Is Southeast Asia becoming a region at risk of educational failure?

Three decades on, many of the report’s findings are still relevant today in the US. More surprisingly, they also have relevance in Asia, particularly Southeast Asia, despite the region’s tremendous economic success in recent years. Indeed, Asia’s parents and policy-makers may well face a region of their own at risk. This despite student test scores and stereotypes often used to illustrate a storyline of Asia’s rise and increasing success, particularly in the so-called “STEM” fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

In the 1980s, declining test scores, increasing illiteracy and inadequately trained teachers were symptoms of a US education system in crisis. “A rising tide of mediocrity,” it was said, threatened the US’s “very future as a nation and a people”. The report concluded that the product of this broken system was a workforce ill equipped to maintain the US’s technological and economic lead.

Does this sound familiar? As the 10 member nations of the Associationof Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) anxiously prepare for the increased competition for jobs and investment that may well come with the launch of the Asean Economic Community (AEC) in late 2015, more and more of their citizens are understandably worried about the shortcomings of their own education systems.

In the US, the 1983 report put education reform on the national agenda.  Local, state, and federal reform efforts followed, and subsequent efforts – albeit with mixed results – continue to this day. President George W Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” programme and President Barack Obama’s “Race To The Top” initiative are the latest examples.

Today, from India to the Philippines, nations are in a race to move beyond the current economic model of low-end, export-orientated manufacturing, and climb the value added supply chain. Greater profits, job creation and a higher standard of living beckon. Accomplishing this, however, will require an educated, skilled workforce that is able to design and manufacture increasingly technologically advanced products.

Here again, observers have found a similar response between 1980s America and parts of present-day Asia. The first impulse was to focus on increasing educational funding and resources. Some hoped a computer on every American student’s desk would lead to better-educated students. But educational reform needs to be much more than about money spent.

In Thailand, a government initiative to provide tablet computers to students is being lauded by some as a panacea. Others have focused on an effort to close small schools, arguing that bigger, better-funded education programmes are the answer.

Unfortunately, years of increased education funding in the US has not yielded the results expected. This is an important lesson the nations of Asean might also take to heart.

The World Bank’s 2012 World Development Indicators show that US public expenditure on education as a percentage of its GDP is 5.4 per cent.  Yet, scores from the most recent Programme for International Student Assessment has US students failing to break into the top 10 in the subjects tested. US students ranked 25th in maths, 17th in science, and 14th in reading comprehension.

Singapore spends less on education than the US – 3.3 per cent of GDP – but punches well above its weight. It ranks second in maths, fourth in science, and fifth in reading comprehension.

It might be unfair to compare the US, a nation of 315 million, with Singapore, a small nation state of only 5 million. Yet, every country can learn something from others. Indeed, Singapore and other nations struggle to nurture the entrepreneurship and creativity that is a hallmark of the US, or emulate the US university system.

Yet, whether large or small, nations must recognise that simply providing additional funds for education will not automatically produce “smarter” students. Take the example of Malaysia, which spends 5.1 per cent of its GDP on education. Despite this level of funding, one of the highest in the Asean region, standardised maths and science test scores have actually decreased, according to the 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study.

Whether in the US or Asia, increased funding for education does not automatically translate into academic success. Funding is only one part of the equation. Increases in education funding need to be accompanied by an innovative curriculum with a large dose of accountability on the part of all stakeholders involved, including government leaders, education administrators, teachers, parents and students. Barriers to change must be removed.

Pockets of innovation and change certainly already exist, and should be spotlighted and nurtured. Long-standing bureaucracies, hierarchies and traditions should not prevent innovative new pilot programmes focused on educating today’s children for tomorrow from moving forward.

One example is the Mechai Pattana School in Chonburi province. The brainchild of well-known social entrepreneur Mechai Viravaidya, this school and a larger “Bamboo School” in Buriram province, are a collaborative partnership between educators, parents, students and public and private partners, aimed at providing a holistic, interactive education to at-risk children.

So, before Asia’s, and Asean’s, individual national leaders agree to the next round of education expenditure increases, it is worth pausing and considering some lessons learned. The last thing today’s students and tomorrow’s employers need is a report, 30 years hence, of an Asian version of “A Nation at Risk,” detailing the missteps and failings of education systems within a once-dynamic region and lamenting their inability to have produced the adaptive, educated and skilled workforce demanded by the times.

More funds may well be part of a solution, but policy-makers should take a lesson from the US and other countries that have tried, and not succeeded in, spending their way out of mediocrity into excellence.

 

 

Curtis S Chin served as US ambassador to the Asian Development Bank under presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama (2007-2010). He is senior fellow at the Asian Institute of Technology and a managing director with advisory firm RiverPeak Group. Jose B. Collazo is a frequent commentator on Southeast Asia. Follow him on twitter @josebcollazo.