Estonia jumps to third place globally in 2015 PISA rankings
Improving its results across the reading, math and science categories compared to its 2012 results and outranked only by Singapore and Japan, Estonia jumped from sixth to third place overall and first place in Europe in the OECD's freshly released 2015 PISA rankings.
By category, Estonia's greatest improvement, by nine points, was in the reading category. While Finland performed worse than in 2012 across all three categories, they still outranked Estonia in reading 526-519. Also notable, however, is that Finland's science and math scores, both of which were above those of Estonia in 2012, had dropped.
The 2015 edition of PISA focused first and foremost on science, in which Estonia likewise ranked third behind Singapore and Japan, outranking Finland and Canada in turn.
Estonia's results also indicated that a high-quality education can be earned in public as well as private schools, in rural areas and urban centers alike.
According to the most recent PISA results, Estonia's youth were top ranked in Europe and in the top three globally, and results indicated that Estonia's schools and teachers had done a good job in helping weaker students, including those of disadvantaged backgrounds, catch up with their peers. Results indicated that the problem-solving skills of Estonian students were among the best in the world, and that student satisfaction with one's school was at a similar level in Estonia and neighboring Finland and Latvia alike.
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study performed every three years of OECD member and non-member states on the scholastic performance of their 15-year-old students in the math, science and reading categories by measuring their problem-solving skills and cognition in everyday life. Likewise tested last year was students' team problem-solving skills, and students and school directors alike also answered additional background questions in order to cllect data on students' socio-economic background and satisfaction with their school, among other factors.
Over half a million students from 72 countries participated in the 2015 PISA, including all developed countries.
A student welfare analysis based on the PISA 2015 results will be released in April 2017. Next fall, the results of the 2015 edition's new field — team problem-solving skills — will be released as well.
Japan, Estonia, Finland & Canada are the 4 highest performing OECD countries in #science https://t.co/pQOcFiGOks #OECDPISA #SDG4 pic.twitter.com/MdnYASSJOe
— OECD Education (@OECDEduSkills) December 6, 2016
Editor: Editor: Aili Vahtla
