The UK are ‘doing the complete opposite’ to ‘countries who achieved better results’ in the PISA 2012 report, the Green Party says. Following the publication of the OECD’s PISA 2012 (1) report and the speculation it has sparked over the government’s approach to education, Natalie Bennett, Green Party leader, said:
"Mr Gove is not wholly to blame for these results, but it is striking that in many respects countries that have achieved better results than the UK are doing the complete opposite from him."
Natalie added: "The clearest message that comes from these results every year is that Britain, a very unequal society, has very unequal outcomes in school scores.
"We can't expect our schools to wholly overcome the impact of growing poverty and struggle for parents and children - we need to reduce inequality and ensure everyone has enough for a decent life, with a compulsory living wage, adequate benefits for all who need them, and appropriate housing. That would lift the quality of educational outcomes, and the human resources of our society."
The PISA report ranked Britain just 26th for maths, 23rd for reading and 21st for science when tests were sat in 2012. The study said: "Top performers, notably in Asia, place great emphasis on selecting and training teachers, encourage them to work together and prioritise investment in teacher quality not classroom sizes. They also set clear targets and give teachers autonomy in the classroom.”
Natalie agreed, saying: “Countries that value their teachers, give them high status and good pay, generally do well in the ratings - and yet Mr Gove is heading in the opposite direction, particularly in his active encouragement of the use of unqualified teachers and attacks on teachers' pay and conditions.
"Countries that introduce change slowly and gradually, in a planned and clearly mapped way, do better - which is again not Mr Gove's approach, as we lurch from abolishing GCSEs to reinstating them, and into changing the way schools' results are judged mid-stream."