Education | After rapid improvement in PISA literacies, Macau climbs to third spot

For the first time, Macau has ranked third in all three literacy measures of the Programme for International Student Assessment 2018 (PISA), the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ) announced during yesterday’s press conference on the latest PISA results.
Among 79 participating countries and economies, Macau students scored 525 in reading, 544 in science and 558 in mathematics, preceded only by mainland China (sampled in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang) and Singapore.
Moreover, in terms of the percentage of 15-year-olds reaching the baseline level in all three core literacies, Macau ranks second in the world, according to the latest assessment.
The assessment, organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), has been conducted every three years since 2000. The latest results show considerable improvement over the previous assessment in 2015.
In the 2015 assessment, Macau ranked sixth, twelfth and third, respectively, for scientific literacy, reading literacy and mathematical literacy.
In 2009, Macau had a reading literacy score of 487 in PISA, below the OECD average. The reading literacy score increased to 525 for PISA 2018.
In PISA 2018, the percentage of students with a high level of mathematical literacy is 27.5%, which is 5.5 percentage points higher than the 22% in PISA 2015. Students who scored highly in one of the three categories accounted for 33% in PISA 2018, an improvement over the 24% in PISA 2015.
A statement issued yesterday by the DSEJ drew particular attention to gender differences in the results. The bureau highlighted that Macau females outperformed males in reading literacy, at a male-to-female ratio of 514-to-536.
From PISA 2009 to 2018 gender difference favoring females has been drastically narrowed from 34 to 22 score points, the bureau added. Recent improvement in this area means that, in 2018, Macau males have reverted the inferior trend and are now at par or even beginning to out-perform females in mathematics and science literacies.
Comparing the assessment results with PISA 2015, the progress in mathematics literacy for males is 2.5 times of that of females.
Among the 45 local schools participating in PISA 2018, two-thirds reported an improvement. Among these schools, 14 of them made “significant progress” in reading, science and mathematics at the same time, increasing their scores by 15 points or more.
According to Lou Pak Sang, Director of the DSEJ, the improvement is due to the efforts made by local schools in the past three years.
The DSEJ head proudly announced that “the OECD states that Macau is the only country or economy whose quality of education is advancing continuously and rapidly, and among the countries or economies participating in the PISA study, Macau continues to maintain its top place for high levels of performance and equity in education outcomes.”
After the PISA tests were completed by Macau’s students, not only did the DSEJ Director downplay the role the students had in the improvement, Macau PISA program manager, Cheung Kwok Cheung also didn’t mention the students’ efforts, rather he only said, “Macau’s brilliant achievement would not be possible if not for the unfailing support of the nation, Macau SAR, as well as the schools.” Cheung Kwok Cheung is also the Director of the Educational Testing and Assessment Research Center Faculty of Education of the University of Macau.
Earlier in April, the General Association of Chinese Students of Macau conducted a survey on study pressure faced by Macau’s middle school students.
Among 974 respondents, 11% of students spent more than three hours doing homework on a daily basis, and 36.4% of students spent less than one hour each day on homework.