Britain still has a lot more homework to do

Politicians tend to obsess over high-profile, ambitious reforms, while brushing details aside. The results often disappoint. This is certainly true of British education policy, where too much effort has focused on devising new school structures and standards. The pedestrian question of what happens in the classroom has received less attention. This has been a mistake.

For all the reforms of recent decades, the latest Pisa results show that the performance of Britain’s students has not improved over the past decade. In Scotland and Wales, performance fell in the most recent exams. The tests, undertaken by the OECD every three years, compare the skills of more than half a million 15-year-old students in maths, reading and science across 72 countries. Britain has emerged from the rankings above the OECD average but lagging far behind east Asia, Canada and northern Europe.

If tinkering by well-meaning ministers were enough to lift up student results, Britain’s schools would lead the world. Almost every successive education minister has tried to improve testing and curricula, revise school structures and give more hand-holding to struggling schools — all that with the objective of making Britain one of the world’s top-five performers. They are right to try. Over time, poor instruction will hurt any country that relies, as Britain does, on a skilled and educated population for economic prosperity.

The power of international tests is that they allow approaches that work in one place to be tried in another. One general lesson is that spending more on education in rich countries does not buy better student results. The UK pays more than $115,000 per pupil from the age of 6 to 15, outspending many top performers.

Nor is it clear that the introduction of academic selection — as proposed under prime minister Theresa May’s plans to increase the number of grammar schools — would improve the record. The Pisa results show clearly that many countries that achieve outstanding results keep selection to a minimum.

What distinguishes top performers is their strong focus on what happens inside the classroom. They prioritise high-quality teaching over smaller classes. Students thrive when they are exposed to good teaching. It is surprising that this common sense notion needs reinforcement, but it does.

Simple in principle, achieving classroom success is not easy in practice. It means recruiting good teachers, motivating them to stay on, devising robust curricula and giving every pupil the same chance to succeed in school. According to a recent survey, four in five schools across the UK struggle to retain teachers, and two in five teachers in England are planning to leave the profession in the next five years.

The success stories say that excellent teachers stay on when they are given opportunities to grow with continuous support and pedagogical training. The government should also build on the success of imaginative initiatives that work to this end, such as TeachFirst which encourages university graduates to go into teaching.

Government ministers should be embarrassed to be reminded of Britain’s stagnant performance with each batch of Pisa results. For all the structural reforms, the quality of classroom teaching has been the hardest factor to prioritise. A handful of positive examples across the country, notably in London, show that concentrated efforts and resources make change possible. It is time for ministers to focus on what matters most. The future prosperity of the UK is at stake.

Letters in response to this editorial:

Learning won’t improve until teaching changes / From Elaine Bracken

High scorers’ domination does not last — but why? / From Siyoung Choi