CUHK
News Centre

In the recent Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 2006), Hong Kong 15-year-old students perform well compared with their international counterparts. They rank second in Science, remain the top in Mathematics, and advance to the third in Reading among 57 participating countries and regions worldwide.

Hong Kong scores 542 and ranks second in Science, only behind Finland (563). In Mathematics, Chinese Taipei (549), Finland (548), Hong Kong (547) and Korea (547) together rank the top with no statistically significant difference between their scores. In Reading, Hong Kong scores 536 and advances from the tenth in 2003 to the third position in 2006, led only by Korea and Finland (Figure 1). Moreover, the socio-economic status of students is found to have modest impact on students’ performance, suggesting that all Hong Kong students have relatively high quality and high equity of educational opportunities (Figure 2).

The three-yearly Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), organized by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), compares and evaluates the effectiveness of education systems by assessing how well 15-year-olds near the end of compulsory education have acquired the knowledge and skills essential for participating in society.

In Hong Kong, PISA 2006 was commissioned by Education Bureau to the Hong Kong Centre for International Student Assessment of the Hong Kong Institute of Educational Research at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The survey was implemented during May through July 2006. 4,645 students from 146 secondary schools including government, aided and private schools were randomly selected for the assessment. Students were assessed of their ability to apply knowledge in science, mathematics and reading to deal with daily life matters.