MALAYSIA'S latest PISA results should neither become a national embarrassment nor be explained away by saying that education is about more than numbers. Education Minister Datuk Seri Fadhlina Sidek is right on one important point: a nation's educational health cannot be reduced to a league table. Behind every PISA score is a young Malaysian with aspirations, curiosity, resilience and potential. Judging our children solely by rankings would indeed miss much of the story. But there is an equally important truth. The numbers are not the whole story, but they tell a story we cannot afford to ignore. The OECD's findings provide Malaysia with an encouraging counterweight to the gloom surrounding the results. 79% of Malaysian students demonstrated perseverance in learning, compared with 60% across participating OECD countries. Malaysian students also scored strongly in curiosity, resilience and self-directed learning, while teachers showed a clear commitment to helping students understand what they were taught. These are not minor achievements. They are national assets. The uncomfortable question is not whether Malaysian students have the ability to learn. It is why those strengths are not being converted into stronger mastery of mathematics, reading, science, computational problem-solving and critical thinking. That is where PISA becomes valuable. Malaysia's mathematics...