18th July 2012 12:28
By Blue Tutors
China Outperforms Us All
The 2009 Pisa tests - the Programme for International Student Assessment - show Shanghai becoming a world leader in Education as well as in other more corporate fields. Where Europe once led, the East has begun to take over, causing global comment. The White House responded to the last Pisa results with President Barack Obama's observation that the nation which "out-educates us today will out-compete us tomorrow".
Andreas Schleicher of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which runs the tests, says that it’s all in the attitude of the country towards education.
Whereas the most impressive buildings in Western towns tend to be shopping malls - heralding a culture of immediate consumerism - those in Chinese towns, particularly rural towns, tend to be schools.
Education, and success in academic fields, is regarded as an investment in your own future in China, the students take responsibility for their own performance and resist blaming ‘luck’ or ‘the system’ in the same way that Western kids tend to do.
"Education is a field dominated by beliefs and traditions, it's inward looking. As a system you can find all kinds of excuses and explanations for not succeeding.
"The idea of Pisa was to take away all the excuses.
"People say you can only improve an education system over 25 years - but look at Poland and Singapore, which have improved in a very short time, we've seen dramatic changes."
The biggest lesson of the Pisa tests, he says, is showing there is nothing inevitable about how schools perform.
"Poverty is no longer destiny. You can see this at the level of economies, such as South Korea, Singapore."
Reported on the BBC News website 28/06/2012.