Indian students have an average score in scientific literacy which is below the means of all countries which are part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and several others, including Kyrgyzstan, says an international study.
India (Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu), along with eight other economies, took part in the OECD study for the first time in 2010 as part of the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) project. PISA is an international comparative survey of 15-year-olds’ knowledge and skills in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy. The other participants were Costa Rica, Georgia, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Venezuela (Miranda), Moldova, and the United Arab Emirates (Dubai). Earlier, 64 economies took part in PISA 2009.
On the reading front, the results were the lowest among all participants. “The average reading literacy score for Himachal Pradesh was the lowest average reading score observed in PISA 2009 and PISA 2009+, along with that of Kyrgyzstan,” the release said.