Downing Street Says » Programme for International Student Assessment

» Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Programme for International Student Assessment

Asked if the Prime Minister was concerned about Britain’s current slide in the world league tables for both maths and English, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) confirmed that this question was referring to the Results from the Programme for International Student Assessment in 2006 and replied that in general we continued to perform significantly above the international average for scientific literacy and around the average for reading and mathematical literacy. The national curriculum tests and GCSE results told us that standards were continuing to rise slowly but steadily across the board. In relation to this particular report, as DCSF had said, many countries were grouped quite closely together in terms of their results. For example, in science, 6 other countries nominally ahead of us were what the report classed as ‘not significantly different’ from us in performance. Similar things were happening in the reading table. What mattered was what was happening to overall standards and our national curriculum tests and GCSEs told us that standards were continuing to rise slowly but steadily across the board. Of course we would always want to do more and there was always scope for improvement but we were significantly above the national average for scientific literacy and around the average for reading and mathematics.

Put that the Government should be more humble now that things were going in the wrong direction, the PMS repeated that of course you could always do more, as Ed Balls and DCSF were saying. There was no room for complacency but our own national curriculum and GCSE results told us that standards were rising.

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