Finnish children scored highly enough to finish joint fourth out of OECD countries with Australia in the ranking, which made Finland the highest-performing European country in problem-solving. Ahead of Finland were South Korea, Japan and Canada.
15-year-olds from 44 countries participated in the optional part of the study out of 65 countries and regions participating in the wider PISA study. The tests focused on practical problem-solving using everyday situations, which were not directly linked to any school subject.
In general boys were more successful at problem-solving than girls, but in Finland the roles were reversed: girls did significantly better than boys. In all, some 3,700 pupils from 311 schools took part in the study.