SINCE results three years ago, the UK has made little progress in education and is still lagging behind other leading countries across the world.
The influential Pisa rankings, run by OECD, are based on tests taken by 15-year-olds across over 70 countries.
In maths, the UK is ranked 27th, which is the lowest it has been since it began participating in the tests in 2000.
Brett Wigdortz, founder and chief executive of education charity Teach First, said: “It’s very much a ‘must try harder’ for the UK. We’re doing slightly better than the average, but our score has hardly moved compared to three years ago.
“But a world-class education is within our reach. It would be a huge disservice to our young people to settle for average and we need to ensure we keep our focus on the progress being made.
“As we enter a post-Brexit world we’ll be directly competing with top-performing nations – we must challenge any idea that it’s impossible for the UK to be world leaders in education.
“The only way to really push us up the table is a huge collective effort to target areas where educational inequality is a stubborn problem. We hope the Government’s opportunity areas agenda is a chance to do just that.”
Angela Rayne, Labour Ashton-under-Lyne MP, however blames the current Conservative government as the reasoning behind the UK’s failure.
After six years of turmoil in our schools, we have not made the progress we were promised by the Tories. https://t.co/7YlB3tAOAs
— Angela Rayner MP (@AngelaRayner) December 6, 2016
The MP commented: “After six years of turmoil in our schools, we have not made the progress we were promised by the Tories.
“We were told that constant chopping and changing would all be worth it to see our international standing in education shoot up the tables.
“What the Tories have delivered instead is a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention, chaos in the exam system and class sizes are rising.
“The Tories are failing in education by their own measure.
“Other countries are making great progress in maths and science, but due to the Tory teacher shortage crisis, we are falling behind.
“We have an increasing number of teachers teaching maths and science that do not have a qualification in the subject.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1I9tuScLUA
Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, said the reports raised questions about Government education reforms. Current plans include rolling out a wave of new selective schools.
She said: “PISA once again confirms that our teachers are doing a great job, but often in challenging circumstances.
“Those education systems that work best also demonstrate greater respect for the work of teachers.
“The Government should learn the lessons of PISA by taking swift action to end the continuing erosion of teachers’ terms and conditions, status and morale which have precipitated the deepest crisis in teacher recruitment and retention for decades.”
Despite the fall of rankings for the UK, it was managed to move from 21st to 15th in relation to science, which is the highest placing since 2006.
Featured Image: Theo Müller
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