The PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is an internationally standardized assessment that was jointly developed by participating countries and is applied to15-years-old students in schools. The PISA is owned by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and development) and place students in six different levels (Level 1 is the lowest performance and Level 6 is the highest). This Assessment is performed every three years (43 countries participated in 2000, 41 in 2003, 57 in 2006 and 62 countries have signed up for 2009).
Reviewing the results of the 2006 assessment, I found Mexico in the 49th place only above Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Indonesia, Tunisia, Azerbaijan, Qatar and Kyrgyzstan. Been in such place means Mexico is in the last place of the 30 countries that belong to the OECD. It's really sad finding sentences like:
- With the exception of Mexico and Turkey, at least 5% of students in each OECD country reached Level 5 or 6. This is one of Mexico’s biggest challenges, with 1 in 2 15-year-olds not reaching Level 2 – the only other OECD country with such a challenge is Turkey
- In every OECD country except Mexico, Turkey, Italy, Greece and Portugal at least 70% of students were at Level 2 or above.
- Two OECD countries, Mexico and Greece, and two partner countries, Indonesia and Brazil, show higher performance in PISA 2006 than in PISA 2003, but still were below average.
The first place in the PISA 2006 was Finland. You can find a couple of videos to compare how is science learned in Mexico and Finland. Even when Mexico seems to be quite involved in the OECD and PISA, there is a Briefing note for particularly wrote for us, our government should take this information more seriously and start following the path of most advanced countries. A country without education is a country without future
The funny link: http://www.letraslibres.com/blog/blogs/index.php?title=merecidisimo_ultimo_lugar&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1&blog=8
