PH students second to last in creative thinking —PISA

Filipino students ranked second to the last when it comes to creative thinking, based on a newly released report of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

The global assessment, which was conducted in 2022, tested the creative thinking skills of 15-year-old students in 64 countries and economies worldwide. It was the first-ever creative thinking assessment under the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) PISA.

Results of the study revealed that the Philippines scored an average of 14 points, which was second to the lowest next to Albania’s 13 mean score. The OECD has an average of 33 points.

Uzbekistan also scored 14 points, while Morocco and Dominican Republic both scored 15.

Meanwhile, students from Singapore, South Korea, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Estonia, and Finland were the highest performing in the creative thinking assessment.

The PISA results showed that the performance gap in creative thinking between the highest-performing and lowest-performing country is “very large” with around 28 score points.

This means that less than 3 in every 100 students in the five best-performing countries perform around or below the mean of the five lowest performing countries, which includes the Philippines.

GMA News Online sought for the comment of the Department of Education (DepEd) regarding the report, but it has yet to respond as of the posting of this story.

The OECD said student participants were asked to think of original and diverse solutions for simple expressive tasks and familiar problems, like coming up with an interesting story idea or thinking of different ways to conduct an awareness-raising campaign in school.

“This assessment measures the capacity of students to generate, evaluate and improve ideas in four different areas - creative writing, visual expression, scientific problem solving and social problem solving - providing governments with data to help students and young people reach their full potential in our changing economies and societies,” OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said in a statement.

Based on the 2022 PISA results, the Philippines ranked as the sixth lowest among the 81 countries and economies that participated in the study, with Filipino learners continuing to lag behind in reading, math, and science.

In December, Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte lamented the Philippines’ poor performance based on the 2022 PISA results, saying that a collective effort must be made to address such a problem. 

Duterte on Wednesday resigned as DepEd secretary, effective July 19, 2024.—RF, GMA Integrated News