Korea’s consistently high rankings reflect excellent performances of students in Asia more widely, with Japan, Shanghai- China, Hong Kong-China and Singapore all performing strongly, which the OECD director for Education and Skills, Andreas Schleicher, puts down to a strong commitment to 21st century learning and investment in teachers, rather than, say, computer use in the classroom, which in technology-savvy Korea, is actually below the OECD average. The main challenge for Korean school education is less a matter of achieving excellence than how to improve wellbeing among children by reducing study pressure and finding a better work-play balance.
The OECD PISA 2015 survey of some 72 countries will be released in December. Visit www.oecd.org/pisa
For a more complete ranking across mathematics, reading and science, see “Class progress”, in OECD Observer No 297, Q4 2013, see http://oe.cd/1wj
Avvisati, Francesco (2014), “Digital learning in schools” in OECD Observer No 301, Q4, http://oe.cd/R1
©OECD Observer October 2016