Today, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). PISA is a triennial international survey which aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students. In 2015, over half a million students in 72 countries and economies were assessed in science, mathematics and reading.

Just as in the recently released TIMSS results, Singapore led the world in every subject, outperforming other economies and countries by a significant margin, with mean scores of 556, 564 and 535 in science, math and reading.

Other top-performing economies in science include Japan, Estonia, Chinese Taipei and Finland. Other top-performing economies in math include Hong Kong (China), Macao (China), Chinese Taipei and Japan. Other top-performers in reading include Canada, Hong Kong (China), Finland and Ireland.

 

Vietnam continues to perform very well, especially in science, managing to enter the top 10, just below Canada and above Hong Kong and the four Chinese provinces and cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Guangdong).

Since the first round in 2000, no country has improved more than Peru: 64 points in science, 95 in math and 71 in reading. Between 2000 and 2012, the following countries have recorded the highest increase in science scores:

Peru	64	333 to 397
Albania	51	376 to 427
Portugal	42	459 to 501
Luxembourg	40	443 to 483
Israel	33	434 to 467
Chile	32	415 to 447
Latvia	30	460 to 490
Russia	27	460 to 487
Brazil	26	375 to 401
Germany	22	487 to 509

In math:

Peru	95	292 to 387
Brazil	43	334 to 377
Luxembourg	40	446 to 486
Chile	39	384 to 423
Portugal	38	454 to 492
Israel	37	433 to 470
Poland	34	470 to 504
Italy	33	457 to 490
Albania	32	381 to 413
Mexico	21	387 to 408

In reading:

Peru	71	327 to 398
Albania	56	349 to 405
Chile	49	410 to 459
Luxembourg	40	441 to 481
Russia	33	462 to 495
Latvia	30	458 to 488
Portugal	28	470 to 498
Poland	27	479 to 506
Israel	27	452 to 479
Indonesia	26	371 to 397

Since the last round of PISA, in 2012, these countries witnessed the biggest improvements:

Science		Math		Reading
Qatar	34	Qatar	26	Uruguay	26
Albania	30	Peru	19	Slovenia	24
Peru	24	Albania	19	Colombia	22
Indonesia	21	Sweden	16	Russia	20
Uruguay	19	Colombia	14	Chile	18
Colombia	17	Norway	13	Sweden	17
Portugal	12	Russia	12	Qatar	14
Chinese Taipei	9	Denmark	11	Peru	14
Macao (China)	8	Indonesia	11	Albania	11
Sweden	8	Slovenia	9	Portugal	10

Kazakhstan and Malaysia improved significantly as well – in science 31 and 23 points, in math 28 and 25 points, in reading 34 and 33 points. But their scores come with footnotes since “overage is too small to ensure comparability,” according to the OECD. Nevertheless, these gains are impressive in such a short time, not only in Kazakhstan and Malaysia, but also in Albania, Colombia, Peru, Slovenia, Qatar and Uruguay. Overall the biggest improvements occurred in Qatar, Albania and Peru:

These are impressive gains and testimony to the great efforts that teachers, students and parents put into learning every day. They are also inspiring because they show that improvement happens in rich and poor countries, throughout the world. This is true for the PISA results presented here today and for the TIMSS 2015 results released late November.

The rich data that underlies these indicators will allow policy makers and researchers to analyze education systems. A lot can be learned, but it must be through rigorous analysis of the data. As Henry Levin put it, PISA is “not a statistical study that isolates cause and effect.” But modeling and hypothesis testing can help show causal effects, as was done with Poland’s PISA data.

Follow Harry Anthony Patrinos on Twitter at @hpatrinos.