What a PISA Nonsense

Nicola Biggerstaff

This week saw the release of the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results, the first set since the pandemic. It shows a downward trend in academic achievement across schools globally, and Scotland is no exception.

Ran by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) since 2000, it assesses a random sample of fifteen year old students from each participating country in mathematics, science, and reading. This latest assessment is the eighth since its inception, and the first since the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw previously unprecedented disruption to education, taking many forms around the world. In Scotland and the UK, this involved the examination and assessment framework becoming almost entirely coursework based for academic years 2019-20 and 2020-21.

A downward trend in performance is therefore not entirely unexpected. We’ve commented extensively previously on how the continuous disruption to education has had a tremendous impact on pupil’s performance, mental health, and behaviour.

In Scotland, 3,257 pupils across 117 schools took part in the survey. Our results showed a drop in reading score from 504 in 2018 to 493 last year, itself a drop from our highest score of 526 in the study’s first year. In maths, Scotland dropped from 489 to 471, just one point below the OECD average of 472. In science, Scotland dropped from 490 points to 483.

Comparatively across the UK, Scotland performed better than Wales but fell behind England and Northern Ireland in maths and science, but was secondary only to England with reading scores. This is also on par with previous years where England has generally performed better than the other three nations.

While there are some drawbacks to the random sampling method, the biggest being the failure to paint an accurate picture of educational attainment across all ages in all academic areas, it does allow for a level assessment across nations where minimal standards for sampling have been met.

Outside the quantitative data, surveys of pupils were also conducted regarding their health and wellbeing and socioeconomic circumstances, including ‘students’ attitudes, dispositions and beliefs, their homes, and their school and learning environment’. It found that in Scotland, two thirds (67%) of school pupils feel like they belong at their school, lower than the OECD average of just under 75%, but higher than in 2018 at just under 65%. It also reports a decline in rates of bullying since 2018, but this also still sits higher than the OECD average. Almost 22% reported skipping a full day of schooling in the two weeks before the assessment, higher than both in 2018 (16.8%) and the 2022 average (14.6%).

Most damningly, the survey reported a high level of food poverty nationwide, with 11% of UK pupils skipping at least one meal per week due to financial issues. Other findings include the negative impact of teacher shortages on learning, and that pupils are in desperate need of more support.

The ignorance of our government in still trying to claim that our education is world-leading is becoming a farce at this point. Every year they claim the SQA exam results are a win, that they have been, in recent years, a testament to the country’s Covid recovery. But we cannot claim to be improving when the facts show just how average we are, or worse. We can’t even stand out among the 81 participating PISA nations, or take any progressive steps towards the improvements necessary to set this in motion.

According to Lindsay Paterson, professor emeritus of education policy at the University of Edinburgh, when asked by the BBC, the longer term decline of standards can be traced back to as far as 2012, which he notes was the time at which the Curriculum for Excellence was “beginning to impinge significantly on children’s learning”.

Also according to the BBC, even a representative of the directorate of education and skills at the OECD, Andreas Schleicher, said that the impact of Covid should not be ‘overplayed’ and that other factors, including access to smart phones, contributed to increasing levels of anxiety which affect performance.

Both Humza Yousaf and Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth have said these results are “not good enough”, with the latter continually citing the OECD’s comments on the impact of the pandemic, and will promise to work with local authorities and their representatives, including COSLA, to deliver improvements in her address to parliament next week.

Overall, this is a damning indictment of both our country’s education system and our standard of living, and we cannot keep using Covid recovery as a smokescreen for this. We must at some point take responsibility, admit this country is failing its young people both in both education and wider community support. This is a generation which will be left behind if we do not act now.

As Robin wrote last week, we need to start taking a caring approach to education. Only by addressing the core issues which affect living standards: poverty, housing, food security and healthcare, can we even begin to address the mounting problems and underperformance in our schools, namely the reassessment of CfE, and create an education model which actually educates, inspires, and improves prospects, and not settle for one which just pretends to for the sake of spin.