South Korea, Its High PISA Scores, and Its Suicide App
Here is irony:
In January 2014, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) noted that students from South Korea were tops at “creative problem solving” on the first such Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test:
01/04/2014 – Students from Singapore and Korea have performed best in the OECD PISA first assessment of creative problem-solving. Students in these countries are quick learners, highly inquisitive and able to solve unstructured problems in unfamiliar contexts.85,000 students from 44 countries and economies took the computer-based test, involving real-life scenarios to measure the skills young people will use when faced with everyday problems, such as setting a thermostat or finding the quickest route to a destination. …“Today’s 15-year-olds with poor problem-solving skills will become tomorrow’s adults struggling to find or keep a good job,” said Andreas Schleicher, acting Director of Education and Skills at the OECD. “Policy makers and educators should reshape their school systems and curricula to help students develop their problem-solving skills which are increasingly needed in today’s economies.”
The test is supposed to demonstrate the ability to solve everyday problems. South Korea students fared well on the test. Then comes OECD director Andreas Schleicher suggesting the “reshaping” of “school systems and curricula to help students develop their problem solving skills.” The implication is that educational systems like South Korea are to be emulated.
Not hardly.
Schleicher fails to note that one of South Korea’s greatest problems involves the rate at which its teens are committing suicide– and it is connected with the pressures of school.
As NPR reporter Elise Hu notes in her April 15, 2015, article entitled, The All-Work, South Korea, Its High PISA Scores, and Its Suicide App | deutsch29:
