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Early Childhood Education Across the world, the kind of tests that were being administered to the children varied sharply. There have been many skills imparted among children depending on the types of curriculums developed in the various countries. However, there are also some similarities. For instance, all kids have been learning critical thinking skills in reading, science and maths. Across the globe, there is a move towards learning to solve problems and adapt, or rather, training survives in the modern economy. Some regions are associated with very high test scores, such as Finland (Ripley, 2013). However, many countries that Ripley has analyzed lack the rigour evident in the Chinese schools and the surrounding environs. To a greater extent, Ripley's approach and or conclusions are fair and persuasive. The author takes a balanced look at the various education systems and comes up with very informed observations about each of them. For instance, she has been able to move to Finland to observe the "Nordic robots" who achieve such remarkably high scores on international tests. This is something that was clearly missing in the countries such as South Korea and Poland. The same environment (Finland) is characterized by good quality of teachers and numerous initiatives tailored towards improving the quality of education, and these initiatives cannot be found in other countries. When it comes to teaching and learning technologies, a country like the U.S. has the upper hand compared to other countries (Ripley, 2013). As such, it suffices to say that Ripley was able to come up with credible observation courtesy of her best tradition of travel writing. The conclusions are fair and persuasive and can well be generalized to the other contexts with the countries. As mentioned earlier, there is more rigour in Chinese schools as compared to schools in other parts of the world. Students here study a lot, and the author was able to spot a few students