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Top Education Systems in the World Ranked by Pearson / The Economist
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Clay Davis
Member
you're right. sorry if my post came off as dismissive, I didn't really consider the postcode lottery a lot of people are at the mercy of.
I can only speak for Sweden, but we completely fucked up our education system in the mid 90s.
First we changed it so that no grades are given until grade 8, because you know "children should be encouraged not graded". Which has of course resulted in a situation where the teachers just let the kids move through the system without really learning anything since there is no formal mechanism (such as failing tests) to hold them back leaving it completely up to the teachers to make sure every student learns what he or she should. So, when a kid finally gets his grades in the 8th grade and it's apparent that he hasn't learnt what he should have learnt he only has a year and a half left to make sure he passes all subjects he has to pass in order to be able to continue to high school.
And then we decided to move the responsibility of carrying out the education from the goverenment to every city (actually municipality, but there are 290 of them so pretty much any mid-size city is its own municipality). This, of course, meant the the quality of the schooling in Sweden today wildy differs depending on where you happen to live in Sweden.
I think the biggest difference between Sweden and Finland is the status the teaching profession carries. In Sweden there is absolutely no status at all, sadly, in being a teacher. Just an example of this is that the last time I checked you could get in to a university program to be a teacher with a SweSAT (Högskoleprovet, the Swedish equivalent to the US SATs) score of 0.2. The average test taker is supposed to score a 1.0, and a 0.2 is in the 6th percentile. That's right, the 6th percentile! Someone who is less intelligent than 94% of the Swedish population will be the one teaching our kids!
Does this list only take into account public education? The US' public school system is just awful, but is almost without question the best nation in terms of post-secondary education. For example, fourteen of the top 20 universities, as ranked by US News and World Report, are in the United States.
You can see the criteria at the link. Mostly primary and secondary education, but tertiary weighs in a bit through:
- Public expenditure per pupil as % of GDP per capita. Tertiary
- Graduation rate at tertiary level
- Labour force. Tertiary attainment
- Unemployment of those with tertiary level education over total unemployment
youngwerther
Banned
English, evidently.
KillerMan91
Member
Well considering that English is secondary language here it would be pretty worrisome for all English speaking countries if we were best at it....
I see. It's a shame that neither university quality or university quantity are taken into account, as I'm quite sure the US leads the world in both those respects.
I knew I worded it badly. This test is a lie.
Also I have to say this. Our schools have good standards and ethics. The teachers seem really good. But at my uni, people are lazy as fuck and study only the minumum amounts to pass courses. And they can be aced like this if you know your stuff.
Maybe we are just too entitled and spoiled.
Lamel
Banned
Believe it or not, the U.S. actually has the best higher education in the world, especially in research universities.
We (Sweden) won't score any higher in the coming years either with the school politics going on here. The teacher profession just simply doesn't have the status it deserves.
People study for a couple of years to become teachers and then don't get the pay others with similar length educations get so who want to become a teacher really? Except for a couple that sees it as their call.
And there aren't as many teachers needed already, due to schools not being funded properly, so the classes are too large. There is also some kind of private owned school experimentation going on based purely on ideology.
Ahh well, when I have kids one day hopefully things have changed.
People study for a couple of years to become teachers and then don't get the pay others with similar length educations get so who want to become a teacher really? Except for a couple that sees it as their call.
And there aren't as many teachers needed already, due to schools not being funded properly, so the classes are too large. There is also some kind of private owned school experimentation going on based purely on ideology.
Ahh well, when I have kids one day hopefully things have changed.
Agreed.
I saw an episode of this program in the Netherlands where they do a sort of exchange between countries with people of the same profession. This one time they exchanged Dutch teachers with Japanese ones. The English class the Japanese had was horrible rote memorization, like the teacher read something and the whole class had to repeat it. The Dutch teacher took over and asked them open questions and stuff, the students fell apart immediately. Even with simple things like naming months.
What they did was not really learning, it's memorizing.
Castor Krieg
Banned
Poland (my country) is 14th IN THE WORLD? WATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT?
This is not really important. I'm sure the most important factor was the "learning culture". Asian countries put EXTREME importance on the notion of learning and excelling academically, much more than Europeans do.
Maybe in Ivy league, the rest is average.
This is not really important. I'm sure the most important factor was the "learning culture". Asian countries put EXTREME importance on the notion of learning and excelling academically, much more than Europeans do.
Maybe in Ivy league, the rest is average.
So that's why you're behind us.
Poland is awesome.
Even Kaczyński can't destroy you!
Incorrect. A quick google search will show you why.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
That's because very few European parents would feel like they've "lost face" at their kids getting 60% in an test.
Yeah, Finland usually has top spot with China in math and nature sciences. I remember being in the PISA test, though I don't know how well I did since I have forgot to ask the scores.
Finland is a great country, perhaps the best.
lastplayed
Member
I was educated in 6 and 8. Does than mean I qualify 14th? No wait...
Hahaha no.
phosphor112
Banned
Maybe I'm just being a negative nancy, but USA even on that list? Lol... yeah. Roughly 50% of the country wanted to vote Romney due to conservative values alone.
The educational system here is broken.
There is a large percentage of high end post secondary schools. Those are usually private organizations that charge 10 arms, one leg, your first child and specifically your left gonad.
Public schooling keeps getting funding cuts and idiots being put into office, so getting there is difficult.
The educational system here is broken.
There is a large percentage of high end post secondary schools. Those are usually private organizations that charge 10 arms, one leg, your first child and specifically your left gonad.
Public schooling keeps getting funding cuts and idiots being put into office, so getting there is difficult.
On the basis of money spent and per capita basis, I think even at the tertiary level, US education is nothing really to crow about.
It's main saving grace is the legacy and prestige of its ivy leagues draw the best (and if not, most resourced) minds from ALL AROUND THE WORLD into their education systems...
And less the case that the way tertiary education is structured in the US is most apt at turning out the most genius of minds.
Why the disbelief at Ireland coming in at 11?
The fact that such a small percentage of the population of the US reaches that level means very little in regards to the quality of education for the population overall.
Expect lower in the future. (Blind) Education cuts and austerity measures can do some damage.
In Portugal we call it "Eduquês", a derogatory term for "Education Sciences"/ Pedagogy (not sure if this is the right term).
Too much focus about the student must have fun while learning, cannot fail and left back (no retentions) because is too traumatizing for them (tears), text books full of comics and infantilizing how High School students should learn.
And a Professor Union which mainly purpose is not caring about students but themselves (but I suppose is the same way anywhere).
The UK gives the US a run for its money. I remember reading something prior to the tuition fee rise where it said that based on university rankings and amount spent on education the UK had the best value for money.
ymoc
Member
/thread
I've heard the same thing about Japanese educational system. My SO who is a teacher over there also complained to me how narrow minded students can sometimes be. They have a hard time expressing their own ideas. One good news is, they are making a new curriculum where students will be forced to give their opinions, read and understand in a more profound way, all in attempt to stimulate and correct the flaws they have acquired through their education.
I'd just like to say one more thing: I HATE charts like these: BEST educational system in the world, SMARTEST students in the world, HAPPIEST country in the world, etc. etc.
Every educational system has it's merits and flaws and it all depends on the methodology how you grade it. If you'd start examining something like critical thinking, I'm sure the charts would be, roughly, turned up side down.
@Uni level US probably is at top. They dominate world rankings in top 500 universities. They can't all be Ivy League schools.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
It's a problem endemic to East Asia. Their education systems are fantastic at producing engineers and programmers (the people who "put things together") but not the architects and designers (the people who "devise" things.)
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
10th?! Canada, Fuck yeah!
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
I'm kind of surprised myself...I guess they really do just look at the numbers...Over here, parents are complaining about how stressful it is for them and their children. Home tutoring is quite huge here with parents spending hundreds of dollars to make sure their children can keep up. I mean, we even had horrible lessons on how to be creative when that was some kind of buzz word years ago over here......-_-" I felt embrassed for my teachers when they had to teach creativity... Such an oxymoron...
I think it is the same thing with Singapore as well... We're good at mass producing engineers who are good at sciences and maths. Most of these engineers end up having to take on other jobs because the demand is not as much as the supply.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
I thought that you guys would have "inherited" the English education system in full.
According to Wikipedia:
"Critics of the education system, including some parents, state that the education system is too specialised, rigid, and elitist. Often, these criticisms state that there is little emphasis on creative thinking, unlike education systems in other societies, such as those in the United States."
Castor Krieg
Banned
This is the same thing that happened in Poland. Too much push towards "let kids be kids", and to avoid "rat race". Results? My brother who is 9 years younger than me doesn't know jack shit.
The Economist had a good article a few months back how general, well-rounded education is coming back, since employers recognise you can always train a prospective employee, but you cannot train skills that are developed through general education like analyzing facts, comparisons, thinking about the big picture, etc.
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
Our government likes to sing to the tune of meritocracy so the sentiments of having to do well in school in order to "be somebody" later on in life is very strong. Hence in general most students feel the need to do very well. We end up producing people who are very good at exams but not neccesarily capable at other things. I know of people getting A1s in the Chinese language exams at the GCE A Levels who actually can't even speak the language... Schools are often very concerned about hitting some quota (like getting more As at the GCE O or A Levels) than what students really want or need. Teachers have asked students to drop subjects because the school thinks they're going to pull down the average with their bad scores, despite these students protesting and saying that they like the subjects. Schools here are also eagar to categorise students very early in their school life based on exam scores so it's always very demorising when some end up being in the class "that can't study". This sort of streaming can happen at the age of 7 or 8 (but not in all schools since its not a mandatory process laid out by our Ministry of Education).
I'm not too sure what the primary, secondary and high schools are doing these days but when i was in them we always had some token lessons on creativity and whatnot but everyone knows that it was just tokenism. Ultimately only the final exams matters and the teachers are mostly just moving students towards that final goal. It would take a lot of changes to make differences because the whole nation is so used to the way it works. Lately the ministry had announced that they have plans to reduce homework and to add focus on other aspects of education and many parents just lament that this would mean more private tuition outside of school hours.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
I wouldn't think they'd merge those two education systems together for reporting purposes. Scotland and England is one thing, China and Taiwan is something else.
And Taiwan's education system is similar to the grinder that exists elsewhere in East Asia. I would assume that if ranked correctly they'd be in the top ten.
D
Deleted member 13876
Unconfirmed Member
Just barely beat the US. Neat.
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