THE EDUCATION Ministry yesterday distanced itself from international test scores that put Cyprus in the “below average category” for science and maths in the 12-14 age group.
A total of 38 nations took part in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study-Repeat (TIMSS-R).
The results ranked Cyprus 15th from bottom in maths and 12th from bottom in science.
The international average was 487 for maths and 488 for science. Cyprus scored 476 and 460 respectively. Moldova, Macedonia and Romania were Cyprus’s nearest neighbours in the table.
Turkey was the only European Union candidate country with a worse average than Cyprus.
Nonetheless the performance is up on past years, when Cyprus was down in the bottom 10.
“There are black lies in statistics. So when you’re confronted with research you must look into it very carefully to explain and interpret the results,” chief education officer Frixos Demetriades told the Cyprus Mail.
Cyprus has one of the highest proportions of university graduates per population in the world.
TIMSS-R statisticians also warned that the rankings were far from absolute, because not every single student in each country was tested.
Old fashioned textbooks, a huge curriculum and rote learning have been blamed for the miserable performance in the past, despite a strong homework tradition and smaller class sizes than elsewhere.
In recent years, less than 40 per cent of high-school pupils aged 12 to 14 took the tests.
They tested ability in mathematics, algebra, geometry, biology, physics and other subjects.
Chile, the Philippines, Morocco and South Africa were at the bottom of the table in both subjects.
Top scorers were Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Hungary and Japan.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
