In China, Nicholas studied maths 20 hours a week. In Australia, it's three

When he was at boarding school in China, Nicholas Zhang, 16, would wake up at 6.30am.

Nicholas estimates he studied maths alone for 20 hours a week in China. Since starting his exchange at Scotch College, Melbourne, at the start of this year, that has dropped to three or four hours.The triennial Programme for International Student Assessment released on Tuesday shows that in mathematics the average Australian student lags more than 3½ years behind their Chinese counterparts and three years behind Singapore.

Maria Lin, 16, moved from Singapore to Adelaide in 2016 when she was 13. After one term of year 8, she was bored, so skipped two years ahead and this year graduated from year 12.She said content was taught faster in Singapore – in year 7 she learnt physics that came up in year 11 in Australia – and students were left to find solutions more independently.

Dr Thomson cautioned that aspects of the east Asian school system would not be a good fit in Australia. Australia has dropped the equivalent of one year in mathematics since 2003, and is now sitting just above the OECD average.

Source: Education Headlines (educationheadlines.net)

Problem is there are a lot of social issues expected by the teachers to teach. They are not allowed to discipline misbehaviour in school so time out & suspensions etc is the only way. Kids love suspensions they learn how to continue to misbehave

Wow what a life....Just give the kids more drugs to make them submit

Yeah, but at least he'll know the correct pronouns for all 52 genders

He looks about as interesting as a Marie biscuit

maths 10 hours a day a happy childhood

perhaps if the government were to put the same amount of money into public schools as they do into the private/catholic school then we might do a better

Our education system is letting our children - and this country - down.

Aussie is lagging behind in everything, and China has been progressing fast in technology. You are happy but poor. China is rich enough to buy up the whole Australia.

Education here is designed to be a tradie (no insult here) - not for science and technology. Higher education is expensive and why be an engineer when you can earn more by doing anything!!

Good on you Nicholas. You deserve your success in whatever your chosen field. Hard work wins out..every time......

20 is too much 3 is too less

Isn't he lucky he has a choice of where he wants to live & study? bullyforhim smh auspol chinadaily

I dunno but why is the Australian public surprised at these poll results on the sorry state of our education?

Comparisons with china are meaningless. You have to understand they are a country with a zillion kids and everybody is climbing over each other to get to the top. And they’ll do anything to get there. A few numbers on a piece of paper, that’s their world. Let’s not go there.

Good on you Nicholas. To what end?

And look how miserable he is.....poor bugger. Plenty of kids like that at my son’s school. All from china. All look like their world has just ended. That’s no life. I agree we don’t do enough but for the love of god don’t follow their example.

Well it's no wonder Australia is falling behind when we're accepting lazy students like Nicholas😌

While there are problems in Aussie primary/secondary school education, China model is definitely not the way to go. I say this as someone through that system. Most are just good at exams and nothing else. Is that really what we want?

Not sure teachers in Australia are up to scratch after watching one on a quiz show who didn't know what a split infinitive is. Is this is the general calibre of our teachers I wonder?

Studied maths for 20 hours a week; doesn't know how many genders there are. Loser!

My iPhone helps me crunch the numbers

On the flip side we are number 1 for gender studies

Why is everyone so racist in the comments Jesus

Are you advocating Australian turn into Chinese? edchat aussieed

Depends if they are being very active in playing sports & doing adventures with the time difference as health is the most important factor.

The failure is lack of funding for smaller class sizes, as well as shit pay for teachers that does not encourage them to 'go the extra mile', with students. Parents are working long hours to make ends meet, and are not available to help and supervise homework.

Australia still has some of the best universities in the world and produces a lot of very talented and sought after people. I don't see the net effect of this supposed issue? It's more of a cultural issue, people are less desperate in Australia than in China/HK/Singapore (1/2)

Does he know how to kick a footy or shoot hoops. How about listening to up-and-coming Aussie bands. Fuck, life is more than studying maths.

But is he happy?

Is this true? 3 hours per week?

Still prefer the Australian system. It teaches students to be individuals instead of mathematical robots. It encourages creativity. How many are encouraged to do an arts degree in Singapore and China? The culture demands maths and sciences. They don’t want no Shakespeare! Lol 😂

I flunked maths and science in school consistently, much to my engineer dad's dismay. I eventually ended up with a PhD in humanities and a 30-year career in research and lecturing. One size does not fit all.

By my calculations that’s 11 hours more

I mean no disrespect in saying this, but having low entry grades to teaching degrees at uni is at the core of the problem. The government needs to do whatever it can to encourage highly skilled people to pursue teaching over a corporate life

The strongest driver of academic outcome is SES. Your party is driving poverty to historic highs. Tories kill education.

with way more students showing aggressive, disrespectful and unruly behavior towards teachers... and test results showing many of them are destined to be bus drivers at best - the future is really looking bright !!

My guess is that Australia (on average) produces the more rounded adult...however, when it comes to jobs and careers, if the results for Aussie kids keep going south, we open ourselves up to generations of manipulation, control and poverty

I think we need to do a bit more, but no I do not think their system is healthy at all. I want my child to do the best he can at school but there is more to life than exam results also. I am not how a 'whole' child can be measured for statistics but kids not just exam results

What is your point ? Tried looking at Finland or even over the ditch? This is vacuous reporting with no depth or reason.

Yeah but what did he get in Gender Studies? Eh?

My daughter stuck spaghetti on paper yesterday in school

So in Australia he is more efficient? Straya

If getting good grades in maths is the only measure of success in life, then sure...this guy is going to do great.

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