Vietnamese students perform well at the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment, which they attended for the first time. (Photo: tuoitre.vn)

According to Deputy Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Vinh Hien, the program has been conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) every three years since 2000 to measure the quality of participants’ general education systems and seek ways to improve them. Students have to take tests in reading comprehension, mathematics, and science.
This was the first time Vietnam participated in the program. Vietnamese students ranked 17^th in mathematics, 19^th in reading comprehension, and 8^th in science. Their average score on every test was higher than OECD’s benchmark.