The story of Korean education over the past 50 years is one of remarkable growth and achievement. Korea is one of the top performing countries in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey and among those with the highest ...

This volume combines an analysis of PISA with a description of the policies and practices of those education systems that are close to the top or advancing rapidly, in order to offer insights for policy in the United States.

The story of Korean education over the past 50 years is one of remarkable growth and achievement. Korea is one of the top performing countries in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey and among those with the highest proportion of young people who have completed upper secondary and tertiary education. Korea is continuously exploring ways to improve its education system and has dramatically increased government investment in education over the last decade. Nevertheless, further reforms are needed to spur and sustain improvements. Rapid globalisation and modernisation are also posing new and demanding challenges to equip young people of today and tomorrow with skills relevant to the 21st century. The report Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education: Lessons from PISA for Korea aims at helping Korea to identify and address education policy challenges in an international perspective. To this end, it examines the Korean education system through the prism of PISA, considers recent policy developments and suggests specific policy options to foster improvements. The report also provides an in-depth analysis of the experience of other high-performing countries.

This report compares the performance of 15-year-olds in the United States in PISA against the global patterns and trends.

This report presents examples that might be useful for Japan from other countries with consistently high-performing education systems.

This report presents the best current evidence about what can make teacher-oriented reforms effective and points to examples of reforms that have produced specific results, show promise or illustrate imaginative ways of implementing change.

There is increasing recognition that teachers will play a key role in preparing students for the challenges of the future. We expect teachers to equip students with the skill set and knowledge required for success in an increasingly global, digital, complex, uncertain and volatile world.