

West vs Asia education rankings are misleading - Dn_Ab
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21728985.800-west-vs-asia-education-rankings-are-misleading.html

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Dn_Ab
It would be interesting to see what tokenadult has to say about this. Myself,
I do not know enough to form an opinion. One point of confusion I have is I do
not think these comparisons can be meaningfully made due to certain
dependencies. If the U.S. is leveraging its innovation momentum and absorbing
the top Math people from the countries that score highest on Intl. Math Tests
then one cannot properly state that those teaching methods are not important.

On the other hand; openess to dissent, open culture and ease of doing business
can act as a positive attractor of creative talent, suggesting teaching
prowess is meaningless beyond some threshold level. As such, optimizing on
teaching instead of "cultural tolerance of dissent" may be missing the forest
for the trees. Consider Signapore. It scores high in Education, GDP per
capita, ecomony and business; it has a very low friction to business and top
Math scores yet does not score so well in innovation. So maybe culture is key.
Too much respect for seniors may deter trend bucking research programs.

Either way, as other countries develop noteworthy institutions, improve
economies and lower barriers to business they will be better able to retain
talent and perhaps we can fiinally factor out what variables are key.

