These five key lessons are from top performing education systems: Shanghai, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Finland, Canada, Japan and New Zealand. (those identified by PISA surveys as success stories):
First, make education a priority. A strong performer is a country that
has made education one of its flagships. Yet, that alone doesn’t get you
In some countries, students are separated into different tracks at an
early age because of the erroneous notion that only a subset of children
can achieve world class standards. However, PISA shows that those
systems tend to be fraught with large social disparities and freeze such
disparities over time. In top performing systems, most students achieve
Second, don’t be shy. High performing education systems do not refrain
from setting out clear and ambitious standards. They are focused on the
acquisition of complex, higher order thinking skills, which they align
across the system. As a result, everyone has a shared sense of what is
required to move on to the next academic level, in terms of content and
performance. Students know what they have to do to realise their dreams
and they put in the work that is needed to achieve them.
Third, teachers’ quality pays. Strong education systems pay careful
attention to the profile of their teachers. Much like corporations, they
make sure that their teaching force is the best.
Careful consideration must go into making the teacher profession
attractive; recruiting and selecting teachers; rewarding and training
them on the job; recognizing the best performers and helping those who
have merits but are struggling to grow.
Fourth, the importance of autonomy. High performing systems provide
considerable discretion to school heads and school faculties in
determining content and the curriculum. Indeed, PISA shows that autonomy
is closely related to school performance, provided that this is
achieved under conditions of effective accountability. That said, we do
not see a performance advantage of privately managed schools, once
social background is accounted for.
Last but not least, equity is key. World class education systems deliver
high quality learning consistently across the entire education system.
To this end, they invest educational resources where they can make the
most difference: by attracting the most talented teachers into the most
challenging classrooms, by making effective spending choices that
prioritise the quality of teachers.