North-south divide in educational attainment - OECD (2)

(ANSA) - Rome, October 5 - The OECD said in a report released Thursday that there is a big north-south divide in educational attainment despite Italy having made "good progress in improving the quality of schooling in recent years, with mean scores rising overall in reading, math and science".
    "While math scores are now in line with the OECD average, Italy still lags behind other OECD countries in reading and science," it said.
    "The significant variation in student performance across the country, with Southern regions consistently lagging behind the others, remains a concern. "For example, while students in the Autonomous Province of Bolzano do as well as top performing nations like Korea, students in Campania compare with their counterparts in Chile or Bulgaria. "In other words, the performance gap in PISA between students in the Autonomous Province Bolzano and Campania is more than one year of schooling".