Migrants represent 15% of Malaysia’s workforce, making the country home to the fourth largest number of migrants in the East Asia Pacific region. The migrant population is diverse, made up of workers from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, Vietnam, China and India, among many other countries.
In 1950, the average working-age person in the world had almost three years of education, but in East Asia and Pacific (EAP), the average person had less than half that amount. Around this time, countries in the EAP region put themselves on a path that focused on growth driven by human capital. They made significant and steady investments in schooling to close the educational attainment gap with the rest of the world. While improving their school systems, they also put their human capital to work in labor markets. As a result, economic growth has been stellar: for four decades EAP has grown at roughly twice the pace of the global average. What is more, no slowdown is in sight for rising prosperity.
High economic growth and strong human capital accumulation are deeply intertwined. In a recent paper, Daron Acemoglu and David Autor explore the way skills and labor markets interact: Human capital is the central determinant of economic growth and is the main—and very likely the only—means to achieve shared growth when technology is changing quickly and raising the demand for skills. Skills promote productivity and growth, but if there are not enough skilled workers, growth soon chokes off. If, by contrast, skills are abundant and average skill-levels keep rising, technological change can drive productivity and growth without stoking inequality.
我是个研究政策的书呆子，整个职业生涯（先在印度政府任职，后来到世界银行工作）都在密切关注政策选择是如何做出的，政治进程是如何演进的，机构和个人如何从各自的动机出发，为赞成或反对某种变革而结盟。我在中国工作了将近8年，和我的许多前辈一样，我深深爱上了这个美丽的国家及其人民，爱上了它博大深厚的文明，同时也不断地惊异于中国的变化速度之快、规模和能量之大，这种巨变使8亿多中国人摆脱了贫困。
我刚刚读完一部名为《不可能的合作伙伴：中国改革者、西方经济学家和使中国走向全球》（Unlikely Partners: Chinese Reformers, Western Economists and the Making of Global China）的著作，在某种意义上，这本书将我专业工作的两部分合二而一。
I am a policy wonk. I have spent my entire professional career (first in the Government of India and then in the World Bank) watching up close how policy choices are made, how political processes play out and on how institutions and people form coalitions for or against any change based on their incentives. I have also worked in China for close to 8 years, and like so many before me, have fallen in love with the beautiful country, its people and civilizational depth and continue to be amazed at the sheer pace, scale and energy of the massive changes the country has undergone, lifting more than 800 million of its citizens out of poverty.
I just finished reading a majestic book entitled “Unlikely Partners: Chinese Reformers, Western Economists and the Making of Global China” that, in a sense, brings the two parts of my professional work together.
经合组织上月发布的国际学生评估项目（PISA）最新调查结果表明，全世界学习成绩最好的学生中，很多都来自东亚地区。
正如在最近发布的《国际数学于科学趋势研究报告》（TIMSS ）的结果表明，新加坡学生在国际学生评估项目每一学科的成绩均在世界上名列前茅，以较大优势领先于其他经济体和国家。新加坡学生在科学、数学和阅读三门学科上的成绩水平，要比同地区和经合组织国家的学生成绩水平高出两个学年。另外，几乎所有的新加坡学生都达到了基本熟练水平或更高水平。同时，他们的成绩越来越好，成绩低于基本熟练水平的学生人数因此而显著减少。
日本学生在科学、数学和阅读学科上的成绩，也明显高于大多数参与该项目的经济体。不过，与上一轮评估相比，日本学生在阅读方面的分数有所下降。尽管如此，与新加坡一样，日本90%的学生已经达到了基本熟练水平或更高水平。
