Taiwan has topped a prestigious international league table of 15-year-olds' mathematical ability, vaulting ahead of far richer countries.

The island state's performance in the Pisa tests of mathematics and reading, devised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and published yesterday, reinforces its reputation as a high-technology Asian tiger.

Taiwan also earned fourth place in the parallel Pisa science rankings, published last week, though in reading it was in 16th place.

Tu Cheng-sheng, Taiwan's minister of education, said: “This shows the success of [our] education reform.” Over the past 15 years, the island has introduced a nine-year curriculum which is followed by every student.

But education experts said Taiwan's lead in maths was mainly due to its students' rote learning. Lin Huan-hsiang, dean of the National Hualien University for Education and one of the organisers of Pisa in Taiwan, said: “While calculation and explanatory capabilities are strong, we are still relatively weak in areas such as formulating new scientific problems or logical deduction.”

Asia-Pacific's strong showing was one of the clearest themes of the Pisa survey. The region contributed five of the top 10 in the mathematics and science league tables, and four of the top 10 in reading – thanks to strong contributions from Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Macao, Australia and New Zealand. Chinese mainland did not participate.

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