“Something, somewhere is going wrong in Scottish education” - but it is not clear why, according to a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).
The IFS has taken a fresh look at the past performance of Scottish education in advance of new results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), which will be published in December.
While the report authors highlight the introduction of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) as a fundamental shift in Scotland’s approach to education, they are reluctant to blame CfE for declining Pisa scores as other policy and social factors may have played a part, too.
The report also stresses that Scotland performs well by a different type of Pisa measure - of “global competence” - and that this may be related to CfE.
“Scotland has seen worsening average Pisa scores over time,” the IFS notes, in summing up Pisa trends seen over many years. (Pisa’s tests of 15-year-olds in dozens of countries focus on maths, reading and science, with the last results published in December 2019.)
They had “declined over time in maths and science” and “Scotland is no longer the best-performing UK nation in maths” or “well above” the international average, as it was from 2006 to 2012. However, Scotland’s reading scores had been “more stable”.
Today’s report, Socioeconomic inequality in Scottish education, states: “By 2018, Scotland had lost its place as the best-attaining UK nation in maths and fallen behind England in science. Reading scores fare better, as the more recent Scottish government data also shows.”
The report adds: “Such trends are naturally disappointing, particularly in light of higher levels of and bigger increases in spending per pupil in Scotland.”
The IFS summarises CfE as an approach that “outlines no specific content to be taught”, in which “schools and teachers teach to the needs of their students and the local area” and learning “cuts across fields of study”. However, the report is reluctant to draw a direct line between Scotland’s curricular reform and Pisa scores.
“It is unwise to ascribe such [Pisa] trends to particular policy changes, such as CfE, as there are many factors changing over time in both policy and society,” it states.
“However, the trends do suggest that something, somewhere is going wrong in Scottish education.”
Scotland’s Pisa ranking
The report notes a “wide socioeconomic gap in Pisa scores in Scotland” but stresses that this is evident in most countries involved in Pisa, which is run by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The IFS also finds that “better-off pupils underperform in Scotland compared with England”.
The report points to Scotland’s “relatively high scores in global competence”, referring to a newer type of Pisa rating.
A 2020 report looked at 27 OECD countries and economies, although only Scotland was represented from the UK. It assessed three areas: the ability to evaluate information, formulate arguments and explain issues and situations; to identify and analyse multiple perspectives; and to evaluate actions and consequences.
“This is noteworthy as this test gets close to measuring the type of content that the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence was explicitly supposed to engender,” the IFS report states, citing CfE’s aim of “creating more globally aware and responsible citizens”.
‘Disappointing’ test performance
IFS research economist Andrew McKendrick, one of the report authors, said: ”The performance of Scottish pupils in international Pisa tests has been disappointing, particularly in maths and science. Scotland has gone from a position of high performer to an average performer.
“The gap between rich and poor is slightly narrower than in England, but only because richer Scottish pupils score lower than their English counterparts.
“Large increases in spending and big reforms, such as CfE, do not seem to have translated into higher performance in these core subjects, though Scottish pupils did perform very well in a test of ‘global competence’, which may be measuring the impact of the new curriculum.”
Looking ahead to the Pisa report due in December, the IFS says: “This will provide an opportunity to examine how each of the UK nations is performing after the Covid-19 pandemic.
“When doing so, it is crucial to look beyond the headline debate on rankings, and to analyse actual scores on maths, reading and science in their proper historical context, and to look beyond the average to how scores differ across socioeconomic backgrounds.”
