Friday, January 20, 2012

Blog #1: Global Education rankings India & China



China and India are considered the world’s most populous countries because of their fast growing world economies. As far as education goes both countries are a lot different. China is ranked on top compared to 74 countries putting India at the bottom according to a new global study of learning standards. PISA (Program for International Assessment) is an international test that tests fifteen year old in participating economies on critical thinking in math, science, and reading. According to the PISA assessment India performed poorly. There are questions asked of why did India perform so poorly on the PISA assessments? Michael Schuman for Time magazine states “for one reason may be because India started its pro-growth reforms a decade after China.” In other words they started ten years after China did. They could be the case, but according to an economist Tyler Cowen states that “malnutrition could impact the IQ of Indian students”. This article also talks about because of state affairs they are the reason for young Indians to be shut out of the job market because the state failed them. This leads to them having unequal job opportunities compared to young Chinese.  Tyler Cowen also talks about how on educational tests the female students are at a marked disadvantage that will drag down the average. 

I believe that discrimination against female students is wrong because with them marked as disadvantage on educational test then it is part of the reason India is ranked at the bottom of the global education scale when compared to other countries. Education to me is important and India should have been thinking about the quality of the children and how important education is for them. Women should not be discriminated on getting an education. With less discrimination against female students there will be equal education for both male and females.

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