A new report by the World Bank puts the results of much-publicized international tests–which many poor nations do not take part in–on a comparable scale as regional exams commonly used by developing countries.
Top-performing students in many nonindustrialized countries often perform worse than the lowest-achievers in developed nations, the World Bank found. Overall, less than 50 percent of students in developing countries reach the minimum level of educational proficiency, compared with 86 percent in wealthier nations.
The study uses a series of research methods to link the test scores of countries taking part in the Program for International Student Assessment and Trends in International Math and Science Study with the scores of countries administering regional exams of their students’ educational progress.
