European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 23 April | 131 comments (131 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Direct link (pdf!) to the study.

It comes as something of a surprise that Germany (ranked 8th) is well ahead of France (ranked 15th). What's more, that relationship holds almost across the board in the seven evaluation categories, with France significalty ahead only in "housing and environment". May this be recent development?...
Malta comes in dead last -- but, it's the one country for which data is missing in three out of seven evaluation categories. For Cyprus, even four categories are un-ranked, so its 12th place is incomparable too.
Belgium is ranked first on education. What's up with this?
As I'd expected, among the ex-communist new members, Slovenia is best: ranked 7th (between Denmakr and Germany).

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Apr 23rd, 2009 at 02:59:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Why not Belgium? I mean, it's a largely prosperous, small country. Perfect fit for having a good education system. Belgium has some cultural issues but those don't have to affect the quality of education.

The Dutch cliche about Belgian education is that the Belgians only learn facts. That would result in good test results if the tests focus on that (as I'd suspect they do). The other way around the Belgian cliche would be that the Dutch only learn how to BS. I suspect that there's something to both.

by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Thu Apr 23rd, 2009 at 03:40:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Europe (4.00 / 2)

Here (pdf!) is the earlier study I mentioned. France is still below Germany, Malta is not there, the U.K. is at the bottom, Belgium is still at the top on education, but health in Italy is much better. Why?

Some other interesting facts from that study (they have some data from non-European countries as well):

Percentage of children age 15 reporting less than 10 books in the home: lowest in the Czech republic, highest in Portugal, followed by the Netherlands and the U.S.

Low birth weight: Japan, followed by Hungary. Russia has reasonable birth weight but is a spectacular outlier on infant mortality. For deaths from accidents and injuries, Russia is also an outlier, but Israel is even worse.

Percentage of 15 year-olds whose parents spend time `just talking to them' several times per week: Hungary is the best, closely followed by Italy. Germany would be worst, if they hadn't included data from Israel.

On the other hand, "Percentage of young people age 11, 13 and 15 who find their peers kind and helpful", is best in Switzerland, with the U.K. being worst.

You didn't really need a study to tell you that for "Percentage of students age 11, 13 and 15 who report having been drunk two or more times" is the highest in the U.K., far ahead of even Finland?

by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Thu Apr 23rd, 2009 at 04:59:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Europe (none / 0)

gk:

On the other hand, "Percentage of young people age 11, 13 and 15 who find their peers kind and helpful", is best in Switzerland, with the U.K. being worst.
You didn't really need a study to tell you that for "Percentage of students age 11, 13 and 15 who report having been drunk two or more times" is the highest in the U.K., far ahead of even Finland?

Can't be fun to be a child in the UK...

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Apr 23rd, 2009 at 05:23:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Europe (none / 0)

it was hellish...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Thu Apr 23rd, 2009 at 09:13:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Europe (none / 0)

Well, you did go to "public" school...

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Apr 23rd, 2009 at 09:49:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Europe (none / 1)

Low birth weight: Japan, followed by Hungary. Russia has reasonable birth weight but is a spectacular outlier on infant mortality. For deaths from accidents and injuries, Russia is also an outlier, but Israel is even worse.

In broad comparisons of this nature, time lags in reporting could be very large. For example, the pdf claims that for non-OECD countries infant mortality data are as of 2003. But for Russia, according to the WHO data, 16 infant deaths per 1000 live births is the data point for year 2000. In 2003, it was more like 13. In 2008 it was 10, projections for 2009 give 8.2 so far (see here, the data only in Russian).

by Sargon on Thu Apr 23rd, 2009 at 09:32:53 AM EST
[ Parent ]

European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 23 April | 131 comments (131 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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