ohmrlobalobayeh
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Singapore Tops Latest OECD PISA Global Education Survey
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ohmrlobalobayeh
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= a massive, yet simple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring + more evasive maneuver.
At the end of the day, u still avoid answering my question.
hehe.
ohmrlobalobayeh
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oh 77.5? i even thought of u guys slightly highly, thinking it was 82
77.5 is VERY high indeed
Cheers to high and superior Bharati IQ of 77.5
52051
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So dont put your words into his mouth:
He basically use Chinese IQ in Lynn's work, 105.5 to justify Bruma's national IQ to be very high, for the fact Bruma share a longer border with high iq Chinathan low iq india , and he believe even through a study reported Bruma's national IQ of 108 is too high, he did find some reason to support Bruma do have a high national IQ of upper 95s.
Guess what? Bruma has very strong sino-tibetan influence, their national tune is even classified as sino-tieban languge familiy (which strongly correlated with Human ethinicities), so you get the pattern:
Sino-ness is postiviely correlated with human intelligence
And he even suggest he want to use alot of Chinese studies to evaluate Chinese IQ scores, and the minstry of health's 2005's study I posted is most official one that include all provinces with sampling from representive rural and urban ones, I guess thats one of the highest quanlity national IQ study in the world, with regards to sampling methods, sampling size (38,500 sample) and testing method (standardized RPM).
Just learn to live with it my poor indian idiot.
ohmrlobalobayeh
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yayaya u wanna talk about how local Indians are faring against the local CHinese in Singapore............................. to a Singaporean?
Thanks I had a good one.
Thanks I had a good one.
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Shotgunner51
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FOOTBALL fans must wait four years between World Cups. Education nerds get their fill of global competition every three. The sixth Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a test of the science, maths and reading skills of 15-year-olds from across the world, was published by the OECD club of mainly rich countries on December 6th. Its results have telling lessons for policymakers worldwide.
Some 540,000 pupils in 72 countries or regions—each of whom had finished at least six years of school — sat similar tests last year. The OECD then crunched the results into a standardised scale. In the OECD the average result for each subject is about 490 points. Scoring 30 points above that is roughly akin to completing an extra year of schooling.
Singapore, the consistently high-achiever in PISA, does even better: it is now the top-performing country in each subject area. The average pupil’s maths score of 564 suggests Singaporean teens are roughly three years ahead of their American peers, with a tally of 470.
Other East Asian countries also score highly across most domains, as they have done since PISA was launched 15 years ago. Japan and South Korea have above-average results in science and maths, as do cities such as Hong Kong and Macau, both autonomous territories of China, and Taipei, the capital of Taiwan.
Elsewhere, Canada and Finland have reading scores as high as Hong Kong’s. Then there is Estonia: its science results are indistinguishable from Japan’s and its maths scores are akin to South Korea’s. It is now equal with Finland as the top performer in Europe. In turn Finland, which topped the first PISA, is still an above-average performer, but its scores have fallen since at least 2006.
Read the full story at http://www.economist.com/news/inter...-hard-eminently-possible-what-world-can-learn
Viet
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Thai students' poor performance in the recent international student assessment report is sparking curiosity over the education systems of Singapore and Vietnam which appear to be producing some of the best students in the world.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning...e-test-while-singapore-and-vietnam-excel-why-
Special Report: Vietnam sparks surprise after moving up sharply in PISA test rankings
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study of 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading, sponsored by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (Main photo Creative Commons)
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) recent international student assessment report has triggered concerns over the quality and capabilities of Thai students, while sparking curiosity over the education systems of Singapore and Vietnam.
The results of 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA 2015, released recently show a fall in scores among students in Thailand while Singapore beat China to rank top out of the 70 countries analysed.
One big surprise was the scores of Vietnamese students, who improved considerably on their last ranking, moving up to 8th place from 17th in the previous assessment in 2012, and beating the scores of several developed countries.
Thailand came 54th, with scores dropping in all subjects since the 2012 assessment. Classified by subject, Thailand ranked 54th for maths, 57th for reading, and 54th for sciences.
Thailand first participated in the PISA test in 2000. The test is a triennial survey conducted by the OECD to assess the ability of 15-year-old students in reading, mathematics and science.
So what are the reasons for Singapore and Vietnam's success?
In a piece written for the BBC, OECD education director Andreas Schleicher said that a key factor had been the standard of teaching. Singapore managed to achieve excellence without wide differences between children from wealthy and disadvantaged families.
"Singapore invested heavily in a quality teaching force -- to raise the prestige and status of teaching and to attract the best graduates," wrote Mr Schleicher, adding that the country recruits its teachers from the top 5% of university graduates.
In the case of Vietnam, Mr Schleicher attributed the country's success to forward-thinking government officials, a focused curriculum and higher social standing and investment in teachers.
He also drew attention to Vietnam's curriculum, which has been designed to allow students to gain a deep understanding of core concepts and master core skills as opposed to the "mile-wide but inch-deep curriculums" of Europe and North America.
"Almost 17% of Vietnam's poorest 15-year-old students are among the 25% top-performing students across all countries and economies that participate in the PISA tests. In comparison, the average across OECD countries is that only 6% of disadvantaged students are considered resilient by this measure," the BBC article states.
Thailand's Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology said the PISA results reflect a breaking of the trend: that performance in education is linked to a country's level of GDP and state expenditure on education.
The institute said the work ethic of the Vietnamese has ensured that teachers work hard, are responsible and are disciplined -- and they rarely take time off.
Vietnamese students are also keen to learn. The study shows that unlike Thai students, Vietnamese students do not fear mathematics. Vietnamese students spend on average 227 minutes a week learning mathematics while Thai students spend 206 minutes, despite the fact that Vietnamese students study a total of 31 hours per week, lower than that of Thai students who study 36 hours per week.
So what's going on in Thailand?
Athapol Anunthavorasakul, an academic from Chulalongkorn University's faculty of education, said the PISA results reflect serious disparities between students in well-known schools and students in rural areas.
"It indicates that Thailand is failing to improve equity in educational resource
allocation," he said.
Mr Athapol said the Education Ministry, in the past two to three years, has invested money trying to get better results in the PISA test, training teachers and students for the PISA assessment, but the performance is still poor.
"I think the ministry has made a wrong turn. Instead of spending money on training teachers and students in some schools for the PISA test, it should focus on narrowing the gap between students in elite schools and those studying in underprivileged schools," he said.
Mr Athapol said schools in each country are randomly selected by the international contractor for participation in PISA, so it is critical to bear in mind that a country's scores are only the average aggregate results of students included in the sample. One country can have a relatively high average score but also great disparities across different groups of students.
"In the 2012 PISA, there were students from the demonstration schools and Princess Chulabhorn college schools [taking part in the PISA test] and that is why we saw a slight improvement in Thai scores," he said.
Education Minister Teerakiat Jareonsettasin admitted he was also disappointed with the performance of Thai students. The results, he said, reflected a huge gap in ability between students in elite schools and those in underprivileged schools.
Mr Teerakiat noted that the performances in science, reading and mathematics of students at certain schools such as Mahidol Wittthayanusorn and Chulabhorn Wittayalai is at the same level as schools in countries which were placed at higher rankings in the PISA results.
But, the PISA results show the collective performance of students of all schools and, hence, the results are a letdown, said the minister.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning...e-test-while-singapore-and-vietnam-excel-why-
Special Report: Vietnam sparks surprise after moving up sharply in PISA test rankings
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study of 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading, sponsored by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (Main photo Creative Commons)
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) recent international student assessment report has triggered concerns over the quality and capabilities of Thai students, while sparking curiosity over the education systems of Singapore and Vietnam.
The results of 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA 2015, released recently show a fall in scores among students in Thailand while Singapore beat China to rank top out of the 70 countries analysed.
One big surprise was the scores of Vietnamese students, who improved considerably on their last ranking, moving up to 8th place from 17th in the previous assessment in 2012, and beating the scores of several developed countries.
Thailand came 54th, with scores dropping in all subjects since the 2012 assessment. Classified by subject, Thailand ranked 54th for maths, 57th for reading, and 54th for sciences.
Thailand first participated in the PISA test in 2000. The test is a triennial survey conducted by the OECD to assess the ability of 15-year-old students in reading, mathematics and science.
So what are the reasons for Singapore and Vietnam's success?
In a piece written for the BBC, OECD education director Andreas Schleicher said that a key factor had been the standard of teaching. Singapore managed to achieve excellence without wide differences between children from wealthy and disadvantaged families.
"Singapore invested heavily in a quality teaching force -- to raise the prestige and status of teaching and to attract the best graduates," wrote Mr Schleicher, adding that the country recruits its teachers from the top 5% of university graduates.
In the case of Vietnam, Mr Schleicher attributed the country's success to forward-thinking government officials, a focused curriculum and higher social standing and investment in teachers.
He also drew attention to Vietnam's curriculum, which has been designed to allow students to gain a deep understanding of core concepts and master core skills as opposed to the "mile-wide but inch-deep curriculums" of Europe and North America.
"Almost 17% of Vietnam's poorest 15-year-old students are among the 25% top-performing students across all countries and economies that participate in the PISA tests. In comparison, the average across OECD countries is that only 6% of disadvantaged students are considered resilient by this measure," the BBC article states.
Thailand's Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology said the PISA results reflect a breaking of the trend: that performance in education is linked to a country's level of GDP and state expenditure on education.
The institute said the work ethic of the Vietnamese has ensured that teachers work hard, are responsible and are disciplined -- and they rarely take time off.
Vietnamese students are also keen to learn. The study shows that unlike Thai students, Vietnamese students do not fear mathematics. Vietnamese students spend on average 227 minutes a week learning mathematics while Thai students spend 206 minutes, despite the fact that Vietnamese students study a total of 31 hours per week, lower than that of Thai students who study 36 hours per week.
So what's going on in Thailand?
Athapol Anunthavorasakul, an academic from Chulalongkorn University's faculty of education, said the PISA results reflect serious disparities between students in well-known schools and students in rural areas.
"It indicates that Thailand is failing to improve equity in educational resource
allocation," he said.
Mr Athapol said the Education Ministry, in the past two to three years, has invested money trying to get better results in the PISA test, training teachers and students for the PISA assessment, but the performance is still poor.
"I think the ministry has made a wrong turn. Instead of spending money on training teachers and students in some schools for the PISA test, it should focus on narrowing the gap between students in elite schools and those studying in underprivileged schools," he said.
Mr Athapol said schools in each country are randomly selected by the international contractor for participation in PISA, so it is critical to bear in mind that a country's scores are only the average aggregate results of students included in the sample. One country can have a relatively high average score but also great disparities across different groups of students.
"In the 2012 PISA, there were students from the demonstration schools and Princess Chulabhorn college schools [taking part in the PISA test] and that is why we saw a slight improvement in Thai scores," he said.
Education Minister Teerakiat Jareonsettasin admitted he was also disappointed with the performance of Thai students. The results, he said, reflected a huge gap in ability between students in elite schools and those in underprivileged schools.
Mr Teerakiat noted that the performances in science, reading and mathematics of students at certain schools such as Mahidol Wittthayanusorn and Chulabhorn Wittayalai is at the same level as schools in countries which were placed at higher rankings in the PISA results.
But, the PISA results show the collective performance of students of all schools and, hence, the results are a letdown, said the minister.
Last edited:
Shotgunner51
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interesting: we are a bit ahead of the Chinese.
Yes Vietnam scores very well in science, ranks #8 ahead of China. In maths Vietnam ranks #21, in reading #30,
Overall on three subjects, Vietnam also perform well, ranks #22. Ahead of UK (#23) and France (#25) and US (#31), and Asean counterparts like Thailand (#57), Indonesia (#62)
Viet
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but there are deep problems persisting with education in VN: still too little money, too much memorization, too little independent thinking. most of rich viet parents send their kids to study abroad. top destination is America. this year VN has surpassed Japan in number of students. remarkable considering VN is basically still a poor country.Yes Vietnam scores very well in science, ranks #8 ahead of China. In maths Vietnam ranks #21, in reading #30,
Overall on three subjects, Vietnam also perform well, ranks #22. Ahead of UK (#23) and France (#25) and US (#31), and Asean counterparts like Thailand (#57), Indonesia (#62)
DCS
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Let's sort things out before you reach that conclusion.
The list and graph you posted sorted participants by the mean science score, which represents just one out of the three measures. That is not representative of general performance.
The list below ranks the top 22 participating nations by combined score (the mean score of math, reading, and science) from highest to lowest (credits to Anatoly Karlin). I have omitted the IQ column as I want to limit this to a PISA discussion.
You can find Hong Kong (China) at 2, Macao (China) at 4, Chinese Taipei at 7, B-S-J-G (China) at 10, and Vietnam at 22. I will also highlight Germany at 13, as it may be of personal interest to you.
Vietnam is not "a bit ahead of the Chinese", it's quite behind.
Country Math Reading Science Combined
1 Singapore 564 535 556 551.7
2 Hong Kong (China) 548 527 523 532.7
3 Japan 532 516 538 528.7
4 Macao (China) 544 509 529 527.3
5 Estonia 520 519 534 524.3
6 Canada 516 527 528 523.7
7 Chinese Taipei 542 497 532 523.7
8 Finland 511 526 531 522.7
9 Korea 524 517 516 519.0
10 B-S-J-G (China) 531 494 518 514.3
11 Ireland 504 521 503 509.3
12 Slovenia 510 505 513 509.3
13 Germany 506 509 509 508.0
14 Netherlands 512 503 509 508.0
15 Switzerland 521 492 506 506.3
16 New Zealand 495 509 513 505.7
17 Denmark 511 500 502 504.3
18 Norway 502 513 498 504.3
19 Poland 504 506 501 503.7
20 Belgium 507 499 502 502.7
21 Australia 494 503 510 502.3
22 Viet Nam 495 487 525 502.3
Here is another chart (below). Examine the "Average three-year trend". In mathematics, Vietnam declined 17 points since PISA 2012. That is not an improvement, that is the single worst decline across all nations in the category. In reading, Vietnam declined by 21 points since 2012, where it is tied for worst with Tunisia. When I saw this trend, I was in fact surprised, you usually don't see such a drastic decline. Vietnam was the only country in the high performing group to exhibit this trend, in fact it was one of the few countries in the whole list to be affected so.
Now we will examine something very key. In the same chart above, analyze the column "Share of top performers in at at least one subject (Level 5 or 6)".
This is a measure of the percentage of students that are performing at the top level in at least one subject.
I'll leave the the numbers below for convenience (higher is better).
Chinese Taipei: 29.9%
Hong Kong: 29.3%
B-S-J-G: 27.7%
Macao: 23.9%
OECD average: 15.3%
Vietnam: 12%
Vietnam is below the OECD average and severely underperforms China at the highest ranks of achievement. If you look closely, Vietnam is an anomaly in how poorly it does at the very top levels of attainment, relative to its high mean scores. Compare other top performers to Vietnam on the actual chart, and you will see that the difference in the proportion of high achievers is very evident. If I listed Singapore, it would be a slaughter.
The following shows another anomalous metric from Vietnam from the same chart.
Share of low achievers in all three subjects (below level 2)
Macao: 3.5%
Vietnam: 4.5%
Hong Kong: 4.5%
Chinese Taipei: 8.3%
B-S-J-G: 10.9%
OECD average: 13%
Vietnam, with a GDP per capita lower than the Philippines, has less than half the percentage of under achievers than even the 4 richest Mainland Chinese regions sampled (B-S-J-G). It matches Hong Kong, a city with one of the highest levels of human development in Asia, and out of all the countries and economies listed, the only place with a lower proportion of underachieving students than Vietnam was Macao (an extremely small city with a population of 566,375). Vietnam beat out all other highly advanced OECD economies such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. That is actually unbelievable.
That's a very sudden reversal from the previous metric measuring the proportion of high performers. Basically, Vietnam has few high performers, and few low performers given its relatively high mean scores. Maybe, they have a very high base, and a very low ceiling? Low S.D.?
Here's the real answer: Pay attention to the "Percentage of 15-year-olds not covered by the PISA sample" column in the chart below.
This is a measure of the percentage of eligible students who could not be sampled through PISA testing.
Note that 51% of the Vietnamese students are not represented, in other words that is 49% coverage. Vietnam had the lowest participation of all the countries and economies listed in PISA snapshot. Mexico, the next worse, is missing 38% of its students, which at 62% coverage is still far higher than what we find in Vietnam.
By comparison, Hong Kong (China) had 89% coverage, Macao (China) 88%, and B-S-J-G (China) 64%. In my opinion, B-S-J-G is already at the very edge of what I find acceptable, and Vietnam went even further.
The sample is so skewed that I don't think it is a coincidence. Vietnam cherry picked the highest performing schools, districts, and areas for PISA testing, and excluded the lowest performers. This puts the low participation into perspective. This explains how it achieved such an impressive metric of having only 4.5% under achievers, handily beating every developed nation and city besides Hong Kong and Macao. These are highly developed economies with comprehensive welfare systems and little to no extreme poverty.
The obvious argument is that the Vietnamese are smarter than everyone else. Looking at the numbers, that doesn't hold any water. If they are smarter than the Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese, then why is their share of top achievers so low? Why aren't there more people at the right hand side of the bell curve?
If you look at Taiwan and Hong Kong, they are at nearly twice the OECD average in terms of high achievers, and Singapore is well above that. To give some perspective, 27.7% of the students tested in China were high achievers, in Vietnam, that proportion is less than half that, at 12%. The OECD average is 15%.
To summarize, the Vietnamese results are so cooked that even I was shocked as I pored over the metrics. And let's be fair, they aren't the only ones who do it. Many PISA results are goal-seeked, and every time PISA is held, a ton of results are thrown out. But always, we must be diligent about how numbers are arrived at.
Edit: Didn't see @Shotgunner51 's handy chart, but the the current one will have to do.
Last edited:
Viet
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Wow I'm impressed by your analysis. But I am curious to know how can Vietnam cook the number if the OECD testers radomly selected schools and students across the country? Or do you think poor Vietnam has the money to bride the officials?Let's sort things out before you reach that conclusion.
The list and graph you posted sorted participants by the mean science score, which represents just one out of the three measures. That is not representative of general performance.
The list below ranks the top 22 participating nations by combined score (the mean score of math, reading, and science) from highest to lowest (credits to Anatoly Karlin). I have omitted the IQ column as I want to limit this to a PISA discussion.
You can find Hong Kong (China) at 2, Macao (China) at 4, Chinese Taipei at 7, B-S-J-G (China) at 10, and Vietnam at 22. I will also highlight Germany at 13, as it may be of personal interest to you.
Vietnam is not "a bit ahead of the Chinese", it's quite behind.
Country Math Reading Science Combined
1 Singapore 564 535 556 551.7
2 Hong Kong (China) 548 527 523 532.7
3 Japan 532 516 538 528.7
4 Macao (China) 544 509 529 527.3
5 Estonia 520 519 534 524.3
6 Canada 516 527 528 523.7
7 Chinese Taipei 542 497 532 523.7
8 Finland 511 526 531 522.7
9 Korea 524 517 516 519.0
10 B-S-J-G (China) 531 494 518 514.3
11 Ireland 504 521 503 509.3
12 Slovenia 510 505 513 509.3
13 Germany 506 509 509 508.0
14 Netherlands 512 503 509 508.0
15 Switzerland 521 492 506 506.3
16 New Zealand 495 509 513 505.7
17 Denmark 511 500 502 504.3
18 Norway 502 513 498 504.3
19 Poland 504 506 501 503.7
20 Belgium 507 499 502 502.7
21 Australia 494 503 510 502.3
22 Viet Nam 495 487 525 502.3
Here is another chart (below). Examine the "Average three-year trend". In mathematics, Vietnam declined 17 points since PISA 2012. That is not an improvement, that is the single worst decline across all nations in the category. In reading, Vietnam declined by 21 points since 2012, where it is tied for worst with Tunisia. When I saw this trend, I was in fact surprised, you usually don't see such a drastic decline. Vietnam was the only country in the high performing group to exhibit this trend, in fact it was one of the few countries in the whole list to be affected so.
Now we will examine something very key. In the same chart above, analyze the column "Share of top performers in at at least one subject (Level 5 or 6)".
This is a measure of the percentage of students that are performing at the top level in at least one subject.
I'll leave the the numbers below for convenience (higher is better).
Chinese Taipei: 29.9%
Hong Kong: 29.3%
B-S-J-G: 27.7%
Macao: 23.9%
OECD average: 15.3%
Vietnam: 12%
Vietnam is below the OECD average and severely underperforms China at the highest ranks of achievement. If you look closely, Vietnam is an anomaly in how poorly it does at the very top levels of attainment, relative to its high mean scores. Compare other top performers to Vietnam on the actual chart, and you will see that the difference in the proportion of high achievers is very evident. If I listed Singapore, it would be a slaughter.
The following shows another anomalous metric from Vietnam from the same chart.
Share of low achievers in all three subjects (below level 2)
Macao: 3.5%
Vietnam: 4.5%
Hong Kong: 4.5%
Chinese Taipei: 8.3%
B-S-J-G: 10.9%
OECD average: 13%
Vietnam, with a GDP per capita lower than the Philippines, has less than half the percentage of under achievers than even the 4 richest Mainland Chinese regions sampled (B-S-J-G). It matches Hong Kong, a city with one of the highest levels of human development in Asia, and out of all the countries and economies listed, the only place with a lower proportion of underachieving students than Vietnam was Macao (an extremely small city with a population of 566,375). Vietnam beat out all other highly advanced OECD economies such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. That is actually unbelievable.
That's a very sudden reversal from the previous metric measuring the proportion of high performers. Basically, Vietnam has few high performers, and few low performers given its relatively high mean scores. Maybe, they have a very high base, and a very low ceiling? Low S.D.?
Here's the real answer: Pay attention to the "Percentage of 15-year-olds not covered by the PISA sample" column in the chart below.
This is a measure of the percentage of eligible students who could not be sampled through PISA testing.
Note that 51% of the Vietnamese students are not represented, in other words that is 49% coverage. Vietnam had the lowest participation of all the countries and economies listed in PISA snapshot. Mexico, the next worse, is missing 38% of its students, which at 62% coverage is still far higher than what we find in Vietnam.
By comparison, Hong Kong (China) had 89% coverage, Macao (China) 88%, and B-S-J-G (China) 64%. In my opinion, B-S-J-G is already at the very edge of what I find acceptable, and Vietnam went even further.
The sample is so skewed that I don't think it is a coincidence. Vietnam cherry picked the highest performing schools, districts, and areas for PISA testing, and excluded the lowest performers. This puts the low participation into perspective. This explains how it achieved such an impressive metric of having only 4.5% under achievers, handily beating every developed nation and city besides Hong Kong and Macao. These are highly developed economies with comprehensive welfare systems and little to no extreme poverty.
The obvious argument is that the Vietnamese are smarter than everyone else. Looking at the numbers, that doesn't hold any water. If they are smarter than the Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese, then why is their share of top achievers so low? Why aren't there more people at the right hand side of the bell curve?
If you look at Taiwan and Hong Kong, they are at nearly twice the OECD average in terms of high achievers, and Singapore is well above that. To give some perspective, 27.7% of the students tested in China were high achievers, in Vietnam, that proportion is less than half that, at 12%. The OECD average is 15%.
To summarize, the Vietnamese results are so cooked that even I was shocked as I pored over the metrics. And let's be fair, they aren't the only ones who do it. Many PISA results are goal-seeked, and every time PISA is held, a ton of results are thrown out. But always, we must be diligent about how numbers are arrived at.
Edit: Didn't see @Shotgunner51 's handy chart, but the the current one will have to do.
Let's sort things out before you reach that conclusion.
The list and graph you posted sorted participants by the mean science score, which represents just one out of the three measures. That is not representative of general performance.
The list below ranks the top 22 participating nations by combined score (the mean score of math, reading, and science) from highest to lowest (credits to Anatoly Karlin). I have omitted the IQ column as I want to limit this to a PISA discussion.
You can find Hong Kong (China) at 2, Macao (China) at 4, Chinese Taipei at 7, B-S-J-G (China) at 10, and Vietnam at 22. I will also highlight Germany at 13, as it may be of personal interest to you.
Vietnam is not "a bit ahead of the Chinese", it's quite behind.
Country Math Reading Science Combined
1 Singapore 564 535 556 551.7
2 Hong Kong (China) 548 527 523 532.7
3 Japan 532 516 538 528.7
4 Macao (China) 544 509 529 527.3
5 Estonia 520 519 534 524.3
6 Canada 516 527 528 523.7
7 Chinese Taipei 542 497 532 523.7
8 Finland 511 526 531 522.7
9 Korea 524 517 516 519.0
10 B-S-J-G (China) 531 494 518 514.3
11 Ireland 504 521 503 509.3
12 Slovenia 510 505 513 509.3
13 Germany 506 509 509 508.0
14 Netherlands 512 503 509 508.0
15 Switzerland 521 492 506 506.3
16 New Zealand 495 509 513 505.7
17 Denmark 511 500 502 504.3
18 Norway 502 513 498 504.3
19 Poland 504 506 501 503.7
20 Belgium 507 499 502 502.7
21 Australia 494 503 510 502.3
22 Viet Nam 495 487 525 502.3
Here is another chart (below). Examine the "Average three-year trend". In mathematics, Vietnam declined 17 points since PISA 2012. That is not an improvement, that is the single worst decline across all nations in the category. In reading, Vietnam declined by 21 points since 2012, where it is tied for worst with Tunisia. When I saw this trend, I was in fact surprised, you usually don't see such a drastic decline. Vietnam was the only country in the high performing group to exhibit this trend, in fact it was one of the few countries in the whole list to be affected so.
Now we will examine something very key. In the same chart above, analyze the column "Share of top performers in at at least one subject (Level 5 or 6)".
This is a measure of the percentage of students that are performing at the top level in at least one subject.
I'll leave the the numbers below for convenience (higher is better).
Chinese Taipei: 29.9%
Hong Kong: 29.3%
B-S-J-G: 27.7%
Macao: 23.9%
OECD average: 15.3%
Vietnam: 12%
Vietnam is below the OECD average and severely underperforms China at the highest ranks of achievement. If you look closely, Vietnam is an anomaly in how poorly it does at the very top levels of attainment, relative to its high mean scores. Compare other top performers to Vietnam on the actual chart, and you will see that the difference in the proportion of high achievers is very evident. If I listed Singapore, it would be a slaughter.
The following shows another anomalous metric from Vietnam from the same chart.
Share of low achievers in all three subjects (below level 2)
Macao: 3.5%
Vietnam: 4.5%
Hong Kong: 4.5%
Chinese Taipei: 8.3%
B-S-J-G: 10.9%
OECD average: 13%
Vietnam, with a GDP per capita lower than the Philippines, has less than half the percentage of under achievers than even the 4 richest Mainland Chinese regions sampled (B-S-J-G). It matches Hong Kong, a city with one of the highest levels of human development in Asia, and out of all the countries and economies listed, the only place with a lower proportion of underachieving students than Vietnam was Macao (an extremely small city with a population of 566,375). Vietnam beat out all other highly advanced OECD economies such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. That is actually unbelievable.
That's a very sudden reversal from the previous metric measuring the proportion of high performers. Basically, Vietnam has few high performers, and few low performers given its relatively high mean scores. Maybe, they have a very high base, and a very low ceiling? Low S.D.?
Here's the real answer: Pay attention to the "Percentage of 15-year-olds not covered by the PISA sample" column in the chart below.
This is a measure of the percentage of eligible students who could not be sampled through PISA testing.
Note that 51% of the Vietnamese students are not represented, in other words that is 49% coverage. Vietnam had the lowest participation of all the countries and economies listed in PISA snapshot. Mexico, the next worse, is missing 38% of its students, which at 62% coverage is still far higher than what we find in Vietnam.
By comparison, Hong Kong (China) had 89% coverage, Macao (China) 88%, and B-S-J-G (China) 64%. In my opinion, B-S-J-G is already at the very edge of what I find acceptable, and Vietnam went even further.
The sample is so skewed that I don't think it is a coincidence. Vietnam cherry picked the highest performing schools, districts, and areas for PISA testing, and excluded the lowest performers. This puts the low participation into perspective. This explains how it achieved such an impressive metric of having only 4.5% under achievers, handily beating every developed nation and city besides Hong Kong and Macao. These are highly developed economies with comprehensive welfare systems and little to no extreme poverty.
The obvious argument is that the Vietnamese are smarter than everyone else. Looking at the numbers, that doesn't hold any water. If they are smarter than the Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese, then why is their share of top achievers so low? Why aren't there more people at the right hand side of the bell curve?
If you look at Taiwan and Hong Kong, they are at nearly twice the OECD average in terms of high achievers, and Singapore is well above that. To give some perspective, 27.7% of the students tested in China were high achievers, in Vietnam, that proportion is less than half that, at 12%. The OECD average is 15%.
To summarize, the Vietnamese results are so cooked that even I was shocked as I pored over the metrics. And let's be fair, they aren't the only ones who do it. Many PISA results are goal-seeked, and every time PISA is held, a ton of results are thrown out. But always, we must be diligent about how numbers are arrived at.
Edit: Didn't see @Shotgunner51 's handy chart, but the the current one will have to do.
great analysis. as I remembered in 2012 PISA, Shanghai's student coverage was 81% while 19% was missing from the picture, and Shanghai was criticized for "manipulating the results" because of this missing part. this is ridiculous.
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DCS
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Yes, I remember that. I think it was Tom Loveless who originally made the critique. In my opinion he made very good points, but later media twisted his statements and oversimplified things. In retrospect, Shanghai's 81% coverage looks heavenly compared to Vietnam's heavily culled results.
I don't know, cooking the books isn't my specialty. You should try asking your countrymen. While you are at it, ask them how they managed to get 49% coverage, did they simply forget half their student population? Or do you think poor Vietnam was extorted by PISA officials?
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