According to research carried out by the University of Ghent (UGent) as part of the OECD’s PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) research programme, 15-year-old pupils in Flemish secondary schools score well overall for creative thinking. However, there is a huge gap between the strongest and the weakest pupils.
Pupils from economically disadvantaged families, pupils from immigrant families and pupils that speak a language other than Dutch at home score significantly lower than other pupils when it comes to creative thinking. .
For the purposes of the research “creative thinking” was defined as "coming up with original and diverse ideas and evaluating and further improving existing ones". Pupils in each of the 28 OECD countries were assessed and marks were given on a scale of 0 to 62. Pupils in Flemish education scored an average of 35 out of 62.
6th out of 28
Out of all the OECD countries, only Singapore, South Korea, Canada, Australia and New Zealand scored significantly higher than Flanders. 8 countries were at the same level. Pupils in French-medium education in Wallonia and Brussels also scored 35 out of 62. Those in German-medium schools in the East of Liège Province fared slightly worse than their Dutch-speaking and Francophone compatriots, scoring 33 out of 62 for creative thinking. The average for the OCED as a whole is 33.
Girls score higher than boys on creative thinking in all countries. In OECD countries as a whole they score on average 3 points higher. This is also the case in Flanders.
Within Europe, Flemish pupils are among the absolute top performers. Flanders also outperforms our neighbouring countries the Netherlands (32), France (32) and Germany (33).
At the same time, however, the results for creative thinking confirm the same patterns that often emerges in PISA research. The difference between the strongest and weakest pupils is large. Pupils from more socio-economically deprived families, pupils from immigrant families and pupils with a that speak a different language than the language in which they are taught at school, tend to perform worse. In Flanders the gap between children from these kinds of backgrounds and other pupils is often larger than is the case in other countries.
PISA
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a triennial international study that has been commissioned by the OECD since 2000 to test mathematical and scientific literacy and reading skills among 15-year-olds in 81 countries and regions.
For PISA 2022, 4,714 pupils from 172 schools were tested in Flanders, born in 2006 and aged 15-16 at the time of collection. For the first time, creative thinking was also measured."