Why the Tories can’t take all the credit for UK’s rise up international school league tables

Education ministers have been fixated on improving Britain’s ranking in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) global league tables for reading, maths and science in recent years.

So it is no surprise that the Conservative Party is treating the latest Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report – which shows Britain climbing up the rankings – as a win.

With less than a fortnight to go until the general election, education secretary Gavin Williamson has said the Pisa results show that reforms introduced by the Conservatives “are working”.

But how much credit should be given to the government for the improvement? And has the government’s focus on these core subjects and tests actually had a negative impact on schoolchildren?

The UK has improved its ranking on three years ago but there has been no real significant change in the scores for reading or science since 2006, the OECD report shows. Britain has moved up the league tables for these subjects because other countries have seen their performance decline.

However, there has been a significant improvement in maths since the last set of Pisa tests in 2015 and this follows a government push to adopt south Asian maths teaching methods in schools across the UK.

In 2016, the Department for Education announced a £41m project to train hundreds of teachers to adopt the “maths mastery” approach – which was first introduced in England two years earlier.

The approach, which is used in the top-performing regions like Shanghai, Singapore and Hong Kong, involves children being taught as a whole class and is supported by the use of high-quality textbooks.

But education experts are sceptical about how much the improvement in maths performance among 15-year-olds in the UK in 2018 can be attributed to these specific government reforms. They say it is too early to establish why this rise has happened and whether it is a trend that is likely to continue.

However, the unions argue that the high-stakes exam system and narrow focus on the core academic subjects in UK schools is likely to have made children more stressed and anxious than before.

The OECD report reveals that British pupils are significantly less satisfied with their lives than their peers around the world. “This finding must surely serve as a warning that we need to ratchet down the pressure,” said Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.

It is undeniable that the improvement in maths among UK pupils is worthy of praise, but it is unclear at this stage how far the Conservative reforms have contributed to the uplift.

A continued focus on exam results and league tables may well lead to Britain climbing further up the rankings in years to come, but the government must ensure it is not at the expense of student wellbeing.