Students from Finland were recognized as the best in the category of “reading literacy”, while representatives of Hong Kong, China, and South Korea were the best in mathematics and natural sciences.
The top five were as follows: Finland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland - in reading literacy, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Finland, Australia - in mathematics, South Korea, Japan, Finland, United Kingdom, Canada - in natural sciences.
It is interesting to note that schoolchildren from industrialized countries did not show the most brilliant results. The United Kingdom was seventh in literature and eighth in mathematics, Germany took 20th place in mathematics and natural sciences and 21st in literature, France was 14th in literature, 10th in mathematics and 12th in natural sciences, and the USA took 15th, 19th and 14th positions, respectively.