The education of secondary school pupils in the UK is slipping behind the equivalent of those in many other industrialised nations, according to a study carried out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) publishes results of its educational studies every three years. Based on school tests carried out in 2006, the performance of UK secondary school pupils in both reading and maths fell sharply compared with the year 2000. The UK is now ranked around 17th in reading and 24th in Maths (in 2000, the UK was seventh in literacy, and eighth in maths). The study assesses around 400,000 pupils in 57 countries and publishes regular international rankings.
There is something clearly wrong with the way UK children are being taught. The government has spent billions of pounds in taxpayers’ money on education, yet more children today are either, illiterate, innumerate, or both… and that is a huge scandal. The country is continually paying the price for this….. a significant number of the adult population cannot get proper work because they cannot read or do their sums properly.
Every parent should read this study and demand that action be taken by the government to deal with this problem.