they consistently produce some of the best engineers and scientists in the world
All countries are capable to turning out a handful of amazing engineers and scientists each year from their top percentile students, almost no matter how terrible their school system is overall, so that in itself is pretty uninteresting. Is there any evidence that they are turning out significantly more of them that the rest of the OECD?
The other, more interesting, metric is how are their 50th percentile students doing, or their 25th or their 10th percentile students.
Sure PISA might to be a great metric, but just focusing how well the very brightest students in the country do is a far worse metric.
All countries are capable to turning out a handful of amazing engineers and scientists each year from their top percentile students, almost no matter how terrible their school system is overall, so that in itself is pretty uninteresting. Is there any evidence that they are turning out significantly more of them that the rest of the OECD?
The other, more interesting, metric is how are their 50th percentile students doing, or their 25th or their 10th percentile students.
Sure PISA might to be a great metric, but just focusing how well the very brightest students in the country do is a far worse metric.