My family is from Serbia (my parents were both mathematics teachers in Serbia) and I was raised here in Australia. It's definitely true that the curriculum is many years behind even relatively poor and corrupt countries (like Serbia). As a toy example, my parents taught me how to solve simultaneous equations in year 4 (when they'd have taught it in Serbia) while everyone else had to wait until year 9 to learn it in school.
I had friends who came to Australia after starting their education in Singapore, and they were continually shocked how far behind we were. It's honestly gob-smacking how little is being done about this, we're doing a massive disservice to our young people which they will have to overcome for the rest of their lives.
> we're doing a massive disservice to our young people which they will have to overcome for the rest of their lives.
Is this actually the case? Much of the most useful science & software comes from people educated in the Americas and Western Europe. I think that non-western schooling methodologies under-value problem solving and overvalue "raw" knowledge.
One other thing that i have noticed, is that in "rich" countries, knowledge of trivial and basic stuff are celebrated in the name of "positive reinforcement". This gives students the false idea that they have "mastered" something while they have just started learning. IMO, this is extremely harmful to the student's psychology.
I had friends who came to Australia after starting their education in Singapore, and they were continually shocked how far behind we were. It's honestly gob-smacking how little is being done about this, we're doing a massive disservice to our young people which they will have to overcome for the rest of their lives.