 Candidates attend an exam to gain admission to colleges in Educators have warned against complacency after Vietnam unexpectedly outperformed many more developed countries on a recent test administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), given the bloc’s confirmation of the exam’s reliability. The Southeast Asian country, in its first participation, stood at number 17 out of 65 countries, territories, and local administrations worldwide in the final rankings of the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) test, according to official statistics OECD released Tuesday. By that the country surpassed many much wealthier countries like First introduced in 2000 and run every three years, the latest assessment was carried out last year with the participation of 510,000 fifteen-year-old students who were tested on science, math, and reading. Vietnamese students scored 528 points on science, 511 on math, and 508 on reading, thus outdoing Overall Vietnamese students were behind their peers from Skepticism Considering these results, a Deputy Minister of Education and Training said Wednesday that he was “surprised” by the performance. “ But Hien noted that “To be frank, we are still lagging behind other countries on a broader scale,” he admitted. OECD simply sampled a certain number of students in “We should not be too happy with the results and forget all about our education system,” Dr Nhi said. “We’re a long way from other countries at the moment.” An expert echoed Dr Nhi’s opinions, saying the “The “It cannot be said that Vietnamese students are now in the top of the global scale.” Another educator lauds this achievement and Vietnamese students in general but reminds education officials of a troubled education system that has failed to provide a skilled workforce. Vietnamese students study very well as they have to work extremely hard to pass exams in an exam-oriented educational environment, Dr Giap Van Duong, a Vietnamese research chemist at the “This is part of Asian culture as such Asian countries as “So their impressive scoring is understandable,” Dr Duong remarked. But he asserted that Many college graduates lack the necessary skills to meet expectations at workplaces while local students are often unable to think critically, cannot work in teams, and fail to solve problems when they choose to study abroad, he elaborated. Dr Duong cited a report by an Asian organization as saying that Vietnamese people’s labor productivity is twenty times lower than that of Americans. “Is there anything illogical here as our students outdo their American peers on exams but work twenty times less productively than them?” he wondered. “So our education system merely trains students for tests, not for real-life work. We should take a look again at our definition of excellence.” Despite this caution and skepticism, a PISA Vietnam representative has confirmed to Tuoi Tre newspaper that the test can be seen as an indication of the quality of a country or territory. OECD selected participating students and schools at random from national archives a country or territory had provided, Le Thi My Ha, director of It chose 5,100 students from 162 middle, high, and vocational schools and further education centers in 59 provinces and cities across the country, she said. These students come from rural, urban, and mountainous areas, Ha added. The director revealed that test questions were prepared in English and French, and participating countries and territories had to translate them into their own languages in line with OECD standards. “An independent organization was hired to check the accuracy of these translations,” she said. “ TUOITRENEWS |
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