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Vietnamese students surprised the world with their high rankings in science and maths in a report on global education in their first inclusion into the survey, according to the deputy minister of Education and Training, Nguyen Minh Hien.

“In the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which was announced by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on December 3, Vietnamese students ranked 8th in science, 17th in maths and 19th in reading,” Hien said in an online forum on education held this morning (December 14).

“We were very surprised by the results because, at this first we only expected average achievement levels,” Hien said. “Compared to 65 countries participating in PISA, we ranked lowest in term of GDP".

According to the Vietnamese education and training’s leader, Vietnam faced several difficulties in participation with the survey including a lack of experienced officials, bureaucratic obstacles and students unfamiliar with the format of PISA questions.

When speaking about the lower results in reading and maths, Hien said that the maths question were new to Vietnamese students and took more time for them to understand, and so they could not finish the entire test or made unwitting mistakes. Also, the questions in reading were not similar to what their Vietnamese teachers had trained them in. Meanwhile, the high results in science came as a surprise because Vietnamese students do not study this subject at high school.

Deputy minister Hien confirmed that Vietnam will try to prepare for even better results for PISA 2015.

PISA is the three-yearly report by the Paris-based OECD, based on surveys of more than half a million 15-year-olds in 65 countries. This year Asian nations cemented the positions at the top ranks, as their students continue to outshine Western counterparts, with Shanghai again being ranked first in maths, science and reading, and Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea rounded out the top five in maths.