http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,989237,00.html

얼마전에 OECD 와 UNESCO 에서 통계 조사 했었나 봅니다. 한국애들은 얼마나 잘했을까요?

Girls beat boys at reading - worldwide

British schools do well with value for money and pupils praising teachers, says OECD report

Will Woodward, education editor
Wednesday July 2, 2003
The Guardian

The underachievement of boys in reading at British schools is part of an international malaise, an authoritative report revealed yesterday.
Far from being confined to the UK, the "gender gap" in reading scores appears to be universal.

Girls had higher reading scores at 15 in every one of the 43 countries surveyed in the report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and Unesco.

The difference in scores, based on the results of tests carried out by the OECD on between 4,500 and 10,000 students in each country, is significant in all countries except Israel and Peru, and remarkable in Albania, Finland, Latvia and Macedonia.

On the other hand, when it comes to maths, only in a few countries - and only by a significant amount in Albania - are female students doing better than male. In science, the picture is mixed: in 18 countries, including the UK, males do better; in 22, females do.

South Korea is singled out as a country with small gender differences and high overall performance. In 40 countries, women have higher expectations of their future occupations than men. In Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark and the Russian Federation, 25% more women than men expect to have a white-collar job by the age of 30.

The report, Literacy Skills for the World of Tomorrow, says underachievement by boys in reading is closely linked to a "lack of engagement". Some 58% of boys, compared to 33% of girls, said they read only to get information. Nearly half of the girls but less than a third of boys said they read for at least 30 minutes a day.

In London yesterday, Andreas Schleicher of the OECD, the lead author of the report, said the relative underperformance of boys was a major challenge for educationalists across the world. "You might think that it is genetic or nature but this is not some inevitable feature of our society," he said.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Education and Skills said the UK government had introduced various measures to address boys' underachievement, including the Playing for Success campaign involving football clubs in after-school learning and using "reading champions" to promote reading.

"We have seen improvements across the board but we know that we need to address the difference in achievement with boys and girls. The key stage three framework [for 11- to 14-year-olds] has encouraged lessons to be more direct, explicit and objectives-driven which helps to raise boys achievement."

British students have a marginally higher interest in using email and the internet than the OECD average. Mr Schleicher said countries which did well at reading had students who experienced a wide diversity of reading matter. "Email can be as important as reading books in this context," he said.

On two measures, the UK stands out. It is the only country where rural schools do better than those in the cities. And pupils rate the support they get from teachers more highly in the UK than anywhere else.

Recognition of strong teacher support is not confined to the wealthy countries - students in Argentina, Peru, Albania and Macedonia also recognise that support as beneficial.

Britain is one of those countries which performs significantly above the OECD average in all three domains - reading, maths and science - covered by the report. The others are Australia, Austria, Canada, Finland, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Sweden and Hong Kong.

Unsurprisingly, countries with a higher national income tend to perform better in education terms, but Hong Kong, Russia and Latvia "outperform" in relation to their relative wealth.

Britain performs well by this measure, as it does on the relationship between education spending and performance. The report says spending "is a necessary prerequisite for the provision of high-quality education" but adds that "spending alone is not sufficient to achieve high levels of outcomes".

Once again Britain is one of those with a strong relationship between class and educational performance, along with Germany, Switzerland and the US. Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, Iceland, Japan, South Korea and Sweden "demonstrate that high average quality and equality of educational outcomes can go together".

John Bangs, head of education at the National Union of Teachers, said the report "shows England can do even better if the government doesn't dilly-dally with dead end structural reforms...it is the fi nal nail in the coffin of selection in any way, shape or form."

Finland and three Asian participants - Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea - emerge as the major success stories from the report. But it exposes weaknesses for Israel, Germany and, especially, Latin American countries.

Peru has the worst maths and reading scores. More than half the population is not capable of the most basic reading tasks set by the study at age 15. Brazil and Chile also have among the lowest scores in reading and maths. The average scores in maths reached by students in Peru and Brazil are lower than those reached by 90% of students in other OECD countries.

Argentina, Brazil and Bulgaria have truancy rates three times higher than the OECD average - 10% of students recorded skipping school five or more times in two weeks.