OFFICIAL....Italian education is below average

[tuscanhills]

OK, there's been a three-yearly (the Programme for International Student Assessment or Pisa) & the most recent version shows that Italy has been marked "below average" in both reading and maths.

Details -> BBC NEWS | Education | Pisa international rankings

[Nardini]

Originally Posted by tuscanhills

OK, there's been a three-yearly (the Programme for International Student Assessment or Pisa) & the most recent version shows that Italy has been marked "below average" in both reading and maths.

Details -> BBC NEWS | Education | Pisa international rankings

And from the same source, UK schools are too!

It has to be pointed out, however than not very many people take this study seriously - except for the media that love to incite a little nationalism from time to time.

I recall reading about a small school in West Wales that, in it's inspectors report from the 19th century, was described as a "dirty, filthy hovel whose children refused to understand anything that was asked of them". The school was in a very poor part of Wales, where the children spoke not a word of English and the schools inspector was English.

These sort of studies, across language and cultural divides are about as reliable in assessing relative skills and abilities now as they were in the 19th century in Wales. Pinch of salt (or a handful).

[pigro]

From a footnote to the BBC article:

Note: In the US a printing error in the test booklets for reading meant some items had incorrect instructions so the mean performance could not be accurately estimated and therefore no results were reported.

... ha ha, the conspiracy theorists know that this is just a convenient "get-out" for the USA to cover up the fact that none of their kids can read any more :-)

from scotland.gov.uk:

In 2003 three countries could be said to have students who performed significantly better than those in Scotland in all three subjects. In 2006 there were four countries that performed better in science, eight in maths and five in reading.

The survey also shows that Scotland has one of the lowest levels of poorly performing pupils in the OECD.

Scotland's performance is in line with England and Northern Ireland who achieved similar results in all three subjects.

I'll leave the anal amongst us to pick their own holes in the above when compared to the charts puiblised by the BBC ... just shows that there's lies, damned lies & statistics!