Dubai: Dubai's 15-year-old pupils rank far behind their counterparts worldwide in reading proficiency, mathematic skills and scientific literacy, although they fared the best regionally, an international assessment test has shown.
Interestingly, girls outperformed the boys by a huge margin in the reading test, while the private schools outperformed the public schools by an even bigger margin.
The three top scoring curricula in the test were the International Baccalaureate, British and the Indian curriculum.
Results of the Pisa 2009 (Programme for International Student Assessment) test, conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD), was announced in Paris on Tuesday. The two-hour long test was undertaken by about half million students worldwide.
Among the 65 countries assessed, Dubai came 42nd in reading proficiency, 41st in mathematics and 41st in science in the Pisa test, which throws light into real-life skills acquired by them through schooling, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) disclosed on Wednesday.
Knowledge base
Pisa measures how well students have absorbed their schooling, and how well they are able to apply their knowledge in life outside school.
Dubai, in its first participation, scored the best amongst Mena (Middle East and North Africa) countries that took part.
Approximately two-thirds of Dubai's 15-year-olds were assessed, with 5,620 students from 134 schools taking part.
The test, which was held in April and May last year, focused mainly on reading skills, which account for 80 per cent of the results.
"The test provides, for the first time, a clear picture of how our high school students are performing. Since the test focused on real-life situations the results provide us an early indicative of the quality of students we can expect in our universities", said Dr Abdulla Al Karam, Director General and Chairman of the Board of Directors at KHDA.
The assessment and its outcomes will allow KHDA to plan and focus its role on the weaknesses highlighted in the report.
While Dubai performed better than Mena countries, officials acknowledged there is much improvement to be done.
Fact file
Pisa is an assessment programme taking place once every three years, is considered one of the most important international programmes for it assesses how well-prepared students are to enter society.
Pisa 2009 results
Korea and Finland topped the Pisa survey of reading literacy among 15-year olds. The next strongest performances were from Hong Kong-China, Singapore, Canada, New Zealand and Japan. The province of Shanghai, China, took part for the first time and scored higher in reading than any country. It also topped the table in maths and science.
Findings
- Girls read better than boys in every country, by an average of 39 points, the equivalent to one year of schooling. The gender gap has not improved in any country since 2000.
- The best school systems were the most equitable — students do well regardless of their socio-economic background. But schools that select students based on ability early show the greatest differences in performance by socio-economic background.
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