Internet use in school,
three - Australia, New Zealand and Sweden - were found to have
"significant declines" in reading performance, while another three
- Spain, Norway and Denmark - had results that had "stagnated".
The
territories with the lowest levels of Internet use in school -
South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan - are among the top performers in
international tests.
In Singapore,
students who reported that they "never or hardly ever" browse the
Internet for schoolwork in school, performed the best in the
digital reading test. They scored more than 30 points better than
students who reported browsing the Internet in school "at least
once a week".
Similarly,
students who reported that computers are not used in maths classes
scored the highest in the computer-based maths test.
So, what
counts in raising standards?
What six
cycles of Pisa data have also shown is that the quality of teachers
and the learning environment matter. Also, in top-performing
countries, importance is placed on education.
Pisa officials
have noted the high expectations that Asian parents and teachers
have of their young charges. There is also a strong belief that all
children are capable of success and education will help them
achieve success.
Pisa surveys
on student attitudes in learning mathematics, for example, have
shown that student attitudes and motivations matter.
Students who
believe that they can improve their mathematics skills through more
practice and effort tend to do better in the subject than students
who put it down to innate ability.
As Dr
Schleicher told The Straits Times: "Students in North America would
tell us that talent counts. If I'm not born a genius in maths, I'd
better study something else. But the majority of students in Asian
countries such as Singapore would say that it depends on how much
time they spend, and how much effort they put in.
"So for them,
their achievement depends on how much time and effort they put in,
rather than inherited intelligence, which suggests that education
and its social context can make a difference in instilling values
that foster success in education."
There is
another Pisa finding that is significant for Singapore in the light
of the debate on PSLE.
Although the
MOE has announced changes to the PSLE scoring system to reduce the
competition and stress, many have asked if children as young as 12
should be subjected to a high-stakes examination - and one that
routes them into different paths in secondary school, at that.
Singapore,
despite its high scores, should look to Estonia, Finland and
Canada. Many here have suggested routing students into technical or
academic paths at age 15 or 16 instead. These countries show that
streaming children into academic or vocational streams may work
better at a later age.
Pisa has also
found that when pupils are diverted from academic tracks at an
early age, whether towards a vocational school or a less rigorous
stream, it widens the gap between rich and poor children.
Take the
Netherlands, for example. Pupils at its vocational schools have
results equivalent to about three years less of schooling than
their peers at general schools.
As the demands
of societies and work change, so too has Pisa to remain useful. And
in the future, Pisa is planning on broadening what it measures.
This will add to the test's value.
Next year, the
OECD will publish the results of an additional 2015 assessment on
collaborative problem-solving, and it has drawn up plans for
assessing inter-cultural sensitivity in 2018.
Pisa officials
say creativity, entrepreneurship and ethical thinking are all under
consideration for future cycles.
These are
skills which are increasingly demanded by employers.
As technology
reduces the demand for routine skills, it is simultaneously
increasing the demand for more difficult-to- automate social
skills.
Pisa, through
a questionnaire that it administers along with the tests, has also
started looking at social and emotional skills such as perseverance
and self-esteem.
These are
important measures as research clearly shows that cognitive and
socio-emotional skills interact and cross-fertilise to put children
on the path to success.
Such measures
help to better assess children's current skill sets and their
future needs . They also help teachers and parents to adapt their
teaching and parenting styles and environments accordingly.
Pisa, like all
tests, may have its limitations. But it is called the "World Cup
for education" for good reason.