Engaging Minds, Exchanging Ideas Educational rankings: Towards an Index of Flourishing Education Mr Tan Tarn How 陈赞浩 Senior Research Fellow Institute of

Engaging Minds, Exchanging Ideas

Educational rankings: Towards an Index of Flourishing Education

Mr Tan Tarn How 陈赞浩Senior Research Fellow Institute of Policy Studies

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public PolicyNational University of Singapore

[email protected]


Outline

1. International rankings important but narrowly focused

2. They don’t take into account other educational goals

3. These including developing fully functioning, realised human beings.

4. Flourishing Life as a more multi-faceted measure

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What is PISA?• Programme for International Student

Assessment ; since 2000• Is a triennial international

benchmarking study organised by OECD which tests the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students

• Students from 70 economies

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The PISA test

• Capacity to apply knowledge and skills in mathematics, reading and science

• Ability to analyse, reason and communicate effectively

• Two hours, open-ended & multiple choice• Singapore: 5,546 students from 166 public

schools and 6 private schools.

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PISA 2012 ranking

• Singapore and Korea tops PISA 2012 in problem solving.

• Singapore 2nd in mathematics, 3rd in reading and science,

• 29% of Singaporean students reached proficiency level 5 or 6 (OECD average is 11%).

• Students can “systemically explore a complex problem scenario, devise multiple-step solutions that take into account constraints and adjust their plans in light of feedback received”

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PISA top countries

• Other top-performing economies: Japan, Macao-China, Hong Kong – China, Shanghai-China and Chinese Taipei

• Scored above OECD average: Canada, Australia, Finland, England, Estonia, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Czech Republic, Germany, US and Belgium

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PISA performersBottom 15 performers below OECD averageChile Argentina

Malaysia Tunisia

Mexico Jordan

Montenegro Colombia

Uruguay Qatar

Costa Rica Indonesia

Albania Peru

Brazil

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Top 15 performers above OECD averageShanghai Switzerland

Singapore Netherlands

Hong Kong Estonia

Taipei Finland

Korea Canada

Macau Poland

Japan Belgium

Liechtenstein


What is TIMSS?• Trends in International Mathematics and

Science Study; since1995 • Every 4 years to measure trends in

mathematics and science achievement at Primary 4 (Grade 4) & Secondary 2 (Grade 8) level

• Over 60 countries participated in 2011

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TIMSS Aims

Monitoring system-level achievement trends in a global context, establishing achievement goals and standards for educational improvement, stimulating curriculum reform, improving teaching and learning through research and analysis of the data, conducting related studies (e.g. monitoring equity or assessing students in additional grades), and training researchers and teachers in assessment and evaluation.

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TIMSS 2011 Ranking

Singapore:• 6,500 P4 students; 6,000 S2

students• 1st, 2nd and 4th for P4 maths, science

and reading • 2nd and 1st for S2 level mathematics

and science 10


Other top countries

• For both P4 and S2 mathematics: Korea, Hong Kong, Taipei and Japan

• For P4 science: Korea, Finland, Japan, Russia and Taipei

• For S2 science: Korea, Taipei, Japan, Finland

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TIMSS performers (P4 Math)

Bottom 15 performers

Azerbaijan Qatar

Chile Saudi Arabia

Thailand Oman

Armenia Tunisia

Georgia Kuwait

Bahrain Morocco

United Arab Emirates

Yemen

Iran

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Top 15 performers

Singapore England

Korea Russia

Hong Kong United States

Taipei Netherlands

Japan Denmark

Northern Ireland

Lithuania

Belgium (Flemish)

Portugal

Finland


TIMSS performers (P4 Science)


Turkey Armenia

Georgia Qatar

Iran Oman

Bahrain Kuwait

Malta Tunisia

Azerbaijan Morocco

Saudi Arabia Yemen

United Arab Emirates

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Top 15 performersKorea Hong Kong

Singapore Hungary

Finland Sweden

Japan Slovak Republic

Russia Austria

Taipei Netherlands

United States England

Czech Republic


TIMSS performers (P4 Reading)


Georgia United Arab Emirates

Malta Saudi Arabia

Trinidad &Tobago

Indonesia

Azerbaijan Qatar

Iran Oman

Colombia Morocco

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Top 15 performersHong Kong Taipei

Russia Ireland

Finland England

Singapore Canada

Northern Ireland

Netherlands

United States Czech Republic

Denmark Sweden

Croatia


TIMSS performers (S2 Math)


Thailand Palestine

Macedonia Saudi Arabia

Tunisia Indonesia

Chile Syria

Iran Morocco

Qatar Oman

Bahrain Ghana

Jordan

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Top 14 performers

Korea United States

Singapore England

Taipei Hungary

Hong Kong Australia

Japan Slovenia

Russia Lithuania

Israel

Finland


TIMSS Performers (S2 Science)


Jordan Oman

Tunisia Qatar

Armenia Macedonia

Saudi Arabia Lebanon

Malaysia Indonesia

Syria Morocco

Palestine Ghana

Georgia

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Top 15 performers

Singapore England

Taipei United States

Korea Hungary

Japan Australia

Finland Israel

Slovenia Lithuania

Russia New Zealand

Hong Kong


What people say of PISAMs Ho Peng, Director-General of Education, Singapore:“We are pleased with the strong performance by our students in PISA 2012. This affirms our efforts in giving our students not just a strong foundation in literacy and numeracy, but also in equipping them with the skills to solve problems in real-world contexts.

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What people say of PISA

Martin Stephen, former High Master of St Paul’s School, UK: “What PISA has delivered is a snapshot of teenagers educated under Labour: one in five 15-year-olds in Britain has failed to attain even the minimum standard expected for their age group in math and literacy. But before we get too carried away, we should address another serious problem: PISA’s credibility as an accurate assessment of how we teach our children.”

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What is measured• These are important, enviable

achievements• Critics are not those at the top, but those

who do not do so well

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What is not measured

• The other important outputs– Elements of holistic education– Other knowledge– Meta knowledge– Values– Citizenship

• The inputs– Cost– Opportunity cost

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Shadow education• Long history in region; in recent decades greatly

expanded. • In the Republic of Korea 90% of elementary students • in Hong Kong, China, 85% of senior secondary students • In West Bengal, India, 60% of primary school students• In Kazakhstan 60% senior secondary students• The shadow is spreading and intensifying.

Shadow Education. Private Supplementary Tutoring and Its Implications for Policy Makers in Asia. Mark Bray and Chad Lykins

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Shadow educationBenefits1. Can help slow learners to keep up2. Can help high achievers reach higher3. May contribute human capital for economic development4. Constructive way to use the spare time of adolescents

Negatives5. May dominate the lives of young and families6. Less time available for sports and other activities7. Health8. Maintains and exacerbates social inequalities.

Can create inefficiencies in education systems

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Singapore’s shadow education

• 2008 report: 97% primary, middle, and senior secondary levels; $820 million spent

• 2014 Household Expenditure Survey– $1.1 billion spent a year– Nearly double from $650 million in 2003.

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Singapore and other countries

• Studies have no time for much else• Where is the human development?• The economic and instrumental

philosophy and effect of education and society policies

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Singapore’s key stages

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Framework for 21st Century Competencies and Student Outcomes

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Perspective check

UN Millennium Goals for Education• 2013: “clear that, despite advances over

the past decade, not a single goal will be achieved globally by 2015.

• “People in the most marginalised groups have continued to be denied opportunities for education over the decade”

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UN Education For All report

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UNDP Education Index

• Is one of three measures used to assess the Human Development Index of a country

• Is measured by mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and expected years of schooling for children of school entering age.

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Other Int’l Index• WIDE: http://www.education-inequalities.org/about

- Users can compare education attainment between 60 countries, between groups within countries

• UNESCO Education for All Global Monitoring Report (but it does not include SG) http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/efareport/the-report-and-efa/- An authoritative reference that aims to inform, influence and

sustain genuine commitment towards Education for All. The goals are: universal primary education, adult literacy, quality of education and gender

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http://www.education-inequalities.org/about

http://www.education-inequalities.org/about

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/efareport/the-report-and-efa/




Time for a new Index• For those countries which have achieved

basics• Even for those which have not

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What should new Index measure?

• Western ideas• Eastern ideas

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Need to go back to philosophy• Rationality and Human Dignity – Confucius, Kant and Scheffler on the

Ultimate Aim of Education YNHUI PARK (Studies in Philosophy and Education 16: 7–18, 1997.)

• Israel Scheffler:The function of education in a democracy is rather to liberate the mind, strengthen its critical powers, inform it with knowledge and the capacity for independent inquiry, engage its human sympathies, and illuminate its moral and practical choice, in short to enhance rationality.

• Kant’s moral principle in terms of Categorical Imperative: ‘Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end, never as a means only.’ The perfect realization of such a moral principle is, by Kant, referred to as ‘the kingdom of ends’ where free and human beings would acknowledge the mutuality of freedom and incorporate one another’s goals.

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Schleffer• What, then, would it mean to say that the ultimate aim of education is

to achieve human dignity? It simply means that the ultimate aim of education is to help realize humanity at its highest level, that is, to help all human beings live their lives as ‘truly human beings’, because for us, human beings, we could not think of any other purposes, values and meanings of our lives than the purposes, values and meanings of living a life which embodies humanity at its best.

• Thus interpreted, the ultimate aim of education which implicitly underlies Scheffler’s philosophy of education consists in realizing humanity. In other words, the whole point of education is to help each of us live as a truly human being.

• And the aim of education thus understood cannot in reality be differentiated from the ultimate aim of a human life itself. A human life thus understood itself turns out to be nothing else than an educational process. It is in this sense that education can be said to be an end in itself, not an instrument for an end external to it.

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Confucius

• The ideal kind of human life, is to achieve humanity, jen. For a human animal, the ultimate value is to live truly as he really is, i.e. as human animal, not as a mere animal among others.

• Li, or propriety: Rules independent of natural laws, no longer at the mercy of animal impulse and needs.

• ‘To achieve freedom in which the human spirit flowers: it is not a matter of submission but of the triumph of the human spirit.’

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Aristotle• What is needed to be happily flourishing: External good

[wealth, reputation] goods of the body [health, sensual pleasure], and goods of the soul [wisdom, virtue]

• Aristotle places more importance upon the goods of the soul, since they are the ends themselves and the former types of good are the means at which acquiring the latter.

• Political activity, beginning with the construction of a community.

• To begin the quest for a flourishing life, one first established a community to become actively involved in

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Terry Eagleton

• Happiness not “some beaming, bovine contentment” for Aristotle, at least): but the condition of well-being which springs from the free flourishing of one’s powers and capacities.

• The meaning of life is not a solution to a problem, but of living in a certain way: with quality, depth, abundance, and intensity of life.

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Eagleton• Julian Baggini: Meaning of life—happiness, altruism, love,

achievement, losing or abnegating the self, pleasure, the greater good of the species Pick-and-mix model for a life uniquely appropriate for ourselves.

• Eagleton: “A jazz group which is improvising obviously differs from a symphony orchestra, since to a large extent each member is free to express herself as she likes. But she does so with a receptive sensitivity to the self-expressive performances of the other musicians. The complex harmony they fashion comes not from playing from a collective score, but from the free musical expression of each member acting as the basis for the free expression of the others. As each player grows more musically eloquent, the others draw inspiration from this and are spurred to greater heights. There is no conflict here between freedom and the ‘good of the whole’, yet the image is the reverse of totalitarian.”

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Proposal for new Index• It should measure to what extent

education enables the flourishing, of living a fully realised human live

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What to measure• Knowledge (PISA, TIMMS, and others)• Arts and culture• Values: moral and philosophical• Sports• Community connectedness, playing part• Love, family and other relationships

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Documents

Engaging Minds, Exchanging Ideas Educational rankings: Towards an Index of Flourishing Education Mr Tan Tarn How 陈赞浩 Senior Research Fellow Institute of