Bored, bored, bored: Why British teenagers feel lessons are all too often a waste of time

Britain's secondary school standards have fallen behind those in the rest of the developed world during the past 30 years, an international comparison published yesterday discloses.

The report also paints a disturbing picture of bad behav-iour, time-wasting and boredom that it argues is now common in British classrooms.

Teenagers complain they have to put up with annoying levels of time-wasting, noise and disruption when they are trying to study.

British students also find school more boring than their peers in many of the 32 industrialised nations surveyed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). But if British students managed to progress to university they were likely to enjoy benefits graduates from other countries could only dream of, Andreas Schleicher, the OECD's head of statistics, said yesterday

Degree holders in the UK saw the best return on their investment of any graduates in the countries analysed by his study, Mr Schleicher said. British graduates enjoyed significantly higher salaries than non-graduates and were much less likely to be unemployed, according to the OECD's 2002 edition of its annual Education At a Glance publication.

It gave UK graduates a "rate of return" of 17 per cent compared with 10 to 15 per cent in Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and the US and 7 per cent in Italy and Japan.

Mr Schleicher said he had been surprised by the sheer scale of the benefits enjoyed by British graduates, which showed no sign of diminishing despite the massive expansion of higher education.

"If anything these differentials are getting stronger," he said. "This might seem surprising as lots more people are now going into higher education. You might think that the market would become saturated but there is no evidence that is happening."

The OECD's findings will bolster the Government's case that students should contribute towards their degree costs in recognition of the life-long benefits they will enjoy as graduates. It may also fuel the determination of those who want to allow universities to charge "top-up" fees of up to £15,000 a year to reflect the true cost of higher education.

The report also showed UK undergraduates already contributed almost double the OECD average towards the costs of a university education.

Mandy Telford, president of the National Union of Students, said students were already overburdened with debt. "UK students cannot be expected to bear any further costs. The introduction of top-up fees would force our students to cough up the most money just to attempt to better themselves."

The report also revealed that there were worrying levels of boredom and indiscipline in British schools.

Fifty-four per cent of 15-year-olds said they "often" felt bored at school, compared with an average across the 32 nations of 48 per cent.

More than four out of ten 15-year-olds in the UK complained that more than five minutes was wasted at the start of lessons because classmates would not settle down to work. More than one in four (27 per cent) protested about "noise and disorder" during classes.

Teenagers in the UK were also taught in larger classes and were set more homework to do. The national average secondary class size was 25, against the OECD average of 24. British pupils were set an average of 5.4 hours a week of homework in English, maths and science, compared with an average of 4.6 hours.

The study also showed most British teenagers enjoyed their time at school. More than nine out of ten 15-year-olds said school was a place where they made friends easily, compared with an OECD average of 81 per cent. Eighty-three per cent felt they fitted in at school, compared with an average of 75 per cent.

Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, called for more funding for education. "While there is much to celebrate in the OECD findings, it is clear that there is still no room for complacency about the funding of schools in the United Kingdom. The UK still barely touches the European average," he said. "Class sizes in the UK are still too high. The evidence shows that reducing class size must still be on the Government's agenda."

A spokesman for the Department for Education and Skills insisted that tackling bad behaviour was one of the Government's top priorities. "A bored pupil is a pupil that's not achieving his potential – and is more likely to play truant," he said. "That's why good teaching is the best way to promote good behaviour.

"The Government has introduced a range of initiatives to improve teaching. There have been huge improvements since 1997 – Ofsted now rates nearly 70 per cent of lessons as good compared with 40 per cent five years ago.

"Tackling bad behaviour in the classroom is a top priority. We have made over £600m available to schools and LEAs over the past three years to tackle poor behaviour."

The findings will come as a disappointment to the Government, after an earlier report by the OECD had praised the achievements of British teen-agers. Last year, a survey of educational attainment across the 32 nations – the Programme for International Student Assessment – showed UK teenagers were among the best performers in the world. It concluded that 15-year-olds in the UK ranked seventh in terms of reading, eighth in maths and fourth in science. The Government has regularly used the figures to back its claims that standards are improving.

The OECD's new report revealed how Britain had slipped down the international rankings.

The secondary school results of Britain's older workers would have been near the top of tables of school leavers' qualifications 30 years ago. Britain has now been overtaken by countries such as Korea and appears near the bottom of tables ranking the proportion of students who leave school with at least five GCSEs or an equivalent qualification.

Ranked by results achieved by school leavers, the UK was 13th in the table of those aged 55 to 64 but only 24th when the qualifications of those aged 25 to 34 were compared.

The OECD insisted the switch from the old grammar school and secondary modern system to comprehensives in the 1960s could not be blamed. Mr Schleicher told a press conference in London: "You don't see a decline in the UK, it's just that many countries have been much more dynamic in expanding their upper secondary systems. In the UK the figures have gone up but at a much smaller rate. What is behind that I can't explain but in many countries that gap has been successfully filled."

The most successful education system tended to be ones where learning was "individualised", he added.

Mr Schleicher said that "highly differentiated systems" where pupils were forced to select an "educational pathway" early in their school careers – including those in Germany and Switzerland – were among the least successful.

Part of the reason Britain might have slipped back in terms of secondary school qualifications could be its focus on the highest achievers, Mr Schleicher suggested.