Students at Kyungbock High School in Seoul's Jongno-gu District in May take the National United Achievement Test. (Yonhap News)

By Yoon Seungjin

The country ranks among the top performers in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which was conducted for the first time in four years.

In the PISA 2022 report released on Dec. 5 by the OECD, Korean students placed third through seventh in math, second through 12th in reading and second through ninth in science out of 81 countries surveyed, including 37 OECD member states. Rankings are calculated as ranges to account for sampling error.

Among the OECD's 37 member countries, Korea was first to second in math, first to seventh in reading and second to fifth in science.

Conducted every three years since 2000, PISA is a global assessment of the achievement and development of 15-year-old students in math, reading and science literacy. Surveying 6,454 domestic students at 186 schools, this year's assessment was originally scheduled for 2021 but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed it by a year.

Korea's average scores were 527 in math, 515 in reading and 528 in science, higher than the OECD averages by 55, 39 and 43 points, respectively.

The only OECD member countries that scored higher than Korea were Japan, with 536 in math, 516 in reading and 547 in science, and Ireland, whose reading score was 516. 

Korea's average scores in math and reading increased one point each and science nine from the last assessment in 2018. The OECD's average scores fell by 17 points in math, 11 in reading and four in science due to COVID-19.

The British magazine Economist mentioned Korea as a counterexample in its article titled "The pandemic's toll on schooling emerges in terrible exam results," saying, "For other top performers, it was the quality of remote schooling that appears to have made the difference."

"Children were permitted to attend school only part-time for more than a year after classrooms first reopened. Yet they also got lots of help," it added, noting the Korean government's efforts such as dividing classes and hiring more teaching staff.

scf2979@korea.kr