Deirdre Mundy captures exactly what I have seen in India and China and what I believe is the key difference in education between the three countries:

“So, worst-of-the-worst schools aside, could the big difference between an Indian 10th grader and an American simply be one of work ethic?”

Indian and Chinese students work harder at academics because that is what their cultures and families value. They are not smarter than Americans, just more focused on intellectual achievement. The same is true in Finland and Singapore which routinely beat Americans on the TIMMS and PISA tests.

What is worrisome for America about Indian and Chinese academic achievement is the sheer size of their populations – India 1.1 billion, China 1.3 Billion. Finland has about 5 million people.

Looking at student bodies – India has 212 million K-12 students, China has 194 million and the US has 53 million. Even with high dropout rates, they have a larger population which over time will have a higher average education and greater cognitive skill, by dint of their cultures and the rigor and pace of their curricula.

I believe this has important implications not only for the rate of economic growth of each country, but also where the new industries of the 21st century are likely to flourish.

But as Deidre observes all America needs is motivation. Sputnik provided that in the late 1950′s and the push in education and R&D investment powered our economy for 40 years.

With my film Two Million Minutes and the Third World Challenge, I’m trying to provide motivation for Americans to “stay in the game” in the 21st century. I would hate to see other industries collapse like the US auto industry before we realize we face an economic challenge.

One industry to watch over the next 10 years is Pharmaceuticals – India and China have quietly been building enormous R&D capacity in biotech and drug discovery and already have globally competitive generic drug manufacturers. The FDA is opening 3 offices in China. Watch as these countries climb the value curve to new drug discovery, clinical testing and delivery.

Thank you all for taking the Third World Challenge and for your thoughtful comments.

Bob Compton
Executive Producer
Two Million Minutes
http://www.2Mminutes.com

I’d love to hear an answer from someone with in-depth knowledge of the Indian education system. My guess is that these questions are for a small minority of students with strong English skills on a math track.

Looking at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_India

I found:

- “In 2002/2003, an estimated 82% of children in the age group of 6-14 were enrolled in school” – what is the figure for 14-year-olds? And what is the percentage that gets into higher secondary education (the 11th and 12th grades)?

- “Government high schools are usually taught in the regional language” – implying the English skill of the average student may not be high enough to take tests in English; are the test questions translated?

Is anyone here in the know?

As for the questions:

5 were trigonometry questions that – on an honors track – I didn’t learn until the 11th grade, and didn’t actually get good at until I needed it for college calculus.

4 involved factoring polynomials. In theory, that was covered repeatedly starting with 8th grade algebra, but I don’t think I had enough practice to get many of those questions until college.

3 were geometry questions involving area or volume, which were covered by the 10th grade if not earlier.

3 were algebra questions that were covered well in 8th grade.

Finally, there is one area of work that involves the very heavy use of trig functions and factoring polynomials: analog electronics design. Are the Indian schools aiming that directly at a particular career field?

Although there is a renewed interest to focus more now on Math, Science and English language, students in most public schools in my country still has to show positive results. The question of priorities would take center stage.

Our politicians are only good at talking…no concrete actions. Our school children are better off without them.

I used my own eye diameter, and approximated the size – correctly, it seems.

thought the math was well constructed while geography was weak (in fact, I do believe that Q14 of geography has the wrong answer)

I too was going to comment about “smart” and “educated,” but I thought that’d be nitpicky, particularly given my already critical tone. Besides, “smarter” makes for a catchier question, even though the question is really about education, not intelligence.

Questions like the one about human pupils make me wonder how memorization-driven the Indian school system is. I’m not going to restate the tired old “Americans are creative so our school system still rules!” argument because I don’t believe it, but I do wonder how successful “mnemocentric” schooling is after reading stories like these:

“57% of [South Korean] Teenagers Don’t Know When Korean War Broke Out”

http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com/2008/06/57-of-teenagers-dont-know-when-korean.html

(Also, the test itself?

It’s terrible.

The questions are vague, about ridiculously specific and irrelevant things*, and sometimes even simply wrong due to very poor wording.

*That might be a good test for “did you pay close attention to specific things mentioned in our specific classes?”, but a lousy test for “what’s your general understanding of physics or chemistry?” – because I assure you that probably the majority of people with physics graduate degrees couldn’t tell you what the average size of an adult human’s pupil is.

Because that’s not actually Physics.)