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.

Wolves Among the Sheep > Is Duplantis inviting Satan to test him like he tested Job?

 

Televangelist Jesse Duplantis calls poverty a ‘curse,’

says his wealth is because he’s ‘blessed’

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Monday, April 29, 2024

Televangelist and prosperity gospel preacher Jesse Duplantis, who has an estimated net worth of around $20 million, has called poverty a "curse" and says his wealth — which includes a private jet and a 40,000-square-foot mansion in Louisiana — comes from being "blessed" by God. 

He may be right. God blessed Job with riches twice, but, in between, Job suffered greatly. Has Duplantis been tested by Satan like Job. Has he received his reward in full like the hippocrites? Asking for a friend.

In New Testament days our riches should be counted in spiritual blessings not financial blessings. Is he teaching his followers how to draw close to God, or how to use Him like a genie to get rich? God never appeals to the flesh. 

"Let me give you a prime example why I don't care what people think about me, about what I have. Now look at me. Look at me. I am a very blessed man," Duplantis said in an online "Boardroom Chat" session with his wife, Cathy, earlier this month.

"Me and Cathy are very blessed. I'm spiritually, physically, and financially [blessed]. I've had more people criticize me over that jet. They still can't get over it. Criticize me over my house. They didn't pay for it. I paid for it. Do you understand what I say?" he asked.

In 2018, Duplantis faced widespread criticism for trying to raise money from his followers to purchase a $54 million jet.

In the "Boardroom Chat" session, Duplantis argued that most people's troubles stem from disobedience and claimed "Christian propaganda" makes people think "poverty is a blessing." 

"Most people's troubles come because people disobey. That is just simply the truth. Wars, rumors of wars, people always mad about somebody," he said. "It's usually someone who has enough power to change 'people's thinking,' I call it. Especially in the Church, I call it Christian propaganda."

The televangelist highlighted what he sees as propaganda in the Church.

"You know that 'poverty is a blessing?' That's a lie. Poverty is a curse. It's not in Heaven, none whatsoever," he said, quoting common phrases some Christians use to challenge the prosperity gospel. "'Jesus was poor.' When was He poor? Did you ever hear Him say, 'I can't eat today [because] I don't have anything?'"

Duplantis further suggested that people frustrated about not being blessed when they give financially to a ministry are emotionally manipulated into giving instead of giving out of obedience to Scripture.

"If you move on people emotionally to give, and you do that a lot of times with poverty … why don't you move on people to simply obey God's glorious word that He will do what He says," Duplantis argued. "A lot of people raising money on people's emotions, so they don't get blessed."

Duplantis attempted to use Psalm 49:16 to suggest that the Bible tells believers not to worry about how much another person has. The scripture he read and the verses that follow appear to warn against being enamored by financial wealth.

"Do not be overawed when others grow rich, when the splendor of their houses increases; for they will take nothing with them when they die, their splendor will not descend with them," the Scripture states. "Though while they live, they count themselves blessed — and people praise you when you prosper — they will join those who have gone before them, who will never again see the light of life. People who have wealth but lack understanding are like the beasts that perish."

Duplantis shared his thoughts on Christians turning the other cheek, according to Matthew 5:38-48. He argued that Christians should not interpret this as the scripture asking Christians to be pacifists because he does not subscribe to that view.

"I'm just going to be honest with you. … I've been spit on, slapped and everything when I've been preaching. But I'm not going to let somebody just come up to me and slap me if I'm not preaching and somebody just wants to slap me," he said.

"You better believe in healing because something's coming down. … Don't let this small stature fool you. I get me a baseball bat if I got to. You know what I'm saying? I don't mean that pridefully but … I know what I can do with a baseball bat."

According to Got Questions Ministries: "Turning the other cheek does not imply pacifism, nor does it mean we place ourselves or others in danger."

"Jesus' command to turn the other cheek is simply a command to forgo retaliation for personal offenses. He was not setting government foreign policy, and He was not throwing out the judicial system," the ministry notes. "Crimes can still be prosecuted, and wars can still be waged, but the follower of Christ need not defend his personal 'rights' or avenge his honor."

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Ozzone 8-29 > There is continual testing in the life of faith up to the point of our physical death.

 

Covid-19 > Teens nightmare reaction to vax; School Districts nightmare reaction to parents; Sweden ends most testing

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Teenager suffers vaccine reaction, now wheelchair bound

Within minutes of receiving her second COVID shot, Jasmine experienced pins

and needles in her foot, tightening at the back of her neck and a headache.

By Tamara Ugolini | 

February 03, 2022 | 

Jasmine Comeau is a 17-year-old Grade 12 student from Miramichi, New Brunswick.

She was eager to get back to normal so she could enjoy her final year of high school, and wanted to do her part to ensure that would happen. Her medical officer of health, Dr. Jennifer Russell, even went so far as claiming “There is a road back to somewhat of a normal life and it runs through a vaccination clinic…”

Jasmine’s mother, Diane Siemens, and her have been left to try to advocate for themselves and navigate unchartered territory with little to no support from the very government that coerced this statistically at zero-risk teenager into this injection.

Diane is a Licensed Practical Nurse who is also doubly vaccinated. Her experience was much different than Jasmine's.

A few days after New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs' proof-of-vaccine mandate came into effect, Jasmine caved and signed up to receive her second Pfizer injection.

Immediately she felt the liquid go into her arm and run cold throughout her veins. Within minutes, she experiencing pins and needles in her foot, tightening at the back of her neck and a headache.

After expressing concerns to her mother, clinic staff had Jasmine wait an additional 10 minutes — for a total of 25 minutes — before releasing her with instructions to go home, take Advil and rest.

Within four days Jasmine’s mother called an ambulance when after her condition worsened and she became increasingly unable to walk.

She now experiences pain daily, including tremors and muscle spasms that last upwards of 45 minutes. Jasmine is now wheelchair bound and unable to live a normal life. She cannot navigate the bathroom, and her hospital bed now occupies her family's dining room, since she cannot climb the stairs to her bedroom — a space she recalls as being “very pretty.”

Jasmine and Diane are forced to rent hospital equipment such as a walker, a hospital bed and a wheelchair. They have been told that Jasmine’s condition is temporary, but as months drag on, they question this prognosis. Her medications and supplements are extensive and expensive.

Diane has also been off work to assist Jasmine with the 24/7 care that she now requires. Their finances have become so strained that Diane set up a GoFundMe account to help with the endless costs.

The mother and daughter duo want to see an end to vaccine mandates before more children and adolescents are maimed. They express concern over the lack of informed consent and wish the news and government officials educated the public about the serious potential of vaccine injury.

Of course, Canada's legacy media will never touch this story.

Parents of unmasked children threatened with ‘criminal charges’

School administrators said unmasked students could be considered a

“clear and present danger”

©  Mindy Schauer/MediaNewsGroup/Orange County Register via Getty Images

The Ripon Unified School District in California’s Central Valley warned parents this week about “potential actions” that could be taken against parents and students who do not comply with a mask mandate in place.

In a letter sent to parents this week, first reported on by Red State, parents are told to “remove” any children from campus who do not have face coverings. It goes on to say children who do not comply could lead to labeling the offending child’s presence as a “clear and present danger to the life, safety, or health of a pupil or school personnel.” 

Other potential consequences include contacting Child Protective Services on the “abandoned” child, as well as identifying the students as truants, which could ultimately lead to criminal charges against the parents. 

“Again, the District would hope that it isn’t forced to consider these admittedly more drastic alternatives, but what action the District ultimately is forced to take is dictated by your actions in this regard,” the letter warns. 

Officials with the school district told local media that the letter was sent out because a “few individual families” were “demanding” to know the legal consequences of not complying with the mask mandate. 

Options like calling Child Protective Services are “part of the general legal guidance that was prepared for several districts,” but do not reflect “district policy,” school officials told a local ABC affiliate. 

CPS would probably be less than enthusiastic to receive such calls. It's not like they don't have something better to do.

Mask mandates in schools currently vary across the US with some states flatly denying them, while others firmly keeping such precautions in place, nearly two years after schools first went to remote learning in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Mask mandates and mandate bans have both led to protests from parents across the US, as well as various legal battles, including a lawsuit against Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin from multiple school districts over a recent executive order banning mask mandates in schools.

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Sweden ends widespread COVID-19 testing for residents

By Clyde Hughes

   

A health worker collects COVID-19 PCR tests at a testing site of Svagertorp, Malmoe, Sweden, on Tuesday. Swedish health officials said Wednesday it will no longer do mass testing for the public going forward. Photo by Johan Nilsson/EPA-EFE

Feb. 9 (UPI) -- Sweden ended widespread testing for the coronavirus on Wednesday, closing up mobile tent sites and drive-in centers against trends in other European countries.

The Swedish Health Agency head Karin Tegmark Wisell told local media that aggressive testing for COVID-19 could no longer be justified given the numbers.

According to Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, the country's seven-day case average has dropped by more than half, from 40,922 at the peak of the Omicron variant spread to 16,668 as of Tuesday.

"We have reached a point where the cost and relevance of the testing are no longer justifiable," Wisell said, according to The Journal. "If we were to have extensive testing adapted to everyone who has COVID-19, that would mean [$54.8 million] a week and [$219.5 million] a month."

Swedish officials said only healthcare and eldercare workers and the most vulnerable will be tested for free if they are symptomatic, while the rest of the population will be asked to stay home if they show symptoms.

Officials said tourists from member European states will be allowed to travel freely to Sweden.

"As part of the continuing work to phase out the infection control measures against COVID-19, the government today decided to lift all restrictions on entry to Sweden from the Nordic countries and other [European Union] and [European Economic Area] countries," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice said, according to SchengenVisaInfo.com.

"The decision follows an assessment by the Public Health Agency of Sweden that the entry restrictions are no longer a proportionate infection control measure."