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(CNN) - Teens in some of China's richest regions are outpacing their peers in the world's richest countries in reading, math and science, according to the new results of a global education study.
The survey found that 15-year-old students from Beijing, Shanghai and the eastern provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang obtained the highest score in the three core subjects, achieving the highest level 4 grade.
The students of the United States were classified in level 3 for reading and science, and in level 2 for mathematics, while the adolescents of Great Britain obtained a classification of level 3 in the three categories.
The findings are part of the Evaluation of International Students of the 2018 Program (PISA), a global criterion of the educational systems that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) takes every three years, a grouping of the richest economies of the world.
Singapore ranked first in the 2015 survey and ranked second this year, although the difference in its score compared to the four regions of China was not considered "statistically significantly different," according to the study.
The findings in Latin America
For Latin America, students from participating countries qualified in level 1 and 2 for reading and science, and level 1 for mathematics. The countries of this region that participated were Chile, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Panama and Peru.
In Colombia, reading performance declined since 2015, when the previous PISA test was done. However, his score increased in math and science. Colombian students had lower grades than the OECD average in the three subjects to qualify, similar results to those of countries such as Albania, Mexico, Republic of Macedonia and Qatar.
In Brazil, on the other hand, only 2% of those examined reached levels 5 and 6 in at least one subject, but in general the country obtained less score than the average of the OECD countries and “the socio-economic status was a strong predictor of reading, math and science performance ”in that country, said the OECD.
And in Mexico, "a period of rapid expansion of secondary education", according to the OECD, allowed us to observe a "general stability in performance" in the PISA tests, since the average performance has remained stable in reading, mathematics and science.
China with impressive performance
China's success in the survey is likely to be questioned due to the fact that only four of the richest areas in the country were surveyed, which means that the results do not accurately represent the tens of millions of students living in other parts of the country. country, especially rural areas.
In 2012, PISA results were criticized for including only students in Shanghai as the sole representative of mainland China, a country of more than one billion people.
The next survey in 2015 was expanded to include four provinces and cities: Shanghai, Beijing, Jiangsu and Guangdong. China still performed well that year, but its scores declined overall compared to the previous survey, when only Shanghai students were surveyed.
The results of the Shanghai test have been criticized for excluding migrant children from the city and not being representative of the city's total student population, which the OECD denies.
Angel Gurría, OECD General Secretary, said in the preface to the last report that the performance of the four Chinese regions was impressive, as their income levels were below the OECD average.
“These four provinces / municipalities in eastern China are far from representing China as a whole, but the size of each is compared to that of a typical OECD country, and their combined populations amount to more than 180 millions, ”he said.
"The quality of their schools today will feed the strength of their economies tomorrow."
In OECD countries, the adjusted net disposable income per average household per capita is around $ 30,500, according to the most recent figures available in the organization's Better Life Index.
That is more than three times the highest equivalent levels in China. In 2018, Shanghai residents had the largest average disposable income in the country with $ 9,100, state newspaper China Daily reported in March, citing the National Bureau of Statistics.
It is not a competition
A record 600,000 students in 79 different countries and territories submitted to the 2-hour PISA test last year, the OECD said.
The authors of the report emphasized that the goal was not to confront countries with each other in competition, but rather "provide useful information to educators and policy makers about the strengths and weaknesses of their country's education system."
"When classifying countries, economies and educational systems in PISA, it is important to take into account the social and economic context in which education is carried out," the report found.
The survey also warned of some worrying trends shown by the top 36 OECD countries.
In the last decade, these nations increased their spending on education at a rate of more than 15% per primary and secondary student, according to the survey authors. But most countries saw virtually no improvement in their students' performance since PISA was first performed in 2000.
Smartphones and misinformation
The report's authors said that critical thinking and reading comprehension are particularly important in the age of smartphones, so students can learn to eliminate the truth of fiction.
“In the past, students could find clear and unique answers to their questions in textbooks carefully selected and approved by the government, and they could trust those answers to be true. Today, they will find hundreds of thousands of answers to their questions online, and it is up to them to discover what is true and what is false, what is right and what is wrong, ”said the report.
“Reading is no longer mainly about extracting information; it's about building knowledge, thinking critically and making well-founded judgments. ”
Less than one in 10 students surveyed in OECD countries could "distinguish between facts and opinions, based on implicit signals related to the content or source of information," the report said.
The only areas in which more than one in seven students demonstrated the ability to distinguish opinion facts were the four parts of China, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Singapore and the United States.
PISA tests