Based on Math and Science
Asian countries claimed the top five spots in a global math-and-science-education ranking administered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) while the U.S. placed 28th, below much poorer countries such as the Czech Republic and Vietnam.
Singapore ranked best in the world, with Hong Kong placing second and South Korea, Japan and Taiwan rounding out top five, reports the BBC.
At sixth, Finland is the first non-Asian country to appear in the rankings; Ghana came in last place.
“The idea is to give more countries, rich and poor, access to comparing themselves against the world’s education leaders, to discover their relative strengths and weaknesses, and to see what the long-term economic gains from improved quality in schooling could be for them,” said OECD education director Andreas Schleicher.
The new rankings are different the more well-known PISA scores, which traditionally focuses on affluent nations. The latest version, based on tests taken in different regions worldwide, includes 76 countries of varying economic status.
“This is the first time we have a truly global scale of the quality of education,” said Schleicher.
Below is the top 10 as reported by the BBC.
We have educated people but putting the knowledge and skills into good use(innovation and discovery) is hampered by our attitudes and a cruel corrupt system. Though somethings taught in schools seem to be intended to only add to the bulk of units in courses.
Thats one part though. Cultural perspectives are the other major ingredient to productivity of such intellect. The japanese and chinese have been known to be better and faster at computation than any other people for centuries. However, foundation of modern mathematics and science was laid by westerners. Simply because their culture allowed the likes of descartes, fourier, Lagrange, liebniz, faraday, newton, etc to spend an entire life pursuing to improve their respective disciplines. That streak can be seen even today. A westerner will spend an entire life deciphering one thing or the other and never bothering much about anything else.
I saw some under 10 japanese children doing maths on that abacus and they were like producing answers like 54585417954.6846884 in a second. They were so much used to the abacus that they didnt have they physical one and were using imaginary abacus.