OECD report on skills
Two international bodies came out with important things today: one good for Britain, one deeply worrying.
The good news is the IMF upward revision to British growth forecasts. While we can't afford an atom of complacency, this is yet more evidence confirming that the British economy is still moving towards recovery.
The dire news was the OECD's international comparison of the skills of 24 nations, and particularly the alarming findings as regards the skills of British workers aged 16 to 24 compared with their contemporaries in other countries. In this age group Britain came 22nd out of 24 Western countries for literacy and 21st for numeracy. The report's damning conclusion argued that levels of basic skills had effectively worsened over the last 40 years, with recent school leavers registering lower scores in tests than their parents’ or grandparents’ generation.
* while Labour was doubling the funding of education (giving the money to schools through 65 different bureaucratically managed funding streams)
* while far more young people were going to University
* while exam results were improving every year
* while OFSTED were imposing ever more ruthless pressure on schools.
They were at school over a period when every time there was a change of government the incoming Secretary of State for Education appeared to base his or her instructions to OFSTED on Pharoah's comment in the bible, "My father chastised you with whips but I will chastise you with scorpions."
Any British person who can read this report, or even a press summary of it such as the Telegraph report here, or the BBC report here, without desperately wanting to believe the OECD have got it wrong, doesn't realise how important education is to the future of our country.
Actually, anyone who can read this report without wanting to weep doesn't care enough about the importance of education to our country.
Unfortunately, however much we might want to believe the OECD have made some cardinal error when preparing this report, it would be a particularly dangerous example of ostrich-like thinking, metaphorically burying our heads in the sand, to assume that they have.
One example of such ostrich-like thinking came from the newly-appointed shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt who defended Labour's record, claiming. that "Labour drove up standards in maths and English across our schools, evident in the huge improvements we saw in GCSE results between 1997 and 2010."
This man is in denial in a big way. If these huge improvements in GSCE results really represented a huge improvement in actual performance, why on earth did the OECD study find that the people who were awarded those results are the only group of their contemporaries in the Western World who are less numerate and literate than their grandparents?
Blaming all teachers is certainly not the answer - there are many teachers who have spent their lives striving to improve results and give their students better opportunities in life.
We have to face some unpalatable facts.
* More money doesn't work unless everything else is right
* A tougher inspection regime doesn't work unless everything else is right
* More transparency has not yet been shown to work (though it should be part of the answer)
* More bureaucracy doesn't work, period
* Giving schools more freedom has not yet been shown to work, though again I am convinced this should form part of the answer.
I don't think there are any easy answers, but we've got to find ways to raise standards and skill levels no matter how difficult it may be.
I think we have to build a culture in which parents take more interest in their children's education and teach them how important it is to learn. Yes, I know exactly how hard this message can be to get over, I'm a parent myself.
We need as a society to show more appreciation of good teachers (of whom there are many) and help them to be even better. While underperforming ones must be given more help to improve, and if that doesn't work, helped to find an alternative career.
And above all, as one of the best education ministers to hold office in my lifetime said several decades ago (but it still needs to be done), we must to find a language to talk about the need to improve standards in education without the press interpreting it as an attack on teachers.
The good news is the IMF upward revision to British growth forecasts. While we can't afford an atom of complacency, this is yet more evidence confirming that the British economy is still moving towards recovery.
The dire news was the OECD's international comparison of the skills of 24 nations, and particularly the alarming findings as regards the skills of British workers aged 16 to 24 compared with their contemporaries in other countries. In this age group Britain came 22nd out of 24 Western countries for literacy and 21st for numeracy. The report's damning conclusion argued that levels of basic skills had effectively worsened over the last 40 years, with recent school leavers registering lower scores in tests than their parents’ or grandparents’ generation.
England was the only country in the developed world in which adults aged 55-to-65 performed better in literacy and numeracy than those aged 16-to-24 after taking account of other factors such as the economic background of those taking the test.
This horrifying report should set alarm bells ringing in schools, universities, and among politicians of all parties.
It certainly doesn't fit either Labour's narrative that they improved education or the socialist philosophy that every problem should have taxpayers' money thrown at it and state controls and targets used to improve performance.
The people who are now in the age cohort in which the OECD report found these very disappointing skill levels were at school This horrifying report should set alarm bells ringing in schools, universities, and among politicians of all parties.
It certainly doesn't fit either Labour's narrative that they improved education or the socialist philosophy that every problem should have taxpayers' money thrown at it and state controls and targets used to improve performance.
* while Labour was doubling the funding of education (giving the money to schools through 65 different bureaucratically managed funding streams)
* while far more young people were going to University
* while exam results were improving every year
* while OFSTED were imposing ever more ruthless pressure on schools.
They were at school over a period when every time there was a change of government the incoming Secretary of State for Education appeared to base his or her instructions to OFSTED on Pharoah's comment in the bible, "My father chastised you with whips but I will chastise you with scorpions."
Any British person who can read this report, or even a press summary of it such as the Telegraph report here, or the BBC report here, without desperately wanting to believe the OECD have got it wrong, doesn't realise how important education is to the future of our country.
Actually, anyone who can read this report without wanting to weep doesn't care enough about the importance of education to our country.
Unfortunately, however much we might want to believe the OECD have made some cardinal error when preparing this report, it would be a particularly dangerous example of ostrich-like thinking, metaphorically burying our heads in the sand, to assume that they have.
One example of such ostrich-like thinking came from the newly-appointed shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt who defended Labour's record, claiming. that "Labour drove up standards in maths and English across our schools, evident in the huge improvements we saw in GCSE results between 1997 and 2010."
This man is in denial in a big way. If these huge improvements in GSCE results really represented a huge improvement in actual performance, why on earth did the OECD study find that the people who were awarded those results are the only group of their contemporaries in the Western World who are less numerate and literate than their grandparents?
Blaming all teachers is certainly not the answer - there are many teachers who have spent their lives striving to improve results and give their students better opportunities in life.
We have to face some unpalatable facts.
* More money doesn't work unless everything else is right
* A tougher inspection regime doesn't work unless everything else is right
* More transparency has not yet been shown to work (though it should be part of the answer)
* More bureaucracy doesn't work, period
* Giving schools more freedom has not yet been shown to work, though again I am convinced this should form part of the answer.
I don't think there are any easy answers, but we've got to find ways to raise standards and skill levels no matter how difficult it may be.
I think we have to build a culture in which parents take more interest in their children's education and teach them how important it is to learn. Yes, I know exactly how hard this message can be to get over, I'm a parent myself.
We need as a society to show more appreciation of good teachers (of whom there are many) and help them to be even better. While underperforming ones must be given more help to improve, and if that doesn't work, helped to find an alternative career.
And above all, as one of the best education ministers to hold office in my lifetime said several decades ago (but it still needs to be done), we must to find a language to talk about the need to improve standards in education without the press interpreting it as an attack on teachers.
Comments