Leaning tower of PISA shows just how far Scottish education has fallen

Sir, – Ian Wallace (Courier, June 25) appears to be delighted with the current state of Scottish education, but is able only to offer little more than that Scotland is third for “global competency” in PISA, and a few other hand-picked nuggets.

Let’s look at PISA shall we, given it’s the only international assessment of achievement the Scottish Government has not withdrawn our children from? From 2000 to 2018 Scotland has dropped in the PISA ratings from a score of 553 for mathematics to 489, from 526 in reading to 504 and from 522 in science to 490 (where 500 is the benchmark).

England has outstripped Scotland in all three of these educational pillars in that time. I’d suggest maths, reading and science remain rather important in the 21st Century.

The aims of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) may indeed be laudable but its implementation has been lamentable, so much so that its architect, Keir Bloomer, stated in 2020 that schools which ignore the guidance are performing better than those which adhere to it!

What is more, the OECD report on CfE, which was not released until after the 2021 election while the draft was massaged by the administration’s 54.9 FTE spin doctors – a decline in maths and science became remained stable in maths and science – was highly critical.

Mr Wallace then goes on to state that Scotland is the most well-educated country in the world in terms of tertiary education for Scots aged 16-64.

Quite a record but one which totally misses that the vast majority of those people attended school before moving into that sector when there was no CfE, and indeed no SNP administration!

Scottish universities, now that they no longer have to fund EU students (a condition of that union that the SNP fought against) have made a £95 million saving in 2021. ‘Free’ university tuition benefits those who can afford to pay as well as those who can’t.

An unfortunate consequence is that in order to pay for it, more rUK and overseas students have to be given places, meaning there are fewer left for domestic ones.

These numbers were cut again this year prompting more than 100 university professors to send the government a letter of warning of a crisis as more Scottish pupils will be turned away due to SNP funding cuts.

Finally, all deadlines for closing the attainment gap in Scotland have been missed and the 2026 one abandoned.

Mr Wallace may well dismiss all this as ‘fake news’ but every bit of it can be verified.

Perhaps he might like to reflect on why so many teachers ‘fondly’ refer to CfE as the ‘Curriculum for Excrement’!