Fifteen-year-old students in the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland performed worst in tests for reading, mathematics and natural sciences, according to figures culled from an international education report.

"/> Fifteen-year-old students in the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland performed worst in tests for reading, mathematics and natural sciences, according to figures culled from an international education report.

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EDUCATION

Italian speakers fare worst in student rankings

Fifteen-year-old students in the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland performed worst in tests for reading, mathematics and natural sciences, according to figures culled from an international education report.

Published: 6 December 2011 11:43 CET

Adolescents in French-speaking cantons showed the best reading skills, while school-goers in German-speaking regions scored highest in science subjects and mathematics.

The results come from a regional breakdown of figures from the latest Programme for International Student Assessment. Better known as the PISA report, it evaluates educational competence in the OECD countries every three years.

A year after Switzerland released the national results of the 2009 report, 13 of the 26 cantons have now presented their own figures. These show significant discrepancies between the three linguistic regions.

According to the department of education in Ticino, the poor results in the Italian-speaking part of the country are partly attributable to the fact that pupils finish their mandatory education at a younger age (15.1 years old) than students in German and French-speaking cantons (15.9).

Pupils in French speaking cantons topped the reading test with an average of 506 points, followed by German speakers with 502 points, and Ticino with 485.

These roles were reversed for mathematics, with German-speaking students excelling with an average of 539 points, compared to 530 in French-speaking cantons and 518 in the Italian-speaking region.

The results were similar for natural sciences, where German-speaking cantons produced the best results with 523 points, followed by the French-speaking region (500) and Ticino (493).

Cantons Aargau, Fribourg and Schaffhausen obtained the highest average score across the three subject areas, while Geneva produced the lowest aggregate results, followed by Ticino.

Zurich, the most populous canton in the country, was the worst performer among the German-speaking cantons.

The head of the canton's education department, Regine Aeppli, said the comparatively poor results in Zurich were linked to the fact that 29 percent of students belong to socially disadvantaged families or are the children of immigrants, Tages Anzeiger reports.

In all, Switzerland scored above average in the PISA study. The country's 501 points put it above the OECD average of 493.

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EDUCATION

Sweden’s Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

Sweden's opposition Social Democrats have called for a total ban on the establishment of new profit-making free schools, in a sign the party may be toughening its policies on profit-making in the welfare sector.

Published: 18 April 2024 16:09 CEST
Sweden's Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

“We want the state to slam on the emergency brakes and bring in a ban on establishing [new schools],” the party’s leader, Magdalena Andersson, said at a press conference.

“We think the Swedish people should be making the decisions on the Swedish school system, and not big school corporations whose main driver is making a profit.” 

Almost a fifth of pupils in Sweden attend one of the country’s 3,900 primary and secondary “free schools”, first introduced in the country in the early 1990s. 

Even though three quarters of the schools are run by private companies on a for-profit basis, they are 100 percent state funded, with schools given money for each pupil. 

This system has come in for criticism in recent years, with profit-making schools blamed for increasing segregation, contributing to declining educational standards and for grade inflation. 

In the run-up to the 2022 election, Andersson called for a ban on the companies being able to distribute profits to their owners in the form of dividends, calling for all profits to be reinvested in the school system.  

READ ALSO: Sweden’s pioneering for-profit ‘free schools’ under fire 

Andersson said that the new ban on establishing free schools could be achieved by extending a law banning the establishment of religious free schools, brought in while they were in power, to cover all free schools. 

“It’s possible to use that legislation as a base and so develop this new law quite rapidly,” Andersson said, adding that this law would be the first step along the way to a total ban on profit-making schools in Sweden. 

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