KEY POINTS:
Two groups - Pakeha-Europeans and Asians - consistently feature in New Zealand's top Pisa scores. Asians account for just 9.2 per cent of our population, yet their presence in the top grades in maths, science and reading is always obvious. Could Asians be lifting New Zealand's educational ranks?
In science, 5 per cent of Pakeha-European and 6 per cent of Asian students achieved Level 6, the highest proficiency. It's neck and neck at Level 5, too - 17 per cent Pakeha-European and 17 per cent Asian students. Ditto for Level 4 or higher proficiency - 50 and 48 per cent respectively.
Reading is the same story. Nearly one in five (19 per cent) Pakeha-European and Asian students reached the highest level. Close to half of both groups reach Level 4 or higher.
In maths, Asian students have an edge. Their mean score (548) in mathematical literacy was 50 points above the OECD mean of 498. Pakeha-European students' mean (539) was similar, but there is a larger proportion of Asians (11 per cent) compared to Pakeha-Europeans (7 per cent) at the highest level. Once again, just over half of both groups reached Level 4 or higher.
So is our growing Asian population having an effect on our overall educational performance?
"The good Euros are very, very good, but if wasn't for the very strong Asian influence, our maths results wouldn't be nearly as good as they are," says Rory Barrett, head of maths at Auckland's Macleans College which has a large Asian component on its roll.
Barrett reads over the school's results from the annual Australasian maths contest. Out of the 40 students scoring higher than 84 per cent, 34 are Asian.
"Asians completely dominate any sort of competitive maths," says Barrett who observes the influence has a positive side. "One of the benefits of having a lot of Asians at the school is that the bright Europeans pull their socks up - they realise if they want to compete they have to rise to the occasion."
Why are so many Asians so good at maths? "My opinion is when they come to school, they already know their algebra inside and out and the great majority are keen to learn and have got good attitude."
Barrett says it's important not to generalise but notes that Asians take education seriously and are very concerned about marks.
PPTA president Robin Duff agrees. "As immigrants come into countries they are often much more fastidious about achieving and being successful." Such motivation, coupled with concerned involvement and close monitoring of results by parents, often helps in getting better results. "In my experience of Asian parents, they often have very high expectations of their youngsters."
What goes on at home - especially at a younger age - certainly has an effect on achievement. Pisa data from parents shows children who, at the age of 10, regularly read books on scientific topics, performed 39 score points higher than children who hadn't. Pisa noted the advantage of having an early interest in science was largest in New Zealand, Luxembourg and Iceland, where it corresponded to between 53 and 60 score points.
We put the proposition to the Ministry of Education - that just as our large tail in under-achievers brings our performance down, could the influence of Asian students' high performance bring our scores up?
The Ministry says there's no correlation. It surveyed 555 Asian students, comprising 11 per cent of the Pisa student sample. About one third were Chinese, one quarter Indian and the remainder included others groups such as, Korean, Fijian Indian and Filipino.
"There would be no significant shift because Asian students are not a large proportion of the Pisa/school population," the Ministry said. "The mean score would decrease slightly, but well within the margin of error. It would not be accurate to say the Asian student results changed the overall result." The Ministry points out that while Asian students do score in high numbers at the higher levels, they also figure at the lower levels. In maths, for example, 11 per cent of Asian students were at, or below, Level 1 which was similar to Pakeha (9 per cent).
Mathematicians the Herald spoke to were not so sure. They said it would depend on the method used to show statistical significance.
Pisa does have some data on how immigrant 15-year-olds performed. First-generation immigrant students perform at the same level as their native peers in Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. Second-generation students here and in Israel have lower scores in Pisa than their first-generation counterparts. But both generations here score towards the top end of the scale.
