Tuesday, November 26, 2002
SOUTH KOREAN SCHOOLS BEST IN THE WORLD?
While the reasons for this are manifold, one of the biggest is simply the amount of time Korean and Japanese students spend in school or in before- or after-school tutoring programs.
GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- South Korea has the most effective education system of the world's richest countries, with Japan in second place and the United States and Germany near the bottom, a United Nations study has said.
The ranking "provides the first 'big picture' comparison of the relative effectiveness of education systems across the developed world," the United Nations Children's Fund study said.
"It is based not on the conventional yardstick of how many students reach what level of education, but on testing what pupils actually know and what they are able to do," UNICEF said.
While the reasons for this are manifold, one of the biggest is simply the amount of time Korean and Japanese students spend in school or in before- or after-school tutoring programs.
