S’pore students closer to top of world education table

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The results of the latest triennial Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test, organised by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), was released yesterday.

The Republic has improved on its first strong showing and again emerged among the top performers in what has been dubbed the most influential international scorecard for education systems around the world.

Conducted in 65 participating cities and territories, the test assessed 15-year-olds’ mathematics, science and reading literacy skills. Singapore students came in second in mathematics and third in both reading and science.

The PISA test was conducted in Singapore between April and May last year. A total of 5,369 students — mainly from Secondary 3 and 4 — participated. Most of them were from the 166 public secondary schools here, while 177 students from six private schools — including madrasahs and schools with foreign systems

MOE Deputy Director-General of Education Loh Khah Gek noted the limitations of the PISA test. “There may be specific skills and competencies that cannot be tested in this way, like cross-cultural understanding (and) the ability to connect with people (and) collaborate with others,” she said.

An MOE spokesperson reiterated that “achieving a good global ranking in PISA is not the reason we participated in the studies”.

“Rather, we see it as a useful tool that provides us with objective, internationally comparable information about the progress of our students... We will continue to focus on working with our schools to achieve the desired outcomes of education, which are beyond what is measured in PISA, to encompass the holistic development of our students.”