Education champion Hong Kong

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23 mei 2012 | The city-state Hong Kong is leading in PISA education rankings. What is the secret behind this success? OECD education expert Andreas Schleicher made a trip to Asia to find out first-hand. In a blog, he describes a city where Eastern and Western philosophy blends and education becomes a top priority.

Back from a trip to Hong Kong, OECD education expert AndreasSchleicher wrote a blog post highlighting how the city-statebecame of the world’s education champions. Much has changed ever since itmerged with China in 1997. Once independent, Hong Kong can barelybe distinguished from neighboring districts. Its “software”,however, is still unique, Schleicher argues. Institutions and ruleof law work differently.

Blend of East and West

“It is intriguing to see how Hong Kong has drawn togethereducational experience from the Eastern and Western world to designa world class education system. You see that in everyday life too,they treat their guests with the hospitality of the Chinese way butqueue on the bus the British way.”

Hong Kong is already at the top in the international PISAranking. In 2009, the city came in on place 4 right after educationchampions Shanghai, Korea and Finland. Yet, major reforms wereimplemented to change the focus from learning by heart towardslearning capacities. 2012 will see the first generation of highschool graduates that studied under the integrated educationregime.

From learning by heart to learningcapacities

Schleicher writes that “the learner-centred reforms underlyingthis new system have been far-reaching, paralleling similardevelopments in other high performing education system. Theyinvolved significant expansion of educational opportunity as wellas a shift in emphasis from teaching to learning, from factmemorisation to development of learning capacities, and fromeconomic needs to individual needs.”

“The broadened and more flexible curriculum seeks a betterbalance between intellectual, social, moral, physical andaesthetical aspects, with much greater emphasis on transversalskills including foundation skills, career-related competencies,thinking skills, people skills as well as values and attitudes. Thereforms have also included more funding flexibility in support ofschools. All of this has pushed schools and teachers to take aprofessional stand and exercise professional autonomy within acollaborative culture.”

For the full blog post, please click here