Why is India so low in the Pisa rankings?

by Tyler Cowen on December 27, 2011 at 2:07 pm in Education | Permalink

That is a request from J. and here is one recent story, with much more at the link:

A global study of learning standards in 74 countries has ranked India all but at the bottom,

sounding a wake-up call for the country’s education system. China came out on top.

On this question, you can read a short Steve Sailer post, with comments attached. Here are my

(contrasting) observations:

1. A big chunk of India is still at the margin where malnutrition and malaria and other negatives

matter for IQ. Indian poverty is the most brutal I have seen, anywhere, including my two trips to

sub-Saharan Africa or in my five trips to Haiti. I don’t know if Pisa is testing those particular

individuals, but it still doesn’t bode well for the broader distribution, if only through parental

effects.

2. Significant swathes of Indian culture do not do a good job educating women or protecting

their rights, even relative to some other very poor countries. On educational tests the female

students are at a marked disadvantage and that will drag down the average.

3. Countries taking the test for the first time may face a disadvantage in manipulating the results

to their advantage; admittedly this cannot account for most of the poor performance.

4. Indian agricultural productivity is abysmal, in large part due to legal restrictions. I discuss this

in more detail in my next book An Economist Gets Lunch, due out in April. That hurts the

quality of life and opportunities for hundreds of millions of Indians, including of course children.

Overall, India has a lot of low-hanging fruit, but the country has further to go than many

observers realize. A quadrupling of per capita income would put them at what, the level of

Thailand?

38 comments 0 0 Reddit0 New

Dawn Miller December 27, 2011 at 2:44 pm

To wit: http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2011/12/24/amartya-sen-playing-snakes-and-

ladders/

Anand December 27, 2011 at 2:56 pm

Corruption’s a big reason too. It’s very common for unqualified people to pay a bribe to

get teaching jobs, and others take a cut of their salary to fudge their attendance record.

Varies quite a bit by state, and private schools are better, but it’s still a significant factor.

neoclassical_libertarian December 27, 2011 at 3:04 pm

A union-run dismal government school system and low agricultural productivity due to

legal restrictions. India sounds like a perfect lesson for left-wing clowns who read your

blog.

When I was growing up in India (1989-2007) in a middle class family, we employed

about a dozen house maids over the years (and employing house maids was very common

in India, even in lower middle class families). Virtually all of those maids sent their kids

to *private schools*. They made like 500-1000 Rupees a month (a U.S. Dollar was like

35-40 Rupees during the 90s). Their only choice was to send their kids to private schools

because the public school teachers won’t even show up for work. The quality of

education in government-run schools and healthcare in government-run hospitals was

often the target of widespread cultural jokes.

David Wright December 27, 2011 at 3:16 pm

Thailand’s GDP per capita is 2.5-2.7 times higher than India’s

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita).

Quadrupling India’s GDP per capita would put it at about the level of Mexico or Turkey.

Steve Sailer December 27, 2011 at 3:18 pm

Thanks for the links. I would add this comment from my earlier post on the subject:

“India ought to be able to do better than score at sub-Saharan levels. Indians in other

countries do better. For example, this same report has Mauritius, a mixed race country in

the middle of the Indian Ocean where 52% of the population is Hindu, scoring like a

Latin American country rather than a sub-Saharan African country.

“But, India itself has a long way to go. It’s likely to take 1-2 generations to get India up

to speed, and we don’t really know what up to speed for India means yet.”

Julie Ward December 27, 2011 at 3:25 pm

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?278843 discusses the fact that India’s

development has been very uneven. Education is only one of the social indicators where

they are not making the progress that might be expected from growth numbers.

Steve Sailer December 27, 2011 at 3:35 pm

By the way, since India v. China is obviously going to be one of the big stories of the

21st Century, how is the rest of China outside of Shanghai, which did outstandingly in

2009, doing on PISA? Tests were given in other provinces of China, but the results

haven’t been released yet. One hint came from a 2010 Financial Times article: ““Citing

further, as-yet unpublished OECD research, Mr Schleicher said: “We have actually done

Pisa in 12 of the provinces in China. Even in some of the very poor areas you get

performance close to the OECD average.””

That statement is a little hard to parse reliably, but it sounds like other Chinese provinces

did okay compared to European and North American countries, which would be

impressive.

Allow me to add the caveat that an 20-80 rule applies to the accuracy of testing. It’s not

that hard to conduct tests that are roughly accurate, but it’s quite hard to fine-tune the

process to give accurate results to subtle questions, such as whether kids learned more

between the 2006 PISA and the 2009 PISA or whether Chile is really doing better than

Argentina, etc. A big question is how representative the samples of test-takers are

compared to the entire population. (E.g., Argentina apparently made a stronger effort than

most participants to round up 15-year-olds no longer in regular schools, so that may have

depressed the results). Another big question is how motivated the test-takers are. PISA

tests aren’t supposed to have any consequences for the students, so lazier test-takers

would be inclined to bubble in answers after they get bored or tired. Perhaps some

countries do a more effective job than others of motivating test-takers? How much effect

does this have on why, say, Finland leads Europe routinely in PISA scores (although not

on TIMSS the one time Finland took it)?

In summary, PISA and the sometimes contrasting results on TIMSS show the same

general broad patterns as seen in countless tests in the U.S.: Northeast Asians out-front on

average, then Europeans, then Latin Americans. So the international testing results have

some obvious prima facie validity, but it’s hard to tell how much faith to put in their more

detailed findings.

Steve Sailer December 27, 2011 at 3:43 pm

India still has major problems with nutrition, both in total calories consumed by the poor

and in consumption of the micronutrients iodine and iron, which are needed to avoid IQ-

sapping medical conditions such as cretinism. Fortifying salt with iodine and flour with

iron became standard in the U.S. between WWI and WWII, which helped us a lot.

Kiwanis International is the leading philanthropy in pushing iodine fortification in the

third world, so if you are looking for a year-end philanthropy to give to, keep them in

mind.

Cassandra December 27, 2011 at 3:51 pm

Further evidence to incriminate India’s political system as a failure.

dearieme December 27, 2011 at 4:07 pm

“Why is India so low in the Pisa rankings?”

Because of a plot by Pakistan, obviously.

Sandeep December 27, 2011 at 5:26 pm

Are you drunk or what? Few Indians attribute their poverty etc. to Pakistan.

YSK December 28, 2011 at 4:58 am

+1

John Robot January 16, 2012 at 2:04 am

It is just a mild joke. India has a tendency to attribute every terrorist attack on it to

Pakistan, and refuses to take responsibility on their hands.

Sandeep December 27, 2011 at 5:41 pm

1. The main tests seem to have been in two states of India, Tamil Nadu and Himachal

Pradesh. I don’t know much about Himachal Pradesh, but Tamil Nadu is not one of those

states that are that backward in womens’ education. And indeed, the pisa guys’ says that :

“In Tamil Nadu-India, there was a statistically significant gender difference in scientific

literacy, favouring girls.”, so your argument doesn’t apply. This difference doesn’t seem

to have been there in “mathematical literacy”.

In fact, Tylers’ point about girls not being educated – might well *raise* the averages,

see point 2 below.

2. Is it possible that India has schools even in areas with very poor infrastructure; that, as

a result, more students get education, but of a worse quality. May be, many other under-

developed countries only start having many schools after developing better infrastructure.

So ironically, this could be a result of free and compulsory education.

For instance, here is an article alleging that in the supposedly well developed state of

Gujarat, school students are doing worse. However, I think it is because of Gujarat’s

success in enrolling girls and poor children in schools – such things lower the averages.

3. There are these things they about Indians having what is called a “chalta hai” attitude,

i.e., high level of tolerance for mistakes. I have heard from some college teachers about

how they have been forced to be too lenient while grading exams because the

Government wants more students to pass or so.

k December 27, 2011 at 8:56 pm

India has a great education system…

…if you happen to be part of the top 0.1% (by income)

Well, I don’t want to quibble, but – just focusing on India versus China – they’re

comparing Shanghai and Hong Kong – these are *Cities* – to Tamil Nadu and Himachal

Pradesh which are *States*.

Do the same, if you want a fair comparison, for Delhi or Madras. I bet you all my

(limited number of) dollars the story will be very different.

Sandeep December 27, 2011 at 9:55 pm

Well, these cities have their share of slums and bad schools. But I agree, most probably

the results will be different. Also note that in Shanghai they probably forcefully evicted

slum dwellers.

I may be digressing a bit here, but even for the richest, I don’t think the schooling system

in India is all that great. I grew up in India. I have had American high school kids either

sitting in or crediting difficult undergrad honors classes I taught; many of them were

excellent. The really good high schools of US are way better than the best schools of

India. In India, everyone goes through the same syllabus, so there aren’t as many options

as in China or US to give the best students a syllabus that does justice to their potential.

Compare with Iran – those who are among the nine students from whom six would be

selected for their IMO team, are totally exempt from the last year of their high school,

and can join any undergrad college of their choice.

Ashwin January 26, 2012 at 11:29 am

True. But i feel that this point would not count for India where the illiteracy rate is quite

high. The government’s prime concern in India obviously is to improve the literacy rate

rather than the quality of education. The Right for Education is a strong proof to validate

my point. Added to this, easier syllabus encourages more number of students even from

poor economic backgrounds to study. This would result in better employment and an

improved standard of living. This is a continual progress. I am sure that in a generation or

two, when the countries’ literary rate reaches the desired level, the quality of education

would definitely improve.

anonymous December 29, 2011 at 2:55 am

Shanghai is a Chinese province. Hong Kong have a status that is higher then a province.

charlie December 27, 2011 at 10:56 pm

“In other words, only a little over one in six students in Tamil Nadu and nearly one in 10

students in Himachal Pradesh are performing at the OECD average.”

““If you look at the entire people entering the workforce, you may find lack of quality.

But if you take the top 10% then they are perhaps the best in the world. This 10% is quite

a large number which is giving India a competitive upper hand.”

Techically, I guess it is the top 15% on TN and the top 10% in HP. But that is….

That is 11M people in TN, and 600K in HP.

So, in other news, the creamy middle class in India is slowing gearing up to western

standards, and the poor remain poor. Globalization works!

Cliff December 28, 2011 at 12:03 am

Maybe if they would let it work. Hard to argue with the results of the last decade world-

wide.

Steve Sailer December 27, 2011 at 11:31 pm

A couple of poorer provinces took the TIMSS previously and also did poorly, although

the top scorers didn’t do too badly. In contrast, on the PISA, virtually nobody in the two

tested Indian provinces scored at global elite levels. I don’t know how to explain this

contradiction between the tests. I would guess off the top of my head that the TIMSS

results sounds more plausible (India’s masses are poorly educated but elites are pretty

well educated) than the PISA results (practically nobody in two moderate income

provinces is at the level of the better Western college students), but I just don’t know

enough to say.

Steve Sailer December 27, 2011 at 11:38 pm

By the way, there’s a similar conundrum involving Mexico’s performance on the PISA

tests. Overall, Mexico does not too bad by Latin American standards, trailing Chile but

ahead of quite a few other countries. (Mexicans score worse on the PISA in Mexico than

do Mexicans in the U.S., but, generally, American students do pretty well on the PISA

once you adjust for ethnicity).

But practically nobody in PISA’s sample of Mexican 15-year-olds in Mexico scores at

international elite levels. Turkey, for example, has significantly more kids scoring a 6 on

a 1-6 scale than does Mexico. I don’t know if that says something about Mexico or

whether it just says that PISA didn’t get into elite schools in Mexico.

Here’s the abstract of a paper by two academics who take seriously the idea that Mexico

is badly missing in top scorers:

Producing superstars for the economic Mundial: The Mexican Predicament with quality

of education Lant Pritchett and Martina Viarengo Harvard University, John F. Kennedy

School of Government November 19, 2008

Abstract. The question of how to build the capabilities to both initiate a resurgence of

growth and facilitate Mexico’s transition into a broader set of growth enhancing

industries and activities is pressing. In this regard it seems important to understand the

quality of the skills of the labor force. Moreover, in increasingly knowledge based

economies it is not just the skills of the typical worker than matter, but also the skills of

the most highly skilled. While everyone is aware of the lagging performance of Mexico

on internationally comparable examinations like the PISA, what has been less explored is

the consequence of that for the absolute number of very highly skilled. We examine how

many students Mexico produces per year above the “high international benchmark” of the

PISA in mathematics. While the calculations are somewhat crude and only indicative, our

estimates are that Mexico produces only between 3,500 and 6,000 students per year

above the high international benchmark (of a cohort of roughly 2 million [which is about

half America's cohort of around 4 million]). In spite of educational performance that is

widely lamented within the USA, it produces a quarter of a million, Korea 125,000 and

even India, who in general has much worse performance on average, produces over

100,000 high performance in math students per year. The issue is not about math per se,

this is just an illustration and we feel similar findings would hold in other domains. The

consequences of the dearth of globally competitive human capital are explored, with an

emphasis on the rise of super star phenomena in labor markets (best documented in the

USA). Finally, we explore the educational policies that one might consider to focus on

the upper tail of performance, which are at odds with much of the “quality” focus of

typical educational policies which are often remedial and focused on the lower, not upper

tail of performance.

Rahul December 28, 2011 at 4:30 am

>>>American students do pretty well on the PISA once you adjust for ethnicity<<<

What exactly does that mean? How does one adjust for ethnicity?

Dylan December 28, 2011 at 4:49 am

White (non-Hispanic) Americans do okay in comparison to European whites, American

blacks do okay in comparison to European blacks (or whatever), and American Hispanics

do great in comparison to Mexico. Probably ditto for American Asians vs. Asian

countries. But American blacks and Hispanics do so much worse than American whites

and make up such a high percentage of the population relative to Europe/Asia that they

drag the average down.

hrt December 28, 2011 at 10:14 am

See the original post by Tino Sanandaji

“The amazing truth about PISA scores: USA beats Western Europe, ties with Asia.”

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-about-pisa-scores-usa.html

Steve Sailer December 27, 2011 at 11:42 pm

Anyway, sorry to post so many comments, but I find international test comparisons

interesting and important. An investment strategy of investing in countries where their

relative test scores are higher than their relative per capita GDPs sounds plausible. But it

also suggests that we ought to try to understand these tests more fully.

K. Satyanarayan December 28, 2011 at 2:16 am

While non-educational factors like nutrition, poor healthcare, discrimination against girls

etc. may be playing a role in the poor showing of India, the single most important factor

is the completely skewed education system and process.

The focus is only on enrollment, attendance and completion of schooling and not at all on

learning outcomes. The incentives for the policy establishment, administrators, teachers

and even parents are not aligned towards learning by understanding.

The quality of teachers and teaching is poor, even in the private unaided schools in the

bigger cities catering to the middle and upper classes. I say this from the personal

experience of my own child’s schooling in a major metro.

While the curriculum itself may not be bad, the focus is on completing the curriculum

irrespective of whether children are learning or not. The evaluation and assessment model

incentivises knowing how to answer questions on a set pattern. Children are used to

knowing the kinds of questions that will appear on a test and knowing how to answer

those specific questions and nothing else, leading to learning by rote rather than

understanding. Parents are not demanding better learning outcomes either as long as they

feel their children are able to crack the current assessment model.

Hopefully, the PISA results will spark a debate towards urgent reform to create the right

incentives and accountability. If not, the demographic dividend is likely to become a

demographic disaster.

Rahul (2) December 28, 2011 at 4:40 am

Somebody needs to send all these scratchings to Tom Friedman and ask him to write a

column on them (snark snark)

Vivek December 28, 2011 at 5:34 am

To compound problems, our media doesn’t even cover stories like these! We, Indians

have the attitude of an ostrich – hiding our heads in the sand instead of dealing with our

problems. Our elites do not like to be confronted with our own ills. Its weird – its like a

self-imposed propaganda that our elites indulge in. All you will see in our media is self-

congratulatory articles about how Obama said Indian kids are doing well in science, or

how some Indian-origin scientist in a western research organization did well (as if that

means anything for India and its institutions). And, not just this, if one criticizes, they are

ostracized as anti-Indians even though its constructive criticism born out of a desire to do

better! Its really frustrating. See this for example:

http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2010/10/04/impressions-from-kapil-sibals-talk-at-csas-uc-

berkeley/ http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/09/22/what-gives-kapil-sibal-sleepless-

nights/

Steve Sailer December 28, 2011 at 1:17 pm

Yes, Obama Administration speeches on American education typically contain ritual

invocations of the outstanding education received by students in China and India, which

can be misleading, to say the least.

Rahul Shastri December 28, 2011 at 5:37 am

The PISA study compares test performance in a couple of states of India, Tamil Nadu and

Himachal Pradesh with elite and better developed countries: almost all the rest of the

countries in the sample ( including Krygzsthan) have literacy rates close to 100%. In

comparison Tamil Nadu in 2011, has a literacy rate of 80%, Himachal Pradesh of 83%.

Also in 1981, Himachal had a literacy rate of 51%, Tamil Nadu of 54%. A large portion

of the kids in school today in India are first generation literates: and first generation

literates won’t find it simple to do well at sophisticated tests. Yes, problems of the Indian

education system which is huge on budgets ( Education is the highest expenditure item

for the government) but poor on measurable outcomes are glaring and malnutrition may

be a factor too ( though Tamil Nadu based its school enrolment programme on a

successful Mid-Day meal scheme), but even if these could be overcome, it shall be atleast

20 years before a Tamil Nadu competes with a Mexico on PISA .

Vivek December 28, 2011 at 5:44 am

And, to the people arguing that the elite in India are well-educated. Not really – India has

1 university in the top 400 (http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-

rankings/2011-2012/top-400.html) and that too ranked somewhere in the 300s. And,

competition is intense for the few good institutions. Most of the elites send their kids

outside the country for higher education.

rec1man December 28, 2011 at 7:43 pm

Tamil Nadu, has 70% Affirmative action covering 90% of the population, meaning 90%

of the population is low IQ The remaining 10% consists of brahmins, some merchants

and some landlords, and these are the one competing globally

http://pisa2009.acer.edu.au/interactive.php

Has detailed interactive tables

For Tamil Nadu- Math

60% is Public school and 40% is Private school

Public School = 334 Private School = 378

The following is not malnourished or from illiterate background It shows even private

schools for the rich are lousy

Long-term, Tamil Nadu ought to equal Mauritius, with scores of around 440

With Educated Mother ( top 44 percentile ) = 371 Owns Family Computer ( top 22

percentile ) = 396 Owns 2 Family cars ( top 10 percentile )= 370 Uses e-mail ( top 15

percentile ) = 369

–

The only missing link is the caste background , but it ought to reflect the 90% low-IQ

affirmative action castes

Mittle December 30, 2011 at 2:15 am

Hey Steve,

If you just took the top 5% of Orissa students in the TIMSS study, they would be #5

compared to the median scores of other countries.

The top 5% averaged well but that doesn’t mean they performed at Level 6 proficiency.

Just 2% of American students score at Level 6! So estimate 2% of the top 5% of Orissa

score at Level 6.

So the TIMSS suggests that about .1% of students are scoring at PISA Level 6. Not much

disagreement in the results.

Also TIMSS studied two below average states in India. PISA looked at two above

average states. Above average states are probably well organized enough that 90%+ of

the 15 year olds are going to school. In below average states, maybe half start high

school?

That difference in attendance could account for why India is near the bottom in TIMSS

compared to the very bottom 3 in PISA.

Arun December 30, 2011 at 9:35 am

This might be of interest: http://www.nbr.org/research/activity.aspx?id=195

India’s Demographic Outlook: Implications and Trends An Interview with Nicholas

Eberstadt

Two excerpts:

1. Perhaps most importantly, China has a dramatic edge over India on mass educational

attainment. As of today, almost everyone in China’s working-age population is at least

literate. By contrast, roughly a third of India’s working-age manpower has never been to

school. India is about half a century behind China in eliminating illiteracy. Even posting

steady educational progress, India will still lag far behind China in attainment levels

twenty years from now.

2. Measuring scientific-technological capabilities is a complex proposition. One useful

aperture on “knowledge production” is the number of international patents a country

earns in relation to its manpower with higher education and its income level. In general,

every doubling of per capita income tracks with a quadrupling of patents per person with

a higher education. At this juncture, India is punching way above its weight in patent

generation. Over the past decade and a half, the U.S. Patent and Trade Office (PTO)

awarded India over three times as many patents as would have been predicted on the

basis of its income level and educational profile. China, on the other hand, does not seem

to be punching above its weight, but rather performing more or less as a country with its

income and education profile would be predicted to perform. Whether China can emerge

as an indigenous center of knowledge production is a huge question for the future of

Asia, and the world. India, on the other hand, looks to be already on course to accomplish

this.

frank December 30, 2011 at 3:49 pm

“India, on the other hand, looks to be already on course to accomplish this.”

China fifth in UN patent filings, India way behind February 09, 2010 09:03 IST Source:

http://business.rediff.com/report/2010/feb/09/china-fifth-in-un-patent-filings-india-way-

behind.htm

China tops US, apan to become top patent filer Reuters – Dec 21, 2011

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/21/us-china-patents-idUSTRE7BK0LQ20111221

Vikram January 4, 2012 at 12:26 am

1) Actually, education quality has been a major issue for the civil society in India for a

while. In fact, the NGO Pratham has been bringing out far more extensive and detailed

reports on education quality in India for past five years, http://www.pratham.org/M-20-3-

ASER.aspx http://www.asercentre.org/ngo-education-

india.php?p=Download+ASER+reports

2) Needless, to say the reports highlight substantial shortcomings in the education quality

in India’s schools, but they also provide us with a time series of the quality.

3) Teacher quality is a really critical issue. There has been a massive expansion in

enrollment in the last decade or so, and schools have not been able to recruit quality

teachers. There are some efforts being made to improve teacher quality through

remediation programs, but the scale of these programs is still limited.

4) The English language news outlets in India wont give much space to such issues since

their audience already has a good station in life, and their kids will probably go to a

‘good’ private (or semi private) school anyways. As for the vast Indian language media

(which is how the majority get their news), I think most of their readers will already

know that government schools are not that great. They deal with this inefficient, corrupt

and insensitive government almost everyday.

5) Just a general note, I think the rest of the world really has to scale down their hopes

from India. Compared to most other countries, India’s social system is quite backward.

This is the sort of thing that takes generations to resolve. The good thing is that its

*formal* political institutions are reasonably developed and its overall security, and

politico-economic outlook is fairly stable (normalized for its population of course). But

that doesnt mean its going to be at the overall level of Europe, the US or Japan any any

time soon. As for the comparison with China, that issue is a bit more complicated than

simply comparing stats comparing economic production or patents etc. Of course,

China’s human development record is much better than India’s but then again, given

India’s peculiar social systems, this has probably been true for most of history. In fact,

seen from a historical perspective, the human development gap between India and China

(and indeed the global average) has probably been the lowest in the post 1950 era.

Small correction to your comments: India’s constituent units are states, not ‘provinces’

Nitin Pujar January 23, 2012 at 6:10 am

Just went through the test protocol and the assessment booklet that a student is expected

to use to answer the PISA test ….. The kids in Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh must

have freaked at just the presented booklet!!!!! LOL The elementary challenge for global

investigations remain in the realm of comparable samples……Shanghai does not equal

Himachal and TN : The Tower of PISA has a tilt that cannot be fixed easily!!!

India Education is dealing with volume delivery issues, period. That is known and needs

tackling…. but we dont need to start another tsunami of policies that will focus on OECD

outcome tracking devices as the holy grail of performance either!! God knows we have

the IIT Entrance Exam Obsession headache, already!!!