LONDON, July 1: Finnish 15-year-olds perform best when it comes to reading, and those from the Far East outshine the rest at mathematics and science, according to a survey conducted for the OECD and published on Tuesday.

The survey takes in 43 countries, but excludes all of Africa, India, Central Asia, mainland China and Central America.

In reading ability, the Finns are followed by South Korea, Hong Kong, Canada, Japan and Ireland. At the other end of the reading scale are Peru at the bottom, joined by Indonesia, Albania, Macedonia, Brazil and Chile.

When it comes to mathematical and scientific ability, 15-year-olds in Japan, Hong Kong and Korea lead.

The Programme for International Student Assessment 2000 found several Latin American countries lagged seriously behind in all three areas, even after taking account of lower national income levels.

PISA measured how well 15-year-olds were prepared to meet the challenges of knowledge societies, by administering tests and background questionnaires to between 4,500 and 10,000 students in each participating country.

It aims to provide policy-makers “with a lens through which to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of their education systems”.

The report compared data collected in 2002 from 15 mainly middle-income countries and economies - Albania, Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Peru, Romania, Russia and Thailand - with data collected in 2000 from 28 of the 30 member countries of the OECD.

Students in Hong Kong emerged as “star performers” outside the OECD, achieving overall scores in reading proficiency equivalent to those of students in the top OECD countries.

Along with students in Japan and South Korea, they were ahead of the rest in mathematical and scientific literacy.

At the other end of the scale, Peru had the largest proportion of students (80 percent) at Level One and below.

This indicated students had serious difficulty in using reading as a tool to advance and extend their knowledge and skills in other areas, the PISA survey found.

Within countries the performance gap in reading skills between students from rich and poor families was greatest in Argentina, the United States, Chile, Israel, Portugal, Mexico, Peru and Brazil.

Higher average spending was associated with higher average performance, but did not guarantee it, PISA found, noting that Italy spent twice as much per student as South Korea, but South Korea achieved considerably better results.

PISA found girls generally outperformed boys in reading literacy in all countries, while boys tended to score better than girls overall in mathematics. There were fewer differences between the genders in scientific literacy.—dpa