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Children of factory workers and cleaners in Far East achieve better exam results than offspring of British lawyers and doctors, says OECD
Pupils use abacuses in class at a primary school in Changzhou, China Photo: Rex
By Graeme Paton, Education Editor
10:00PM GMT 17 Feb 2014
1381 Comments
British schoolchildren are lagging so far behind their peers in the Far East that even pupils from wealthy backgrounds are now performing worse in exams than the poorest students in China, an international study shows.
The children of factory workers and cleaners in parts of the Far East are more than a year ahead of the offspring of British doctors and lawyers, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Researchers said the study, which looked at the performance of 15-year-olds in mathematics, showed countries to could overcome traditional social class divides to raise education standards among relatively deprived pupils.
The report was published as a senior European Commission politician attacked the standards of British schools and warned that UK politicians must improve the education system before focusing on changing the country’s relationship with the EU.
Viviane Reding, the vice-president of the European Commission, warned that ministers should focus on raising school standards instead of blaming the country’s problems on foreigners. In a speech in Cambridge she suggested that the UK’s poor education system is the reason Britons cannot compete with foreigners for jobs. She said politicians needed to “work on the quality of education and welfare, so that people in this country can find employment and enjoy reasonable social standards”.
The OECD findings underline the extent to which British pupils now lag behind their peers in high-performing countries in subjects seen as vital to the nation’s economic future and will intensify calls for the UK to adopt a more rigorous education system.
Elizabeth Truss, the education minister, will next week lead a delegation of head teachers and education experts to China in a fact-finding mission. The visit could lead to schools adopting Chinese-style tactics such as more evening classes and eliminating time-wasting between lessons to boost performance in key subjects.
She said English schools needed to adopt the “teaching practices and positive philosophy” that characterised schools in parts of the Far East.
“They have a can-do attitude to maths, which contrasts with the long-term anti-maths culture that exists here,” she said.
“The reality is that unless we change our philosophy, and get better at maths, we will suffer economic decline. At the moment our performance in maths is weakening our skills base and threatening our productivity and growth.” The OECD study was based on performance in independently-administered exams in reading, maths and science sat by 15-year-olds in 65 developed nations.
Overall, the UK was ranked just 26th for maths, 23rd for reading and 21st for science while China’s Shanghai district was the top-rated jurisdiction in each subject. The study assessed how students would be able to use their maths knowledge and skills in real life, rather than just repeating facts and figures.
As part of the study, children were asked to name their parents’ occupation to determine its effect on pupil performance. Across the world, children whose parents work in professional careers generally outperform those in elementary jobs such as caterers, cleaners, factory workers and labourers.
The study, involving more than 500,000 pupils worldwide, found children of elementary workers in many Far Eastern nations outperformed the sons and daughters of professional British children.
The children of UK professionals scored an average of 526 points in maths. But this was overshadowed by an average score of 656 registered by the children of professionals in Shanghai-China and 569 among children of the country’s elementary workers. The children of parents in unskilled jobs in the UK scored an average of 461, the equivalent of two and a half years behind.
Elementary workers’ children in Hong Kong (542), South Korea (538) and Singapore (534), also outperformed more affluent British peers. In Japan, Vietnam, Liechtenstein, Japan and China-Taipei, relatively poor children were only marginally behind the wealthiest British pupils.
The report said: “In the United States and the United Kingdom, where professionals are among the highest-paid in the world, students whose parents work as professionals do not perform as well in mathematics as children of professionals in other countries — nor do they perform as we as the children in Shanghai-China and Singapore whose parents work in manual occupations.”
Andreas Schleicher, deputy director for education and skills at the OECD, said: “If school systems want all their students to succeed in school, they should give the children of factory workers and cleaners the same education opportunities as the children of doctors and lawyers enjoy.”
The delegation to China will include Dame Rachel de Souza, of the Inspiration Trust academies group in Norfolk, Shahed Ahmed, who runs Elmhurst Primary School in east London, and Charlie Stripp, of Mathematics in Education and Industry.
China’s poorest beat our best pupils - Telegraph
Britain sends experts to China for raising maths teaching standards
English.news.cn 2014-02-19 03:59:02
LONDON, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Britain will sent experts to east China's Shanghai to learn the city's experience in maths teaching in an attempt to raise the teaching standards in maths, said the Department of Education (DOE) on Tuesday.
The trip is a part of the government's maths improvement program.
British Education Minister Elizabeth Truss is to lead a delegation of experts on a fact-finding mission to Shanghai's schools next week to see how children there have become the best in the world at maths.
Britain was last year placed 50th out of 148 countries and regions in the World Economic Forum's competitiveness ranking in quality of maths and science education.
Truss said that learning from Shanghai, and other far eastern jurisdictions, in how to teach maths was key to improving the country's competitiveness and productivity.
The British delegation is expected to visit three schools at primary and secondary level, and teacher training institutes in Shanghai to get a first-hand look at maths classes and teaching methods there.
The DOE said in a statement on the government website, "It is the latest step in the government's drive to raise standards in maths, looking at what has made jurisdictions in the far east the most successful in the world in teaching the subject, and matching that work."
Shanghai topped the 2012 international PISA tables for maths, while England was ranked in 26th place. The top five were all southeast Asian jurisdictions, with 15-year-olds in Shanghai judged to be three years ahead of their peers in maths.
The education department said: "England's performance in maths has stagnated while other countries have improved and overtaken us, including Poland and Germany."
"Shanghai is the top-performing part of the world for maths - their children are streets ahead. Shanghai and Singapore have teaching practices and a positive philosophy that make the difference. They have a belief that diligence redeems lack of ability," Truss said.
"Our new curriculum has borrowed from theirs because we know it works - early learning of key arithmetic, and a focus on times tables and long division, for instance."
"This visit represents a real opportunity for us to see at first hand the teaching methods that have enabled their young people to achieve so well in maths," she said.
She was determined to change the situation as performance in maths is weakening the country's skills base and threatening the productivity and growth.
An education and skills survey released by the Confderation of British Industry last year showed that 30 percent of employers reported dissatisfaction with the standard of school and college leavers' numeracy.
More than two-thirds of employers said they wanted both maths and science promoted more in schools.
The government is prioritizing maths because of the importance of good grades in the subject to young people competing for good jobs in a global labor market and to the economy more generally.
Last year, a group of heads and teachers from 46 schools in England went to Shanghai on a similar visit. During the coming visit to Shanghai, the group of experts will particularly be investigating how the performance of almost all children in Shanghai is high, irrespective of gender or income.
Editor: yan
Britain sends experts to China for raising maths teaching standards - Xinhua | English.news.cn
Pupils use abacuses in class at a primary school in Changzhou, China Photo: Rex
By Graeme Paton, Education Editor
10:00PM GMT 17 Feb 2014
British schoolchildren are lagging so far behind their peers in the Far East that even pupils from wealthy backgrounds are now performing worse in exams than the poorest students in China, an international study shows.
The children of factory workers and cleaners in parts of the Far East are more than a year ahead of the offspring of British doctors and lawyers, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Researchers said the study, which looked at the performance of 15-year-olds in mathematics, showed countries to could overcome traditional social class divides to raise education standards among relatively deprived pupils.
The report was published as a senior European Commission politician attacked the standards of British schools and warned that UK politicians must improve the education system before focusing on changing the country’s relationship with the EU.
Viviane Reding, the vice-president of the European Commission, warned that ministers should focus on raising school standards instead of blaming the country’s problems on foreigners. In a speech in Cambridge she suggested that the UK’s poor education system is the reason Britons cannot compete with foreigners for jobs. She said politicians needed to “work on the quality of education and welfare, so that people in this country can find employment and enjoy reasonable social standards”.
The OECD findings underline the extent to which British pupils now lag behind their peers in high-performing countries in subjects seen as vital to the nation’s economic future and will intensify calls for the UK to adopt a more rigorous education system.
Elizabeth Truss, the education minister, will next week lead a delegation of head teachers and education experts to China in a fact-finding mission. The visit could lead to schools adopting Chinese-style tactics such as more evening classes and eliminating time-wasting between lessons to boost performance in key subjects.
She said English schools needed to adopt the “teaching practices and positive philosophy” that characterised schools in parts of the Far East.
“They have a can-do attitude to maths, which contrasts with the long-term anti-maths culture that exists here,” she said.
“The reality is that unless we change our philosophy, and get better at maths, we will suffer economic decline. At the moment our performance in maths is weakening our skills base and threatening our productivity and growth.” The OECD study was based on performance in independently-administered exams in reading, maths and science sat by 15-year-olds in 65 developed nations.
Overall, the UK was ranked just 26th for maths, 23rd for reading and 21st for science while China’s Shanghai district was the top-rated jurisdiction in each subject. The study assessed how students would be able to use their maths knowledge and skills in real life, rather than just repeating facts and figures.
As part of the study, children were asked to name their parents’ occupation to determine its effect on pupil performance. Across the world, children whose parents work in professional careers generally outperform those in elementary jobs such as caterers, cleaners, factory workers and labourers.
The study, involving more than 500,000 pupils worldwide, found children of elementary workers in many Far Eastern nations outperformed the sons and daughters of professional British children.
The children of UK professionals scored an average of 526 points in maths. But this was overshadowed by an average score of 656 registered by the children of professionals in Shanghai-China and 569 among children of the country’s elementary workers. The children of parents in unskilled jobs in the UK scored an average of 461, the equivalent of two and a half years behind.
Elementary workers’ children in Hong Kong (542), South Korea (538) and Singapore (534), also outperformed more affluent British peers. In Japan, Vietnam, Liechtenstein, Japan and China-Taipei, relatively poor children were only marginally behind the wealthiest British pupils.
The report said: “In the United States and the United Kingdom, where professionals are among the highest-paid in the world, students whose parents work as professionals do not perform as well in mathematics as children of professionals in other countries — nor do they perform as we as the children in Shanghai-China and Singapore whose parents work in manual occupations.”
Andreas Schleicher, deputy director for education and skills at the OECD, said: “If school systems want all their students to succeed in school, they should give the children of factory workers and cleaners the same education opportunities as the children of doctors and lawyers enjoy.”
The delegation to China will include Dame Rachel de Souza, of the Inspiration Trust academies group in Norfolk, Shahed Ahmed, who runs Elmhurst Primary School in east London, and Charlie Stripp, of Mathematics in Education and Industry.
China’s poorest beat our best pupils - Telegraph
Britain sends experts to China for raising maths teaching standards
English.news.cn 2014-02-19 03:59:02
LONDON, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Britain will sent experts to east China's Shanghai to learn the city's experience in maths teaching in an attempt to raise the teaching standards in maths, said the Department of Education (DOE) on Tuesday.
The trip is a part of the government's maths improvement program.
British Education Minister Elizabeth Truss is to lead a delegation of experts on a fact-finding mission to Shanghai's schools next week to see how children there have become the best in the world at maths.
Britain was last year placed 50th out of 148 countries and regions in the World Economic Forum's competitiveness ranking in quality of maths and science education.
Truss said that learning from Shanghai, and other far eastern jurisdictions, in how to teach maths was key to improving the country's competitiveness and productivity.
The British delegation is expected to visit three schools at primary and secondary level, and teacher training institutes in Shanghai to get a first-hand look at maths classes and teaching methods there.
The DOE said in a statement on the government website, "It is the latest step in the government's drive to raise standards in maths, looking at what has made jurisdictions in the far east the most successful in the world in teaching the subject, and matching that work."
Shanghai topped the 2012 international PISA tables for maths, while England was ranked in 26th place. The top five were all southeast Asian jurisdictions, with 15-year-olds in Shanghai judged to be three years ahead of their peers in maths.
The education department said: "England's performance in maths has stagnated while other countries have improved and overtaken us, including Poland and Germany."
"Shanghai is the top-performing part of the world for maths - their children are streets ahead. Shanghai and Singapore have teaching practices and a positive philosophy that make the difference. They have a belief that diligence redeems lack of ability," Truss said.
"Our new curriculum has borrowed from theirs because we know it works - early learning of key arithmetic, and a focus on times tables and long division, for instance."
"This visit represents a real opportunity for us to see at first hand the teaching methods that have enabled their young people to achieve so well in maths," she said.
She was determined to change the situation as performance in maths is weakening the country's skills base and threatening the productivity and growth.
An education and skills survey released by the Confderation of British Industry last year showed that 30 percent of employers reported dissatisfaction with the standard of school and college leavers' numeracy.
More than two-thirds of employers said they wanted both maths and science promoted more in schools.
The government is prioritizing maths because of the importance of good grades in the subject to young people competing for good jobs in a global labor market and to the economy more generally.
Last year, a group of heads and teachers from 46 schools in England went to Shanghai on a similar visit. During the coming visit to Shanghai, the group of experts will particularly be investigating how the performance of almost all children in Shanghai is high, irrespective of gender or income.
Editor: yan
Britain sends experts to China for raising maths teaching standards - Xinhua | English.news.cn
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