Equity, Resilience, and Achievements in High Performing Asian Education Systems

Abstract

In the latest 2012 PISA results, the top performers were all Asian countries and regions. Common among these high performing education systems is the emergence of quality improvement in education as a means of achieving equity. This replaces the conventional focus on system inputs in education mainly influenced by the economic and sociological beliefs of the time, based on the human capital theory and the compensatory theory for the disadvantaged as a means of rectifying inequities. Improvement in education has resulted in more complicated scenarios that can potentially improve quality, e.g., closing the achievement gap by improving overall performance, and creating opportunities for low achievers to aspire to higher achievement. The PISA results also provide more information about the intrinsic reasons behind high achievement. For example, the measurement of resilience shows that low achievers are fighting to improve, despite disadvantaged backgrounds and situations, e.g., socioeconomic status, parents' education background, and residential status. In addition, intrinsic interest and a strong belief in learning effort are also proved to be significant factors in high achievement that may overcome disadvantaged learning environments for individual students. Further, recent developments in student-centered participative pedagogies, such as peer tutoring, collaborative learning, and knowledge building, have turned students into active learning agents. They are no longer passive classroom recipients of learning, but rather are active learners in seamless learning scenarios that are helping high performing education systems to enhance learning outcomes.

A systematic review of academic resilience in East Asia: Evidence from the large‐scale assessment research

“…Although there is an agreement on the understanding of academic resilience, its conceptualization remains unclear. First, adversity involves diverse challenges or difficulties, such as poverty, rural residence, the immigrant experience, negative cultural conditions, family social adversities, as well as disadvantaged parents' educational status (e.g., Anagnostaki et al, 2016; Das, 2019; Ellwood‐Lowe et al, 2022; Lee et al, 2016; Li & Yeung, 2019; Wills & Hofmeyr, 2019). Second, positive adaptation includes beneficial outcomes categorized by academic, social, emotional, and motivational dimensions in the school context (Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development, 2018).…”