FILIPINO students are among the lowest performers in the new Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test on creative thinking, garnering a mean score of just 14, way beyond the 33 average set by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The new PISA study released late last Tuesday measures the ability of 15-year-old students to generate and evaluate new ideas, along with other aspects of creativity.
It is the first time that PISA tested students on the criteria.
The 14-mean score placed the Philippines in the bottom four of the 64 countries included in the study, the three other countries with the same score range being Albania, Uzbekistan and Morocco.
Singapore topped the rankings, with students in the island state garnering an average score of 41, followed by South Korea with 38, Canada with 38, Australia with 37, and 36 for New Zealand.
The contrast between Filipino students and that of Singapore can be seen by the fact that only around three percent of Filipino students in the PISA study can match the creative thinking abilities of their counterparts, while only 3.4 percent of Filipino students reached Level 5 proficiency in the test, compared to 30 percent in Singapore.
A third of Filipino students scored in Level 1, the lowest level of proficiency in the PISA test.
Aside from Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, and Thailand also scored above the OECD average.
However, the PISA study showed that Filipino students scored the biggest gain when they are curious.
It said they scored three points higher in creative thinking when they were asked about being curious about many things and liking to know how these things work.
Eighty-one percent of Filipino students, PISA said, agree or strongly agree when they are asked if they like to learn new things while 71 percent said they are curious about many things.
Another 78 percent agreed they love learning new things and methods in their respective schools.
It added that this is the highest among the PISA-ranked countries.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, results of another PISA study showed that Filipino students fared worst among more than 70 countries in terms of reading comprehension.
A December 2023 PISA report also had the same results, showing the average scores of Filipino students in reading, mathematics and science have not improved significantly compared to other countries.
The report stated that mean scores showed that Filipino students aged 15 years old garnered only 356 points in science, 347 in reading, and 355 in mathematics.
The mean score for math among OECD countries was 472 points for mathematics, 476 in reading and, 485 in science.
