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Taiwan has topped a prestigious international league table of 15-year-olds' mathematical ability, vaulting ahead of far richer countries.
The island state's performance in the Pisa tests of mathematics and reading, devised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and published yesterday, reinforces its reputation as a high-technology Asian tiger.
Taiwan also earned fourth place in the parallel Pisa science rankings, published last week, though in reading it was in 16th place.
Tu Cheng-sheng, Taiwan's minister of education, said: “This shows the success of [our] education reform.” Over the past 15 years, the island has introduced a nine-year curriculum which is followed by every student.
But education experts said Taiwan's lead in maths was mainly due to its students' rote learning. Lin Huan-hsiang, dean of the National Hualien University for Education and one of the organisers of Pisa in Taiwan, said: “While calculation and explanatory capabilities are strong, we are still relatively weak in areas such as formulating new scientific problems or logical deduction.”
Asia-Pacific's strong showing was one of the clearest themes of the Pisa survey. The region contributed five of the top 10 in the mathematics and science league tables, and four of the top 10 in reading – thanks to strong contributions from Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Macao, Australia and New Zealand. Mainland China did not participate.
在一个全球声望很高的评比15岁青少年数学能力的排行榜上，台湾学生力拔头筹，超越了很多更富有的国家。
经合组织(OECD)设计了这项“国际学生评估项目”(Programme for International Student Assessment，简称：Pisa)数学与阅读测试，并于昨日公布了结果。台湾在测试中的表现，进一步巩固了它作为一个高科技“亚洲小龙”的声誉。
在上周公布的Pisa科学排名中，台湾排名第四，但阅读排名仅为第16。
台湾教育部长杜正胜(Tu Cheng-sheng)表示：“这显示了我们教育改革的成功。”在过去15年中，台湾推出了针对所有学生的9年制课程。
但教育专家表示，台湾在数学方面的领先主要源于学生的机械式学习。花莲教育大学(National Hualien University of Education)校长林焕祥(Lin Huan-hsiang)是Pisa测试在台湾的组织者之一。他表示：“虽然我们的计算和解释能力很强，但在系统设计新的科学问题及逻辑推演等方面，我们依然相对薄弱。”
在此次Pisa调查中，一个最明显的主题就是亚太地区的强劲表现。在数学和科学排行榜的前10位中，该地区占据了5席，在阅读前10名中也占了4席——这得益于台湾、韩国、日本、香港、澳门、澳大利亚与新西兰的优异表现。中国大陆没有参加调查测试。
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