The Tide has Turned for Scottish Education
The Programme for International
Student Assessment (PISA) is the most
highly regarded international survey
of pupil achievement in the world.
It’s run by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), covers 65 countries and takes place every three years. It therefore allows Scotland to compare its performance against other major economies.
I am delighted to say that the 2009 survey makes for very pleasing reading indeed. After years of decline in our performance, the tide has turned for Scottish education.
We are above the international average for reading and science and around the average for performance in Maths.
Looking closer to home, Scotland performed as well as England and Northern Ireland and better than Wales.
I hope that these figures scotch the myth that Scotland lags behind in education when compared to south of the border. Like England and Northern Ireland, we are performing in line with international standards.
This is the first PISA survey that covers the children of devolution. The 15-year-olds who took part in this survey will have been in school since 1999.
Coming less than a week after new statistics showed that we are cutting class sizes, slowing the decline in teacher numbers and helping a greater proportion of school leavers into employment, training or education, the survey provides further cast-iron proof that we are on the right track.
The future is bright. Curriculum for Excellence is being successfully implemented in all Scotland’s schools and we have a robust literacy action plan now in place.
I fully expect that the next PISA survey in 3 years time will see our international performance not only maintained but further improved.
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Countries Participating in PISA 2009
Countries Participating in PISA 2009
The PISA International Survey explained
- PISA is a highly regarded international survey of pupil achievement.
- It is run by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 65 countries across the world and takes place every three years. It therefore allows Scotland to compare its performance against our major competitors. Just under half a million pupils took part worldwide.
- It measures the performance of 15 year olds, at the end of compulsory education.
- Assessments are in reading, maths and science, in terms of pupils’ knowledge and skills required for participation in society and everyday life, and not just whether pupils have mastered a curriculum.
- It also links performance with information on pupils’ attitudes to learning, the school environment and education policies in place, providing valuable information for policy-makers in local and central government.
- Strict international quality assurance standards are set by the OECD to ensure that the survey findings are valid.
- It only samples pupils and so, similar to opinion poles, all results have a margin of error. So it’s not necessarily correct to say that one country has done better than another just because the scores are slightly different.
PISA 2009 Key Documents
Read the Government’s response to some of the key issues raised by the PISA report.
Read the highlights from Scotland’s results.
3 comments
‘Coming less than a week after new statistics showed that we are cutting class sizes, slowing the decline in teacher numbers and helping a greater proportion of school leavers into employment, training or education, the survey provides further cast-iron proof that we are on the right track.’
I’m not entirely sure this statement is completely true. As far as I’m aware, BBC Scotland reported that only 2 out of 32 LA’s have met the class size target in primary schools. Slowing the decline in teacher numbers very much depends on the budget situation – as well as the agreement between COSLA and the Scottish Govt.
People must be properly engaged in education, rather than rattled of feel-good statistics. Unfortunately, statistics do not have an entirely comfortable relationship with politics, nor politicians (writes someone with a MA in political history).
It is positive that we compare comparably well with other nations. However, Scotland’s proud educational tradition is not about simply comparing well. it is about being heralded world-wide as the best. Thus, we must surely focus on being ahead rather than equal with countries.
This can only be achieved with properly ring-fenced budgets. To do so otherwise will make the job of acheiving excellence unquestionably and unnecessarily harder.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11950473
Furthermore, I worry that this news story makes light of a fuller picture of Scottish Education.
Once again, reading what Mr Russell’s team put in front of him … … causes me to further wear out my exclamation key:
*’The tide has turned for Scottish education- excellent, so hard work by teachers and students BEFORE the introduction of CfE has made us achieve as well as we have – Ooops!
* ‘Cutting class sizes’ – oh for heaven’s sake, if you’re really going to try and sell us snake oil make sure some of your evidence is correct!
* ‘Slowing the decline in teacher numbers’ – what? how? unprecedented cuts due in staffing numbers, greater numbers than ever of newly qualified teachers unable to get permanent / full-time jobs, I want to go to the Wonderland that is Russell’s World!
* ‘Curriculum for Excellence is being successfully implemented in all Scotland’s schools’ – again waffle, spin and exaggeration. If this statement is based on the ’support’ school’s received from HMIe then it is hugely contentious. HMIe spent 50% of their allocated time on ‘travel and preparation’. When actually meeting teaching staff and management HMIe made it expressly clear they were not there to advise sschools on how to implement CfE. The feedback from schools would seem to indicate HMIe were desparate to find any morsel of evidence to suggest that CfE had been beaten repeatedly over the head until it could be passed off as a ‘cut and shut’ model of education – Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
In conclusion, stop letting COSLA use the budget and CfE as an excuse to run down education (remember, it’s the staff who are doing all the donkey work of creating a curriculum and trying to get this lumpen wish-list to work, not COSLA and the LA’s) and RING_FENCE the money!!
I wish I felt much better now
… … Edited by Community Manager