MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Majority of Mercosur teen-agers are 'low performers' in maths, science and reading

Two out of three Argentine teenagers are classified as “low performers” in maths, according to OECD which ranks Argentina 57th out of 64 countries in the subject.

Bad news for Mercosur aspirations. Low standards at schools in most of South America are a common problem according to the latest report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, which has the region's students among the last fifteen in a list of 64 countries.

 In effect two out of three Argentine teenagers are classified as “low performers” in mathematics, according to the report which ranks Argentina 57th out of 64 countries in the subject.

The study, which was based on results from the PISA survey between 2003 and 2012, ranks Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Colombia among the worst 10 performers in mathematics, science and reading. Chile and Uruguay managed only a bit better, but are also among the last fifteen.

The report said that around 4.5 million 15-year-olds in OECD countries, equivalent to more than one in four, “fail to achieve the most basic level of proficiency in reading, mathematics and/or science.”

But in other nations, especially those in Latin America, the share is often much larger.

The number of underachievers in mathematics — a category that groups students who fail to have even “a basic understanding of fundamental mathematical concepts and operations” — reached 66.5%, while slightly improved results were seen in Reading (53.6% of underperformers) and science (50.9%).

The 212-page report, titled Low Performing Students: Why they fall behind and how to help them succeed, recalled that a worrying percentage of 15-year-old students in Argentina score below the baseline level of proficiency in the three core subjects that PISA analyzes.

Out of 637,603 Argentine students that took the exams, 264,105 scored low in all three subjects.

But low standards of schools are common to all countries in the region.

Colombia, for instance, is slightly worse off than Argentina, with more than half of its students failing to reach an acceptable threshold of learning in reading (50.8%) and science (55%) and almost three out of four students (73.8%) underperforming in maths exams.

Brazil also showed similar results, but with a slightly better performance in maths (68.3%). The country joined the select group of nine countries that reduced their share of low performers in mathematics between 2003 and 2012.

Peru was, by far, the nation with the poorest scores in Latin America, with a stunning 60% of students falling below standard in reading and 68.5% “failing” their science exams — the worst in the world among the countries analyzed.

Uruguay and Chile showed moderately better results, but far from the OECD average that had 23% of students as low performers in mathematics, the report said.

The OECD was formed in 1960, when 18 European countries, plus the United States and Canada, moved to create an organization dedicated to economic development. It now has 34 member countries.

“When a large share of the population lacks basic skills, a country’s long-term economic growth is severely compromised,” Andreas Schleicher, OECD director of Education and Skills said yesterday.

To break the cycle of disengagement and low performance, countries can act on a number of recommendations, including “to identify low performers and design a tailored policy strategy, to reduce inequalities in access to early education” and to encourage the involvement of parents and local communities.

The report stressed that “countries as economically and culturally diverse as Brazil, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Tunisia and Turkey reduced their share of low performers in mathematics between 2003 and 2012.” This led the OECD to conclude that “reducing the share of low performers is possible anywhere, given the right policies and the will to implement them.”

“Countries and economies where the majority of 15-year-old students performs below the baseline level of proficiency in one, two or all three subjects PISA assesses may want to consider comprehensive education reforms,” the report said. (BAH).-