Best Education In The World:; Finland, South Korea Top Country Rankings

**Madonna** · 02-17-2013, 01:35 PM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...ide=more266083

The United States places 17th in the developed world for education, according to a global report by education firm Pearson.

Finland and South Korea, not surprisingly, top the list of 40 developed countries with the best education systems. Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore follow. The rankings are calculated based on various measures, including international test scores, graduation rates between 2006 and 2010, and the prevalence of higher education seekers.

Pearson's chief education adviser Sir Michael Barber tells BBC that the high ranking countries tend to offer teachers higher status in society and have a "culture" of education.

The study notes that while funding is an important factor in strong education systems, cultures supportive of learning is even more critical -- as evidenced by the highly ranked Asian countries, where education is highly valued and parents have grand expectation. While Finland and South Korea differ greatly in methods of teaching and learning, they hold the top spots because of a shared social belief in the importance of education and its "underlying moral purpose."

The study aims to help policymakers and school leaders identify key factors that lead to successful educational outcomes. The research draws on literacy data as well as figures in government spending on education, school entrance age, teacher salaries and degree of school choice. Researchers also measured socioeconomic outcomes like national unemployment rates, GDP, life expectancy and prison population.

The report also notes the importance of high-quality teachers and improving strong educator recruitment. The rankings show, however, that there is no clear correlation between higher pay and better performance.

Top 20:

1. Finland
2. South Korea
3. Hong Kong
4. Japan
5. Singapore
6. United Kingdom
7. Netherlands
8. New Zeland
9. Switzerland
10. Canada
11. Ireland
12. Denmark
13. Australia
14. Poland
15. Germany
16. Belgium
17. USA
18. Hungary
19. Slovakia
20. Russia

**Austo** · 02-17-2013, 01:38 PM

Wheres Austria?

**Madonna** · 02-17-2013, 01:40 PM

maybe they made mistake

**Austo** · 02-17-2013, 01:43 PM

Originally Posted by jusia9

maybe they made mistake

They wrote it wrong

I am sure place 13 is Austria and not Australia.

**Madonna** · 02-17-2013, 01:47 PM

haha could be could be

**SKYNET** · 02-17-2013, 02:18 PM

a some states of the world are still not included in "PISA" like Ukraine where live dozens of the smartest motivated heads..
Anyway, if I had choice between those countries as Hong Kong and Finland, I'd choose Finland. A few reasons - 1: geography, 2: culture, 3: race.

**SKYNET** · 02-17-2013, 02:22 PM

Programme for International Student Assessment

**EagleAtHeart** · 02-18-2013, 12:06 AM

10. Canada

I saw that and immediately knew it's Lberal garbage

I've attended three different Canadian Universities, of which, according to the same studies are some of the top three in the world

What I call tell you from my experience is, higher education is a joke. The grades are totally inflated... they bell-curve the marks up, because of the changing demographics (blacks, browns, orientals that make up approx. 70% of the student bodies). And this just isn't in the dumb Liberal Arts or Humanities classes, I sat in a grad level Econometrics class next to a guy that couldn't even do basic diferential calculus lol