Indonesia right behind top-scoring Denmark on OECD education innovation rankings

Indonesia ranked as the second most innovative country in education in this year’s report of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), a result which surprised even Indonesian education experts. indofin

The OECD report placed Indonesia second behind the highest scorer Denmark, trumping more developed countries such as South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Germany, and the United States, which scored ‘below average’ in the point system. The report measured innovations at the classroom and school levels in the primary and secondary education of 24 countries in 2000-2011.

But local educators say the findings are in sharp contrast with another OECD study just last year, the 2013 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which rated Indonesian students as the second-lowest performers in math and science.

Stephan Vincent-Lancrin, the report’s lead author, defines innovation in education either as a new and emerging method that has not been used before or an old practice that has changed significantly, such as using textbooks as primary source and parental participation. Indonesia performed better on the latter.

“The key finding of the report for Indonesia is that a lot has been going on there in primary and secondary education in the past decade — much more than in most other countries covered,” Lancrin tells SciDev.Net.

Some of Indonesia’s education innovations he cited include the increasing use of textbooks in classrooms, and more parental participation, assessments and grouping by student ability.

Read more: SciDevNet

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