OECD Study puts England at bottom for Maths and Literacy

[missinglalaland]

A major study by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development puts England's 16 to 24 year olds at 22nd for Literacy and 21st for Numeracy out of 24 developed countries. Ouch!

What can we do to fix this? More money? Less permissiveness? Sorting by ability? Different teacher training? Longer school years? Different methods?

I don't think that you can say your parents and their friends were university educated in Hong Kong therefore education in S Korea was universal good at that time. S Korea was an emerging economy what 30 years ago, I imagine a great deal of investment in education has happened over that period. MNCs will recruit globally for business leaders.

That is true. There are drives to improve literacy teaching, it's one of the teacher standards, but a whole generation at school in the 80s weren't taught grammar, and they are now teaching.

Far too many children arrive at secondary having made 'expected progress' or level 4 in English and yet unable to read well. Apparently listening to reading is not good use of teacher time. If parents don't spend time on listening to reading then I can see how children fail to progress.

Well , the main conclusions of the report are about social mobility:

• Inequality in skills is associated with inequality in income
• Social background has a major impact on literacy skills.
• Much of learning takes place outside formal education
• Many adults with low skills proficiency are outside the workforce.

Robert Peston's analysis suggests numeracy is the problem, not literacy. But in ability to handle digital data we are better than the US or Japan.

I'd still suggest that most of the highly performing countries, which have more equitable societies, value language learning, although no hint of that in the report. There's a really alarming news story on the drop in language degree courses here - and most of those axed were combined with vocational courses. Worrying.

Might have to go back through the OECD document to check but I think the figure they gave was something like 60% leaving school at the end of primary in 1970 in S. Korea. The introduction of compulsory secondary education definitely given as part of the reason for the large difference between 16-24 year olds and 55-65 year olds' scores there.

They also back up what CecilyP said about 55-64 year olds in England scoring very highly in comparison to similar age groups in other countries. This combined with slightly below average scores in the 16-24 year old group means that both groups perform similarly in this country.

I worked for a Finnish company for 6 years. The Finns were very very good in their own very narrow field, but in our office it was the British staff that could multitask and think outside the box, where as the Finnish staff floundered if they had to do something outside their normal range.

Finnish is a language with very simple phonics, therefore one of the easiest language for a native born to learn to read and write. It takes just 6 months to learn compared to 18 months for a British child to learn to read and write English.

That is true. There are drives to improve literacy teaching, it's one of the teacher standards, but a whole generation at school in the 80s weren't taught grammar, and they are now teaching.

I would also add the 70s to that, my children (16 and 18) have been taught far more about grammar and punctuation than I was ever taught. I think we were expected to absorb it somehow.

I've heard that before about Finnish companies looking for British staff because they can think outside the box. Although PISA tests to tend to test those sorts of skills rather than direct curricular knowledge and it doesn't look like they've had a problem with scoring on level 4/5 question in this set of tests.

We tend to fall down at the 'tail end'. We get a larger proportion of pupils scoring at the high end than many other countries but we also have a larger proportion scoring at the very low end and that brings our average score down.

This is rather silly....

I amongst many other foreigners send our children to the UK as it still is one of the best all round education avaliable. What people tend to forget it that an ability to rote learn is great and a necessary evil. Without recall critical thinking can not be done. Yet to only rote learn without critical thinking is also not going to work.

I do agree though that numeracy in the UK does fall behind its asian countetpart.

In agreement with Wonderstuff: "I don't know where we went wrong, I don't believe Gove is the solution. I don't think its 1950s education we need, but 1950s aspiration"

There are so many factors why we are trailing behind the rest of the world in numeracy and literacy. The Scandinavia countries have very small relatively homogenous populations (Finland's is 5 million) with a high GDP derived mainly from high tech industries also they have small class sizes averaging 20 dcs with well qualified teachers. This would make mixed ability teaching doable with enough differentiation and teachers able to help all dcs. The Asian countries lack of an established welfare state would make parents more likely to ensure their dcs did well educationally in order to secure the best paid jobs and support them in their old age. They tend to have big class sizes of over 30 but I suspect the lack of classroom disruption, streaming by ability, input from outside tutoring paid for by parents would also make this model work.

classroom sizes

MooncupGoddess Tue 08-Oct-13 18:02:21

"Partly the study is skewed by different rates of growth/change in the different countries; e.g. 50 years ago South Korea was really, really poor, and presumably educational standards were correspondingly weak. So it's no surprise the young people in their now very successful and education-focused economy have better skills than those who grew up in the 1960s."

This. If all a country's inhabitants were illiterate a generation ago and half of them were now literate they would be ranking higher in this particular survey than a country where 97% of the inhabitants were literate a generation ago and only 96.5% now. But "being more literate than your dad" isn't really enough to compete internationally. In fact, it seems pretty irrelevant.

Cory I don't think the rankings are on improvement. The rankings are on the literacy and numeracy of the current generation of 16-24 year olds and then they also made comparisons with the older generation.

Not saying it's not a great achievement in those countries. But it's hardly a sign of failure that the UK already had a great number of literate and numerate people a generation ago.

Hong Kong and South Korea were very different places a generation ago. China has changed out of all recognition, from a country where learning was suspect and even dangerous under the Cultural Revolution. But the older generation are the people who were young then. Somebody who is in their fifties today would have been at school or just about to start school when the Cultural revolution started.

Anyway, don't let's treat "the Asian" countries as if they were all one. Literacy rates in Pakistan are still appalling, particularly for girls: the fact that they happen to be next door to India doesn't help them at all.

Even the Scandinavian countries differ widely educationally. Finland is indeed culturally and ethnically homogenous- Sweden and Denmark have a large immigrant population, many of whom (at least in Sweden) are refugees with very low levels of education and often traumatised from their previous life. Finland has a fairly traditional educational system which hasn't changed greatly over the last couple of generations. Sweden has introduced free schools and generally changed quite a bit since they were heading all the league tables. Not the same, not the same at all.

Speaking as someone who was educated in Sweden under the old system, I was taught spelling, grammar and foreign languages to a high standard. But I was never taught how to express myself or speak in public- no drama lessons, no debating societies, not even proper essay writing. You won't find me making mistakes over my French irregular verbs, but I have had to work very hard to learn to marshal my thoughts and present them neatly: my dc here in the UK learn that much earlier and much better.

My apologies if I'm wrong, Tess, I only read the Guardian article, not the report itself. And the way it was presented there it was about improvement and the great shock horror was that we are the only nation who cannot show an upward trend. But the report may well say something different.

For those who have been relying on media reports the actual OECD report makes interesting reading.

skills.oecd.org/skillsoutlook.html

skills.oecd.org/SkillsOutlook_2013_KeyFindings.pdf

www.oecd.org/site/piaac/surveyofadultskills.htm

What Wonderstuff said. I think this is inextricably linked to class and social mobility. I've taught in England and also have experience of the education systems of Germany and Spain. I've encountered far more resistance to education (among both parents and children) here than in either of those countries. There are whole swathes of society in the UK that just don't see the point of learning, whereas other more homogeneous, meritocratic countries seem to have much more faith in education as a means of self-improvement.

I think there needs to be a massive cultural shift, with schools and parents being held jointly accountable for pupil outcomes, rather than schools being charged with sole responsibility for everything from obesity to sex education in addition to their educational responsibilities. I've also been shocked by the poor educational standards and lack of aspiration among some of the teachers I've worked with. A significant number of them genuinely seem to prefer the 'social work' aspects of the job to the actual teaching, which is almost regarded as an optional extra. Obviously schools need nurturing and supportive individuals, but they also need people who can effectively instil knowledge and a passion for learning.

I agree that Gove has identified some of the problems, but has no idea how to implement the solutions. He is heavy-handed and patronising, and I'm not remotely surprised that teachers dislike him.

"I've also been shocked by the poor educational standards and lack of aspiration among some of the teachers I've worked with. A significant number of them genuinely seem to prefer the 'social work' aspects of the job to the actual teaching, which is almost regarded as an optional extra."

Agree very strongly that this is a peculiarly British cultural trait among teachers - that their primary role is to sort out society!

Absolutely, Bonsoir - and also the belief that the means of doing so should be through offering children a shoulder to cry on, rather than providing children with the skills they need to improve their lives. Yes, teachers should be supportive and understanding, but I've come across a fair few who would rather spend their days counselling children and sorting out their complex home lives than teaching the subject they originally trained for. Lovely people, all of them, but their altruism often seemed to be coupled with defeatism - the assumption that their pupils would never amount to much educationally, so may as well be 'happy' in the short term.

A past headteacher of mine (large school in a deprived suburb) once told us during a staff meeting that, since he'd calculated that pupils only spent 15% of their time at school, there was little we could do to improve their overall life chances, and should focus instead on 'making sure school was a happy place'.

I've read a good part of the report now.

Parents have come under a good deal of pressure in the past few decades (and this pressure is increasing) to place the daily care of their DC in the hands of people who are significantly less skilled than they are themselves in order for them to use their superior skills to earn money and fuel the greater economy.

Surely, if DC are consistently placed in the care of people significantly less skilled than their parents, it stands to reason that they as adults will be less skilled than their parents are?

That is my experience also Tenthmuse and bonsoir. Teachers often fall into two categories, those than are good subject teachers and inspire, and those that make a career out of pastoral work. Often I feel that many would be happier being social workers, but that wouldn't be an option though as the pay is much less and social workers are held accountable when things go wrong. I think that teachers should stick to teaching their specialised subjects and specialised pastoral social workers should deal with the pastoral side of school. The work of providing youngsters with the skills they need to improve their lives is very important and needs to take priority in schools.

IME the teachers who prefer the kind, pastoral role over the more demanding teaching role are often preferred by weaker pupils and their parents. It's something of a vicious circle.

The thing is you do need both. We can not work well if we are anxious or are basic needs aren't met, I think that most people are truly shocked when they start working at school at how many children struggle to learn because of anxiety, trauma or neglect. IMO great teachers care for and inspire students.

I think there is also a tendency for the media and politicians to see school as a solution to so much - high teenage pregnancy, improve school sex ed, obesity - healthy schools initiative, more PE, poor children not achieving - get them in nursery education early.. But the family with a poor diet and underachieving children don't see school as a valued institution.

Agreed bonsoir, but should schools be expected to take over the nanny role, or should parents take more responsibility. For those vulnerable students, should specialists who actually know what they are doing, be employed in schools for pastoral and social roles.

On a similar issue, it seems that more teaching assistants than ever are being employed and if reports are correct they are teaching a greater percentage of classes single-handed, and even preparing their own lessons without teacher support. Question is, what affect is this having on educational standards in these schools/academies. Is this another area that needs to be reformed. If teachers undertook less pastoral work maybe they wouldn't need to use TA's to cover for them.

The million dollar question is how do we raise the achievements of children whose parents have limited education and low aspirations for them, whilst also getting the very best for those from more privileged backgrounds and supporting children with SEN? We are going to see more and more children with complex needs in mainstream education, budgets for services that support these children are being cut, it's difficult. Especially when the Secretary of State wants to see all schools delivering above average results I suppose he further highlights our national numeracy problem.

Parents have come under a good deal of pressure in the past few decades (and this pressure is increasing) to place the daily care of their DC in the hands of people who are significantly less skilled than they are themselves in order for them to use their superior skills to earn money and fuel the greater economy.

Well put Bonsoir and very insightful too.