‘Five years left’ to save CfE after Pisa plunge

Experts warn reform is urgently needed as Scotland slips down the global rankings

9th December 2016, 12:00am

There are “only five years left” to salvage Curriculum for Excellence, an expert has warned, after Scotland slumped in one of the world’s leading education rankings.

The new Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) results prompted education secretary John Swinney to say he would push ahead with “radical” and “controversial” reforms in an attempt to make CfE work.

One academic described the results as the “worst news for Scottish education in 30 years”.

Sharp declines in reading, maths and science scores for Pisa 2015 mean that Scotland ranks third of the four home nations in each category, with only Wales doing worse. In 2012, when the last Pisa tests took place, Scotland was top in reading and maths.

Internationally, the tests - sat by 15-year-olds in 72 countries and regions - show that Scotland is now considered “average” in reading, science and maths. In 2012, it was “above average” for reading and science.

‘The clock is ticking’

Keith Topping, professor emeritus of education at the University of Dundee, said there was a need for urgent action to ensure that CfE was a success. “I don’t think it’s a lost cause, but the clock is ticking,” he said.

The national debate that led to CfE took place in 2002. Professor Topping said: “You can’t expect any curricular initiative to have a shelf life of longer than 20 years. If you don’t get it right in the next five years, forget it.”

Another education academic, Professor Lindsay Paterson from the University of Edinburgh, said the Pisa results showed that CfE was “failing” and that they marked the worst news for Scottish education in his 30-year career. “What else has been as much of a shock to Scottish complacency as this announcement?” he asked.

Mr Swinney admitted the figures made for “uncomfortable” reading, but said he “wasn’t that surprised” by them, because the Pisa tests took place around the same time as the disappointing results of the 2015 Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy.

He added that the results “underline the case for radical reform of Scotland’s education system”. This, he said, was already underway in the form of standardised national assessments, which will start in 2017-18.

“It is by carrying through on these reforms - no matter how controversial - that we can make Scottish education world-class again,” Mr Swinney said.

And he indicated that the government would be willing to make unpopular decisions in a bid to improve education. “A strength of Scotland’s education system has always been in collaboration, but we must now be clear: we must deliver the agenda for reform,” he said.

The government is in the midst of a school governance review and has raised the prospect of regional education boards. There will also be more flexible routes into teaching, and the door has not been closed on proposals for “state-funded autonomous schools”.

‘Increased investment’ needed

Unions indicated that the news from Pisa, which is run by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) came as no surprise, given the huge workload and assessment pressures on teachers.

The EIS said that Pisa provided “a clear indication of the need for increased investment in education”. But general secretary Larry Flanagan stressed that the tests had been taken almost 18 months ago, adding: “This was at a time, in 2015, when the upper secondary sector was undergoing major upheaval.”

Meanwhile, Maureen McKenna, president of education directors’ body ADES, said Pisa did not have the same resonance with the public in Scotland as it did in other countries, so teachers did not place the same emphasis on training pupils for the tests.

@TESScotland

Experts react: ‘The only people who can sort this are teachers’

An overemphasis on skills and sidelining of knowledge could help to explain Scotland’s poor Pisa results, according to education policy and literacy expert Professor Sue Ellis.

The building of deep knowledge was not taking place, she said, with pupils instead racing through many “gobbets of knowledge”.

Some top-performing systems actually took the curriculum at a slower pace, she added. This appeared “important in creating the understandings that allow pupils to motor really well later on,” she said.

Professor Ellis, from the University of Strathclyde, said that poorer children were particularly disadvantaged by a lack of focus on knowledge, since they were often not getting this at home.

Professor Lindsay Paterson, from the University of Edinburgh, said educational leaders and the entire political class must take blame for CfE’s failings.

While “radical reform” was needed it was hard to see how to do this while relieving the burden on teachers, he added. “We are at an impasse: how on earth do we get out of this hole while taking teachers with us?” Professor Paterson asked. “Because the only people who can sort this are teachers.”

Positive findings from Pisa

This week’s Pisa results were not completely devoid of positives for Scottish education.

The figures show that pupils from minority backgrounds are served well by Scottish schools. In science, students from non-immigrant backgrounds, with both parents born in Scotland, score just one point more than those from an immigrant background. This compares with an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average that puts non-immigrant students 43 points higher.

On this same measure, Scotland also does better than its nearest neighbours: in Northern Ireland non-immigrant students score 40 points more, in England they score 26 points more and in Wales 13 points more.

The Scottish students questioned were also often more positive about behaviour in class and their relationships with their teachers.

Just over 40 per cent of students reported that it was “never or hardly ever” the case that “students can’t work well” in science classes. The OECD average was 33.9 per cent.

Some 44.8 per cent of Scottish pupils said the teacher “shows an interest in every student’s learning [in] every lesson”, compared with an OECD average of 34.3 per cent.