Countries with low levels of education. Top countries with the best education. How is EI calculated and what does it affect?
Students primary school Northern Ireland showed the sixth best result in the world, and this is the best result in Europe. England's results have not improved since the tests four years ago.
These international rankings - Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) - are published every four years. They are based on test results involving more than 600,000 students from 57 countries aged 9 to 10 and 13 to 14 years.
1. Singapore
2. South Korea
3. Taiwan
4. Hong Kong
7. Kazakhstan
9. Ireland
11. England
England's results are above average and better than many European countries, but there has been no significant progress in the rankings despite reforms to the school system.
In the latest TIMSS international tests in mathematics among students primary classes England fell one place in the rankings, moving from 9th to 10th place. Secondary school results have also worsened. Instead of 10th place, England finished 11th.
When these same tests were carried out in 2007, England were sixth in maths. This place is now occupied by Northern Ireland.
In science, primary school pupils in England remain in 15th place, while secondary pupils have risen from 10th to 8th place.
1. Singapore
2. Hong Kong
3. South Korea
4. Taiwan
6. Northern Ireland
8. Norway
9. Ireland
10. England
Minister of Affairs school education England's Nick Gibb said the results from English students were more "interesting and confident" than many of their international competitors.
"The new one is more demanding syllabus in mathematics for junior schoolchildren started using in September 2014. We expect future testing of TIMSS to reflect progress,” said Mr Gibb.
Meanwhile, Labour's Angela Rayner said the results had been achieved despite "the constant re-forging and re-jigging of exams, school structures and curriculum".
National Association of Head Teachers leader Russell Hobby says a shortage of qualified maths and science teachers has kept England from staying in the “top tier” of international education.
Northern Ireland performed very well in maths testing among primary school pupils. The country has maintained the same position as four years ago and is first in the group, following the leaders of the ranking - Asian countries.
This puts Northern Ireland youth ahead of schoolchildren in countries such as Finland and Norway, which tend to have different high academic performance. Scotland and Wales did not participate in these trials.
The results of tests carried out in 2015 highlighted a group of countries demonstrating high achievements. They increased their advantage compared to previous tests. All these states are located in Asia.
Despite Singapore's international success in testing, there were concerns about young people being put under too much pressure.
Singapore's Ministry of Education has said that education is more than just getting good grades.
Top 10 test results for high school students in mathematics:
1. Singapore
3. Taiwan
4. South Korea
5. Slovenia
6. Hong Kong
9. Kazakhstan
10. Ireland
Finland, whose education model is often used to improve school systems in other countries, has worsened its position in these rankings.
Testing is carried out by the International Association for the Assessment of Educational Achievement in the Netherlands and Boston College in the USA.
TIMSS testing chief executive Ina Mullis said the overall results brought "a lot of good news" about schools, with participants' scores rising and more children than before saying school was a safe environment for them.
Professor Mullis said the success of Asian countries reflected the “coherence” of their approach and “culture of immersion in education”.
"The rest of the world has ignored its work, and has fallen further behind countries like Singapore and South Korea," she said.
Top 10 test results for elementary school students in mathematics:
1. Singapore
2. South Korea
5. Hong Kong
6. Taiwan
7. Finland
8. Kazakhstan
The most important common factor success is the quality and accessibility of training, said TIMSS Director Michael Martin.
And Singapore’s achievement, I think, could not have become a reality if education in this country had not been a priority.
“Education is hugely important in these countries,” said another testing project leader, Dr. Dirk Hastedt.
It is also worth noting the successes of Russian schoolchildren. In all four ratings, the country is approximately in the middle of the top ten.
Every year Quacquarelli Symonds surveys about three thousand universities in different countries, choosing from them those with the best education. This ranking can only include those universities that offer all three levels of higher education: bachelor’s and doctorate (in Russian educational system– graduate student). In addition, the university must cover at least two of the following areas: Social sciencies and management; humanitarian sciences and art; medicine and life sciences; engineering and technical sciences; natural Sciences.The Quacquarelli Symonds ranking ranks the best universities based on the following criteria: academic reputation (survey); ratio of the number of teachers to the number of students; reputation of university graduates among employers (survey); share foreign students(reflects the level of popularity of the educational institution in the world); the share of foreign teachers (only those teachers who work full-time or part-time and who have worked at the university for at least one semester are taken into account); citation index (depends on the number of published scientific research teaching staff in relation to its total number).
Best education: top
The leader in the QS ranking is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). Second and third places are occupied by British educational establishments– University of Cambridge and Imperial College London respectively. Harvard University (USA) is in fourth position, Oxford University and University College London are in fifth position. In addition to American and British universities, there are two educational institutions from Switzerland in the top twenty (Swiss Higher Education technical school Zurich and the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne), as well as the University of Toronto (Canada).Moscow State University them. Lomonosov managed to enter the top 200. Full version The ranking has 800 positions, including 21 universities from Russia and two universities from Belarus (BSU and BNTU). None of the higher educational institutions located in the CIS was included in the first hundred universities with better education in the world. According to the ranking compilers, in order to improve their positions, these universities need to cooperate more with other states and increase the citation index of scientific publications.
Photo: PantherMedia/Scanpix
Recently, the British edition of The Times published a ranking of the best education systems in the world. This ranking was based on results obtained from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), a test that assesses students' literacy and ability to apply acquired knowledge.
The testing itself takes place every three years, and teenagers aged 15 years old take part in it. The test was first conducted in 2000, and Finland took first place. Oddly enough, 12 years later our Scandinavian neighbors showed exactly the same result: first place in the PISA test. Four Asian countries took places from second to fifth: South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore, thereby indicating the highest level of education in the entire region.
And only in sixth place was the British education system, which enjoys constant popularity in the post-Soviet space. Seventh place went to Holland, eighth to New Zealand, schoolchildren from Switzerland took ninth place in the study, and Canadian teenagers took tenth place. Neither the United States nor, especially, Russia made it into the top ten.
What is the secret of success of countries with the most the best systems education? The DELFI portal decided to take a slightly more detailed look at the education systems of the first seven countries from the latest PISA list.
Photo: AP/Scanpix
In Finland, children are required to enroll in school the year they turn seven. A year before this, children receive the right to preliminary primary education, which can be realized in kindergarten or school. But it is not mandatory.
For the first six years of their education, Finnish schoolchildren do not receive grades and do not pore over notebooks and textbooks at home trying to solve homework. The same applies to exams - this is rare in primary school Finnish schools.
All children, regardless of their level of knowledge, study together. This is partly the reason that the difference between the most talented and the least talented student in Finland is not catastrophic.
The maximum number of students in a class is 16 people. This allows teachers to pay attention to each individual student, and children to spend more time not trying to hear what the teacher is saying, but doing practical tasks.
Basic school students in Finland spend up to 75 minutes a day at recess, compared to 29 minutes in the United States.
At the same time, teachers spend no more than four hours a day directly in front of the audience and devote two hours a week exclusively to professional development.
In general, in Finland, teachers are treated with great respect, but they also demand a lot from them. Every teacher in the country must have a master's degree. Moreover, in order to get your first job at school, you need to be with at least 10% of the best graduates of your year.
The popularity of the profession in the country speaks for itself: in 2006, 6,600 people applied for 660 positions as primary school teachers. Moreover, the average salary of a teacher in Finland is about 25,000 euros per year.
Photo: Reuters/Scanpix
Korean children go to school from the age of six. Before this, the country has the opportunity to send a child to kindergarten (from three years old), where initial training, but this is completely optional.
Primary school lasts six years in South Korea (from 6 to 12 years of age), after which the child goes to junior high. high school, in which students study until the age of 15. Most often, children enroll in a school that is close to their home and do not have the opportunity to choose their educational institution until, at the age of 15, they have to make a choice between further vocational or academic education at the so-called senior secondary school.
The country's school curriculum is developed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, and is revised every 10 years. Each school must teach its students the disciplines listed in it. However, the management of the educational institution has the right to add something of its own to the list of subjects.
In elementary school, students are taught by one teacher. He teaches ethics Korean, mathematics, basic natural and social studies, music and drawing. In addition, schools are required to instill in children the skills to solve various problems, the traditions and culture of the country, and also strengthen the basic principles of life by describing real “incidents at work.”
Junior high school, which children enter at age 12, places much greater demands on its students: teenagers spend 14 hours a day, five days a week at school. At the same time, the total number of teaching hours per year reaches thousands. The number of students in one particular class increases from approximately 26 to 35 people. There are no exams for moving to the next class in South Korea. Students move on solely due to age. Entrance exams You will have to take it only before entering senior secondary school at the age of 15. Instead, South Korean students are regularly assessed on several parameters such as academic performance in subjects, extracurricular activities and class attendance, special achievements and moral development. All this data, however, will not be used before the teenager decides where to enroll.
Teaching is a highly respected profession in South Korea, not least because of job stability, excellent working conditions and fairly high salaries. On average, a teacher can expect to earn 41,000 euros per year, and many benefits can increase this amount to 62,000. All teachers are required to have a bachelor's degree, and teaching staff are recruited from the top 5% of university graduates.
Photo: AP/Scanpix
The education system in Hong Kong is very similar in structure to the South Korean version. From three to six years old, children attend kindergarten, where they have access to preschool education, provided in contrast to South Korea private organizations. At six years old, a child enters primary school, at 12 he goes to junior high school, where he studies until he is 15 years old. Finally, he has two years of senior secondary school ahead of him.
In Hong Kong, students are not so tied to their place of residence and the school that is located nearby. Up to 50% of a school's students may not live in its immediate area. However, it is worth considering that about 60% of total number Students who do not live near the school are reserved for children of school staff and siblings of those children who are already studying at this educational institution.
There are no examinations for children in the first six years of education. Until 2012, the education system in Hong Kong had two examinations: one at the end of junior high school and one at the end of senior secondary school. Starting next year, there will be only one exam left - after the end of the entire training cycle.
Hong Kong schools have several training programs: morning, afternoon or all day. Most educational institutions adhere to the latter option.
Many programs involve not only teaching teenagers in classrooms, but also actively practical use outside the school. Training is conducted on Chinese, English is used as a second language of instruction.
In Hong Kong, as in Korea, a lot of effort is aimed at modernizing the learning process and minimizing paper sources of information in the educational process.
Despite the significant number of students in the class - sometimes the number can reach 40 people - a teacher in Hong Kong spends only 10-12 hours a week directly in front of the classroom.
Photo: AFP/Scanpix
The Japanese version of schooling differs minimally from some general Asian "standard": an optional three years of kindergarten, then six years of elementary school, followed by three years of junior high and three more senior high school.
Japanese students are required to attend six years of primary school and three years of junior high school. After which a 15-year-old teenager may not study at all, but almost 95% of Japanese schoolchildren choose to continue their studies at a senior high school.
Among the usual primary school subjects such as mother tongue and literature, arithmetic, social studies, music and physical education, there are also moral education and self-control.
In primary and junior high schools, Japanese teachers use the principle of "holistic teaching", which means that at any given time all students in the class are working on the same task. Despite this, lessons rarely take the form of a lecture, most often it is a joint discussion or work on projects and general assignments.
Until recently, Japanese students were forced to spend six days a week in school, do an impossible amount of homework, and, in between the two, find time for tutoring (especially when preparing for university exams). New reforms have reduced the school schedule in Japan to five days a week, but the amount of homework assigned has not changed. Let's add short ones here summer holidays and we get a portrait of a typical Japanese schoolchild, tortured by extracurricular education almost more than all the rest of his peers from other countries of the world.
Exams in Japanese schools take place at the end of junior high school and senior high school and have a great influence on where a student will end up in their next stage of education. Throughout the entire course of study at school, teachers evaluate students using a variety of tests and homework. Class teachers at the same time, they spend a large amount of time with their students not only within the walls of the school, but also outside it.
The teaching profession in Japan is highly respected and quite difficult to obtain. Only 14% of those who aspire to become teachers eventually receive teaching diplomas, and only 30-40% of those who receive them find work as a teacher.
The average teacher salary after 15 years in school is about 38,000 euros per year, and they spend almost half as much time in the classroom as their colleagues in the United States (27% of their total working time compared to 53%).
Photo: AFP/Scanpix
Children in Singapore go to school from the age of six. Education in it is divided into several stages, of which only the first is compulsory - six years of primary school. Next comes high school with many different options, the final is a pre-university course.
In basic school (where students study until the age of 12), children are taught their native language, English language(mandatory), mathematics and many small but important subjects like aesthetic education, physical education, music, etc. At the end of primary school, children face an exam called the Primary School Leaving Examination.
After this, you don’t have to go anywhere else, but the vast majority of children prefer to spend at least another four years studying. In high school there is a division into courses: special (4-6 years), express (4 years), normal academic (5 years), normal technical (4 years) and pre-professional (1-4 years).
Depending on the course, students receive a General Certificate of Education different levels(in ascending order - N, O or A) and can either stop there, or continue their studies further and, upon receiving an “A” level certificate, enter the university.
Not everyone who wants to become a teacher in Singapore becomes a teacher. Potential teachers are selected from the top 30% of university graduates. But even this does not always help to become a teacher, since the competition for a place in the school is very high.
In addition to the salary - the average is around 35,000 euros per year - teachers in Singapore have the chance to receive a significant number of bonuses, sometimes reaching 30% of their salary. The amount of the bonus is calculated based on the results of a strict annual audit of the teacher’s activities, his professional qualities, visible potential and active participation in the work of his native educational institution.
Photo: Scanpix
The British education system, it seems, does not depend at all on what place the country ranks in the PISA tests - people have gone there, are going there and will continue to go there. Not least because of a certain touch of elitism in British educational institutions. Especially when it comes to a boarding school, the age of which is remembered with nothing less than reverence.
Most often, such boarding schools are, firstly, quite elite, both from the point of view of the society gathered in them, and from the point of view of the finances necessary to educate a child there. And, secondly, the chosen boarding house will most likely be exclusively for boys or girls. There are many arguments in favor of separate education, just like in favor of coeducational schools, but none of them is decisive.
In general, education in the UK begins at age five, when a child enters primary school. Education lasts up to 12 years, and homework during this time is English school there may not be.
This opportunity appeared for primary school teachers at the beginning of 2012, when the country's Minister of Education announced that now each teacher would decide for himself whether to assign something homework or make do by other means. Testing your understanding of the material is most often done with an essay or project that needs to be completed. However, they refused to introduce such concessions for secondary school students.
Primary school education ends with an exam - Common Entrance Examination. Success in passing the exam is your ticket to high school. There the teenager spends several more years and at the age of 16 takes the next final exam - GCSE (Certificate of General Secondary Education). The presence of this certificate is prerequisite for all students in the UK.
Schools in the UK also try to adhere to those rules that were formed a long time ago and have since been an integral part of British education - mandatory school uniform, Active participation in charity, regular social work.
Until the age of 8, classes are most often taught by one teacher, after which subject teachers appear and more attention begins to be paid to what is necessary for successful completion final exams at school.
In closed boarding schools, education can take place on an individual basis or in groups where children are grouped according to their abilities. Additional subjects also appear that may not be available in a regular school. This is not surprising, since private schools in England have the right not to adhere to national program training. Most often, boarding schools leave the core of this program, simply adding to it a large number of courses from which you can choose the ones you need.
Photo: Publicitātes foto
Children in Holland can start attending pre-school at the age of three, but most often this occurs at the age of 4, and from the age of five it is compulsory. From five to 12 years old, children in the Netherlands attend primary school, after which they will have to take an exam.
The exam results largely determine where the child will go to study next. Three possibilities are open to him: preparatory secondary education (VMBO) - 4 years, general secondary or pre-university education (HAVO) - 5 years, pre-university education (VWO) - 6 years. However, in the first two years of training they educational programs practically copy each other, which greatly facilitates the transition between them for those students who, for some reason, decided to change the program as a whole. Since 2007, completion of one of these programs has been mandatory for students.
The educational program is set by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, but any school has the right to add to it what it considers necessary for learning. In elementary school, teenagers learn three languages at once - Dutch, Frisian and English, mathematics, social studies, drawing and physical education.
At the end of primary school, an exam is held, which is a test with multiple choice answers to questions and is intended rather to identify the teenager’s abilities in certain sciences, weeks for the usual assessment of his knowledge. In addition, teachers and the school principal draw up a detailed report on the work of a particular student, which will be used when the teenager enters secondary school.
During the learning process, students’ knowledge is assessed using methods familiar to us: grades homework, class work and oral examinations.
Among other things, parents of students are usually actively involved in the work of schools. More than 90% of parents did some one-time odd jobs for schools; 53% assisted with classroom teaching; 56% were members parent committees V different time and 60% provided and provide assistance outside the classroom - in the library, school newspaper, training educational materials etc. All this allows them to be aware of all the problems and successes of their own children and, if necessary, guide them in the right direction.
At the same time, Holland now lacks good, professional teachers. And this is despite a quite decent salary of about 60 thousand dollars a year, which the country’s government is trying to keep at a level, while at the same time modernizing the way of obtaining appropriate education.
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The Education Index is a combined indicator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), calculated as an index of adult literacy and an index of the total share of students receiving education.
The Education Index is a combined indicator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). One of the key indicators social development. Used to calculate the Human Development Index as part of a special series of UN reports on human development.
The index measures a country's achievements in terms of the achieved level of education of its population using two main indicators:
- Adult literacy index (2/3 weight).
- Index of the total share of students receiving primary, secondary and higher education(1/3 weight).
These two measures of educational attainment are combined into a final Index, which is standardized as a numerical value ranging from 0 (minimum) to 1 (maximum). It is generally accepted that developed countries must have a minimum score of 0.8, although the vast majority have a score of 0.9 or higher. When determining their place in the world rankings, all countries are ranked based on the Education Level Index (see table below by country), and the first place in the ranking corresponds to the highest value of this indicator, and the last place corresponds to the lowest.
Literacy data comes from official results national population censuses and compared with indicators calculated by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. For developed countries that no longer include a question on literacy in census questionnaires, the literacy rate is assumed to be 99%. Data on the number of citizens enrolled in educational institutions is aggregated by the Institute of Statistics based on information provided by relevant government agencies around the world.
This indicator, although quite universal, has a number of limitations. In particular, it does not reflect the quality of education itself. It also does not fully show the difference in access to education due to differences in age requirements and duration of education. Indicators such as average years of schooling or expected years of schooling would be more representative, but relevant data are not available for most countries. In addition, the indicator does not take into account students studying abroad, which may skew the data for some small countries.
The index is updated every two to three years, and reports with UN data are usually delayed by two years, as they require international comparison after the data are published by national statistical offices.
Literacy is a key skill and a key measure of a population's education. In 1820, only 12% of people in the world could read and write. Today, only 17% of the world's population remains illiterate. Literacy rates around the world are rising.
Despite significant expansion and constant contraction, humanity has serious challenges ahead. In the world's poorest countries, access to basic education is such that large sections of the population remain illiterate. This limits the development of the entire society. For example, in Niger the literacy rate among youth (15-24 years old) is 36.5%.
A national back-to-learning campaign has been launched in the Western Equatoria Province of South Sudan, targeting 400,000 children. 2015, Yambio, South Sudan. Photo: UN/JC McIlwaine
Literacy rates around the world are growing steadily
The earliest forms of writing arose five to five and a half thousand years ago, but literacy for centuries remained the preserve of the elite - a technology for exercising power. Only in the Middle Ages, along with the development of printing, did the literacy level of people in the Western world begin to change. In fact, Enlightenment ambitions for universal literacy were able to come closer to reality in the 19th and 20th centuries in early industrialized countries, OurWorldInData notes.
: By 2030, ensure that all young people and a significant proportion of adults, both men and women, can read, write and do math.
World Literacy Estimate 1800–2014
(proportion of literate and illiterate people in the world)
Literacy rates rose steadily until the early twentieth century. It was not until the mid-20th century, when expanding basic education became a worldwide priority, that the rate of growth in literacy rates picked up.
Literacy rate of youth and older people
To assess future progress, it is useful to categorize literacy scores by age group. The following map, using UNESCO data, shows these estimates for most countries in the world. They show a big difference in the literacy levels of different generations (you can see the literacy level for different age groups by clicking on the corresponding button at the top). The large difference in literacy levels between individual generations indicates a global trend towards increasing literacy among the entire population.
What is literacy?
According to a 1958 UNESCO resolution, illiterate people are those who cannot read and write a short, simple message about their Everyday life (achievements in the field of education of individual countries, see, 2016, pp. 230-233).