Dec 02, 2016 11:08 AM EST By Chris Brandt, UniversityHerald Reporter

The result of the 2015 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study or TIMMS revealed that Singapore still remains the country with the smartest math and science students, a title it has held for quite some time already.

TIMMS began in 1995 to measure trends in science and math achievements worldwide. According to the authors of the study, the tests are valuable benchmarking information on how students around the world fare in the area of science and mathematics. These tests are given five times at four-year intervals.

Education systems in 49 countries and six participants considered as benchmarks test fourth graders while 38 countries with six benchmarking participants test eighth grades.

Using these assessments, Singapore remains the top dog in these categories. Most of those that are highly ranked in science and math are students from Asian countries.

Using a 1,000-point scale, Singaporean fourth graders scored 618 in math while the US has 539. Moreover, more than half of the Singaporean eighth-grade students are in the advanced level followed by Hong Kong and South Korea which had 45 and 41 percent respectively. The U.S., on the other hand, had 14 percent students in the advanced level.

In science, eighth-grade students from Singapore has the highest advance students with 42 percent. It is followed by Taiwan and Japan with 27 and 24 percent respectively. The United States has 12 percent in this category.

Singapore continues to dominate even among the fourth-grade students with a score of 37 percent. It is followed by south Korea with 29 percent and the Russian Federation at 20 percent.

This was the first time Singapore dominated all four categories. According to Singapore's Education Ministry, they made some changes with the syllabus and pulled out massive amounts of content. As a result, teachers become more focused on a fewer topics and students participate more actively in the lessons.

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