A week after the OECD published its latest (2022) findings in the Programme for International Student Assessment, a triennial exercise known by its acronym PISA, the SNP-led Scottish Government and the party itself are spinning a report purportedly showing the opposite of what the Paris-based think tank has discovered.
As Profs Lindsay Paterson and Walter Humes, two of Scotland’s leading educationalists, reported on these pages, PISA 2022 reveals a decline in attainment and a rise in inequality – a sad commentary on two decades of the Scottish Executive/Government and 16 years of the SNP in power. Yet the party is now claiming that the Scottish Government’s report for 2022-23 on Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence levels (ACEL) shows “LITERARY AND NUMERACY ATTAINMENT GAP AT RECORD LOW” (its caps).
Here’s a flavour of the spin: “The SNP Government is delivering major progress on attainment, as new figures reveal the number of pupils in Primary schools from both the most and least deprived areas achieving expected levels of literacy and numeracy has reached a record high. The Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Level (ACEL) statistics show that in numeracy, 79.6% of pupils reached the levels expected in 2022/23 a rise of 0.5 percentage points compared to the previous high in 2018/19. Literacy levels also saw a rise of 0.4% from the previous high in 2018/19 to 72.2%.”
Its news release concludes: “The SNP has said that this shows that the Scottish Government’s investment is improving outcomes in education and delivering real progress.”
The Scottish Government acknowledges that the ACEL “assessments of children’s progress are based on teachers’ professional judgements in schools” or, as Humes says, self-reporting by teachers – some of whom (at least) “feel under pressure to report positively.”
Prof Paterson is caustic: “Sadly, this annual exercise is next-to-useless, because the statistics which it contains are based on ‘teacher judgement’ with no indication of how that relates to any kind of objective measure. The results are thus akin to the education system’s marking its own homework.
Sue Palmer says
I’ve just replied to the govt announcement, suggesting that – given the relentless pressure on schools to improve literacy/numeracy stats, increases of 0.045% are not surprising. But what about the spiralling mental health problems and additional support needs. And the pressure of cost-of-living crisis for the living in poverty.
I suggested they read Upstart’s suggestions for educational improvement:
https://upstart.scot/education-how-does-scotland-get-out-of-this-fine-mess/