Shanghai students world's brightest according to international rankings

Shanghai teenagers are still the world’s best in reading, maths and science according to a recent global education assessment.

The findings are from the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), a leading survey of education systems worldwide conducted every three years. Over 500,000 students aged 15-16, from 65 countries took part in the assessment.

Shanghai students performed best in maths with a score of 613 points, putting them almost three years of schooling above the average for OECD member countries. 

This was an improvement for the city, which was also top of the 2009 rankings with a score of 600.

Most of the countries that took part in earlier studies did the same or worse in maths in 2012.

In reading Shanghai students also came first, scoring 570, another increase from last year (when they also topped the list) – putting them roughly one and a half years ahead of the OECD average.

Shanghai again lead the way in science with 580 points, nearly two more years of schooling ahead of average. Hong Kong took second place in science and reading and third in maths.

Shanghai is the only mainland city included in the survey as not enough regions take the test to be considered representative.

PISA officials said they intend to expand the test to cover all of China by 2015. 

The United States ranked 36th, performing below the OECD average in maths, and similar to the reading and science averages. The United Kingdom ranked 26th (leading to this hysterical editorial), equalling the average score for OECD countries in math and reading. The UK performed above average in science with a score of 514.

[Image via Flickr]