Quality and equity of student performance in mathematics in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam

Abstract

Education has long been acknowledged as one of the key factors in enhancing both social and economic wellbeing and is receiving increasing amounts of attention and priority in many countries worldwide, particularly those in the Southeast Asian region. Nearly every country in this region has invested extensively in education since the 1990s. However, not all countries have managed to improve the practice and effectiveness of their education systems over the past two decades. Students in Singapore have consistently shown superior academic performance in various international assessment programmes, including the PISA of the OECD. Students in Indonesia, on the other hand, received the lowest average mathematics scores in PISA 2015. This study focused on assessing the quality and equity of mathematics performance with respect to 15-year-old students in PISA 2015 from five participating Southeast Asian countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. In addition, this study addressed the complex issues involved in making comparisons in mathematics performance of the 15-year-old students among these different countries.