11. The major controversy of this testing cycle
China’s data is drawn form only four provinces, which have been chosen by
their government, these areas happen to be English speaking areas (which
almost certainly would effect the effect scores.
As a comparison, this would be similar to Australia choosing only Victoria
and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and therefore seeing their test
scores jump significantly.
This means that China has improved across all three domains in a way that is
statistically incredible. This also greatly impacts the ‘OECD Average’, which is
the middle line that is often used to establish that we are ‘falling behind’, so
keep that in mind.
13. Overall
• Are bad overall
Reading holds steady
Mathematics declines
Science literacy
Significantly better countries than us:
• 10 above reading
• 23 in maths
• 12 in Science
Overall Australia ranks
29/79th among OECD
countries (broadly
speaking, developed,
well-off nations).