Singapore and China lead the world in education scores for 15 year olds

 

Singapore and mainland China top global studentassessment as OECD scores hit record lows

Latest survey of 15-year-old students across 91 countries and economies included new computational problem-solving module for AI era

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Carol Yangin Beijing

Published: 7:00pm, 11 Sep 2026

Singaporean and Chinese students led the world in educational performance in 2025, according to an assessment by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, as average scores across OECD countries reached a record low.

The 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment comprised 760,000 15-year-old students across 91 countries and economies, including OECD members and partners.

This edition of the survey was the largest since the OECD first administered the triennial assessment in 2000.

In the report that OECD released on Tuesday, Singapore outpaced mainland China in reading with 535 points against China’s 527.

The city state also posted strong results in mathematics and science with 563 and 560 points, respectively – second only to China.

China’s ‘sky school bus’ lifts pupils to mountain-top classrooms and a brighter future

Students from mainland China led globally in maths with 612 points and science with 597 points, vastly outperforming the OECD averages of 463 and 482 points, respectively.

The surveyed students from mainland China hailed from the country’s four eastern education powerhouses: the cities of Beijing and Shanghai, and Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.

Mainland China is not an OECD member and did not take part in the OECD’s previous assessment because of coronavirus pandemic-related disruptions.

The 2025 edition expanded beyond reading, maths and science to debut a computational problem-solving module. It tested students’ ability to use programming tools, run experiments and design digital products.

Macau, a special administrative region of China, topped the new digital module with a score of 572. Singapore came second at 563, edging out mainland China’s 560 and well above the OECD average of 500.

Traditionally, Singapore and mainland China place a premium on strong school discipline, academic achievement and perseverance. Both are relatively strict in controlling digital distractions in the classroom compared with many Western systems.

Other top-performing education systems included Macau, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Estonia, Hong Kong and Britain.

In contrast, American students posted mixed results. They scored 490 in reading – down 14 points from 2022 – and 463 in maths, similar to the 465 tallied three years ago. US science scores rose modestly to 502, with computational skills at 513.

At a global level, the results looked bleak. Compared with 2022, average OECD scores slid across the three mainstay subjects to varying degrees.

“The overall performance of OECD countries declined, with the lowest average levels of performance ever observed,” the report said.

Across the OECD, one in five 15-year-old students is now a low performer in science, maths and reading, up from 16 per cent in 2022, according to the report.

Long-term data showed reading had declined since peaking around 2012, while maths fell sharply after 2018. Science performance has dipped more gradually over the past decade.

The report also highlighted a drop in skills critical for the artificial intelligence (AI) era, such as evaluating information, synthesising multiple sources and thinking critically.

And the proportion of “hasty readers” – students who rush through texts and give quick but incorrect answers – nearly doubled between 2018 and 2025.

Digital distraction in classrooms was identified as a major driver of the slump, with more than a quarter of OECD students reporting that peers were distracted by electronic devices during science lessons.

Meanwhile, the link between AI usage and academic performance was nuanced.

The 2025 data revealed that students who used AI for specific tasks such as drafting, summarising or research performed worse in science than non-users.

However, those who used AI for general learning and received AI literacy training at school scored slightly higher.

Mathias Cormann, OECD’s secretary general, said the data showed that “reversing declines in student performance is urgent”.

Technology and AI must be used purposefully rather than as “a substitute for attention, effort and understanding”, he added.

The War on Drugs > Singapore serious in war on drugs - vapes and Kpods have consequences even for tourists

 

Singapore to increase fines, threaten caning

for vape users

By Andrew Sookdeo

   

Singapore introduced new penalties for vaping, including increased fines and caning. File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI | License Photo

Aug. 28 (UPI) -- Singapore on Thursday introduced higher fees and the threat of caning as punishments for vaping in an effort to crack down on the use of drug-laced vapes.

The increased penalties will take effect on Sept. 1, the same day that Singapore will classify 15 etomidate -- an anaesthetic agent found in Kpods, or vapes laced with drugs -- will be reclassified as a Class C drugs.

The new penalties will increase fines for people younger than 18 caught using non-drug-laced vapes for the first time from about $233 to roughly $389, while fines for people older than 18 will increase from about $389 to approximately $545.

A second offense will carry a penalty of three months in rehab, with the threat of prosecution for failing to attend, while a third offense will result in prosecution and potential fine of up to about $1,559.

The Ministry of Health and of Home Affairs said the new penalties will include caning, fines starting at $300 for people younger than 18 and $500 older than 18, alongside longer jail terms if caught vaping and required rehabilitation.

Kpod users face the same penalties, along with the potential to be prosecuted and fined up to nearly $7,800 a two-year jail sentence or both.

Drug-laced vape suppliers will face up to 15 strokes of the cane and 20 years in jail.

Foreigners and tourists will also face the same penalties, but may also be deported from the country.

Singapore initially banned vaping in 2018, but is introducing the new penalties to combat the rising use of Kpods.

"Vapes have become a gateway for very serious substance abuse," said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung when he introduced the new laws.

Kung also said during a press conference that 80% of etomidate abusers are younger than 30.

"Being largely young and probably ignorant, we think they are different from hardcore drug abusers, and they may be more open to giving up," he said.

Other countries such as the U.K., Belgium and Australia have all made stiffer rules on vaping.

Corruption is Everywhere > Especially in the Far-East; China set to break record corruption stats

 

Ex-Singapore minister Subramaniam Iswaran

receives 1-year prison sentence for graft

By Paul Godfrey

Singapore's former Minister of Transport Subramaniam Iswaran leaves the High Court after being sentenced to 12 months in a rare government corruption prosecution case on five charges, including four counts of accepting gifts as a public servant and one count of obstructing justice. Photo by Simon Lim/EPA-EFE

Oct. 3 (UPI) -- A former Singapore government minister was sentenced to a year in prison Thursday on corruption charges after pleading guilty to accepting gifts worth more than $300,000 including Formula 1 race and soccer match tickets, private jet travel and hotel accommodation.

The city state's High Court handed down the jail term to 62-year-old former transport minister Subramaniam Iswaran for four counts of obtaining valuable items from two local businessmen and a single count of obstructing justice by accepting the gifts ranging from big overseas ticket sports and leisure items to a folding "Brompton" bicycle and alcohol.

Another 30 charges under the same section of the penal code were taken into consideration at Thursday's sentencing hearing after Iswaran was convicted on September 24.

Iswaran was arrested in July 2023 following an investigation by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau into his dealings between 2017 and 2022 and repayment in May 2023 of a $4,400 business class ticket from Doha to Singapore paid for by one of the businessmen that the prosecution alleged was aimed at throwing the CPIB off the scent.

Justice Vincent Hoong overrode the 7-month sentence sought by prosecutors saying that Iswaran had abused his power and damaged public faith in the government, referring to the battering the reputation of the ruling People's Action Party has taken from the scandal.

Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said he was "saddened and disappointed" at the way the career of the 25-year veteran of parliament and Communications Minister and Trade and Industry minister had ended.

But he warned that Singapore's system of government and politics must be above reproach and without graft of any kind.

"As painful as it is to act against a colleague and friend, it is our duty to do so when necessary. Our system of government and politics must always stay clean and free from corruption," said Wong, adding that public officials in whom the public had placed their trust had to hold to the highest standards of integrity.

"This is absolutely vital and non-negotiable," Wong said.

Cabinet ministers are paid more than $400,000 a year, compared with the median annual salary of $48,000, in part to lessen temptation in what is the wealth capital of southeast Asia and possibly the entire region.

Iswaran, Singapore's first politician to face a criminal prosecution in almost a half-century, is set to surrender Sunday to begin his sentence at Singapore's tough Changi Prison where death row inmates are held and prisoners sleep on straw mattresses on the cell floor.

Ruled for almost six decades by the party of Singapore's founding father the late Lee Kuan Yew, the city-state is renowned for its orderliness, low crime and clean civil service and government in a region swamped in corruption, consistently ranking in the top least corrupt states globally.

But, alas, corruption is everywhere.

China on track to break 2023 ‘tigers’ record as top anti-corruption watchdog nets 44

Four officials held over past fortnight take total to highest for January to September, one short of the record 45 for the whole of 2023

William Zheng

Published: 6:00pm, 1 Oct 2024Updated: 6:21pm, 1 Oct 2024

With three months still to go on the calendar, China’s top anti-corruption watchdog has detained nearly the same number of “tigers” as it did last year, setting a fresh record for President Xi Jinping’s signature clean-up campaign.

The latest “tiger” to fall is again one of its own, a senior inspector from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) – China’s top political disciplinary and anti-corruption agency.

Li Gang, a disciplinary head, had been deputed by the CCDI to the Central Organisation Department – the ruling Communist Party’s top personnel office.

The CCDI announced on Monday that Li was “under disciplinary review and supervision investigation” for “suspected serious violations of discipline and law” – a common official euphemism for corruption.

Three other senior officials have also been placed under investigation on similar charges over the past fortnight.

They are Cao Xingxin, deputy general manager of state-held telecoms giant China Unicom; Sun Yuning, deputy director of the General Administration of Customs; and former deputy education minister Du Yubo.

This means a record 44 “tigers”, or senior cadres, were placed under investigation in the first nine months of the year – compared to 34 by the same time last year, according to a tally by the South China Morning Post.

The CCDI announced investigations into 45 senior officials last year. It was the highest tally since Xi launched his sweeping anti-corruption campaign in 2013, vowing to go after both “tigers” and “flies” – powerful leaders and lowly bureaucrats.

Two more have since been added to the 2023 total, with the Politburo announcing in June that former defence ministers Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe had also been placed under investigation last year.

All of the detained tigers – as the CCDI refers to them – belonged to a pool of officials known as “centrally managed cadres”, meaning they held ranks at the deputy ministerial level or above.

A smaller number held slightly lower ranks but occupied key positions in critical sectors.

Li, 59, who held a deputy-ministerial post, is the highest ranking disciplinary chief to fall this year after Long Fei, the disciplinary chief of state-owned China Southern Power Grid.

Long was placed under investigation in February and expelled from the party in August over serious violations of party discipline and law.

Addressing a plenary session of the CCDI in January, Xi urged the top disciplinary watchdog to “regularly eliminate bad apples” as the battle against corruption remained “severe and complex” after more than a decade.

The CCDI must “resolutely prevent and address misdeeds”, he said, to strengthen the building of a disciplinary inspection and supervision team and become a “model of self-reform”.

Li spent four decades of his career in his home province of Sichuan, where he served as deputy provincial governor before being transferred to neighbouring Yunnan province in 2021.

He led Yunnan’s provincial organisation department for two years before being transferred to the CCDI, becoming disciplinary chief at the Central Organisation Department last year.

China’s Communist Party on track for 100 million members by year’s end

News of Li’s downfall came just two days after the CCDI announced the detention of China Unicom’s Cao, who had also worked for decades in the organisation department.

Cao, 58, served as party secretary of the National Organisation Cadre College until January last year, when he was posted to China Unicom. The college is in charge of training promising human resource officials within the party and reports directly to the Central Organisation Department.

Also last week, Sun became the highest-ranking serving customs official to face a corruption probe since the clean-up drive was launched more than 11 years ago.

Corruption investigators have reported a slew of crackdowns in various customs offices and entry points across the country in recent years.

The detention of Sun comes about 2½ years after the CCDI launched an investigation into Sheng Guangzu, a former China Customs chief and state railway head.

He was detained in March 2022, five years after his retirement, and expelled from the party six months later. The allegations against him included “using public power as a tool for personal gain”.

Last December, Sheng was sentenced to 15 years in jail and fined 6 million yuan (US$853,000) for influence-peddling and taking nearly 64 million yuan in bribes between 2004 and 2022.

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