Winston Mok

In the US-China tussle for the best brains, Beijing cannot afford to rest easy, even on good Pisa test scores

China’s top international test scores belie an education system constrained by rigid exams and political correctness, with very different outcomes geographically. As the US-China rivalry extends to human capital, Beijing must improve the system

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Candidates for gaokao, the all-important university entrance examinations, relax outside an examination venue in Pingliang city, Gansu province last June. China’s education system risks breeding overtrained test takers, rather than innovative thinkers. Photo: Xinhua

Winston Mok

Published: 2:00pm, 7 Jan 2020Updated: 10:28pm, 7 Jan 2020

Despite the trade truce, the rivalry between the United States and China is likely to be long term. Key areas of competition include the economy, technology, foreign investment, diplomatic influence and military might. But the most important competition may be for human capital. The US may have the best universities and be a magnet for global talent. But China is poised to win hands down, if the performances of its 15-year-olds are anything to go by.

Last month, the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development released its triennial survey of 15-year-olds across the world. China, whose four regions of Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang were surveyed, topped the world in mathematics, science and reading. The bottom 10 per cent most disadvantaged students showed better reading skills than the OECD average across 79 economies.

By contrast, in the same reading test, a fifth of American 15-year-olds could not read at the level expected of those much younger. Separately, a US-administered test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, has also found that two-thirds of American 15-year-olds were not proficient readers.

China also outperforms the US at both the top and bottom ends in the Pisa survey. In the US, 17 per cent of the students surveyed were top performers in at least one subject (maths, science or reading) while almost 13 per cent showed no proficiency in any subject. For China, only 1 per cent of students are such low achievers while almost half are top performers.

Only Singapore comes close with 43 per cent of top performers. Other than Hong Kong (32 per cent) and Macau (33 per cent), every other OECD economy surveyed had a top-performing rate of under 30 per cent – including South Korea (27 per cent), Japan (23 per cent), Estonia (23 per cent) and Finland (21 per cent).