7th December 2004
New Zealand students continue to be among the best in the world
Results from an international study of 15-year-old students in 41 countries released today have shown New Zealanders
continuing to achieve at a high level by international standards.
The OECD report on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) assessed students in reading, mathematics,
science and problem solving in 2003.
"PISA 2003 shows New Zealand students are performing significantly above OECD averages and on a par with students in
countries like Australia and Canada for all four achievement areas, Acting Secretary for Education Rob McIntosh said
today.
"I'm pleased that our students continue to appear among this group of high performing countries.
"It is also encouraging that this is the first year problem solving has been assessed and our students have shown
themselves to be really competent in this key area.
"However, as in 2000, PISA 2003 shows that, while the majority of our students do well, there are still significant
numbers of students not performing as well as we would like.
"This issue has received considerable attention in recent years and will remain a key focus. A range of initiatives is
being implemented to tackle the issue but we would not have necessarily expected to see the effects of these in PISA
2003. This is because the current literacy and numeracy strategies were not being implemented in primary and
intermediate schools when the students involved in this latest study were going through," said Rob McIntosh. (See
attached backgrounder for details of initiatives).
The first PISA study was carried out in 2000. In this second cycle nine more countries participated and this meant well
over a quarter of a million students internationally were assessed. In New Zealand, around 4500 students from 173
secondary schools participated in the study.
"While individual country rankings will fluctuate from study to study, partly as more countries participate, our overall
level of performance remains high," said Rob McIntosh.
"Overall the results highlight the hard work that is going on in schools, and I want to acknowledge our students and
thank teachers, principals, boards of trustees, parents and everyone who has helped contribute to this positive result."
Link to the New Zealand report
www.minedu.govt.nz/goto/pisa
Link to the International report
www.pisa.oecd.org
ENDS