Why are Scottish schools falling behind?

October 8, 2009 by
Filed under: Politics, Public policy 

Research that suggests Scottish schools have fallen behind those in England since devolution is challenging to critics of public service reform.

The research by the Scottish-based Centre for Public Policy for Regions is pretty damning of the political management of schools arguing, firstly, that since devolution Scotland has fallen behind England in terms of secondary school attainment, and, secondly, that not only do Scottish pupils have substantially more spent on them than their English counterparts, but budgets could be substantially reduced without any impact on outcomes.

Scottish schools are not the only example of poor public service performance in devolved administrations. A similar story of higher expenditure but worse outcomes can be told about the gulf between NHS waiting times in Wales and in England.

Given that the Scottish and Welsh Governments have both made much of their rejection of the English model of public service reform, especially its use of greater contestability among providers and choices for patients, the facts offer three different explanations:

1. The English approach to reform is right and the ideological unwillingness of Scotland and Wales to pursue some form of this approach has cost its citizens dear.

2. Scottish and Welsh politicians have chosen different outcomes to those prioritised by the English. While they may be doing worse and costing more in relation to the things English ministers care about – exam performance and waiting lists, for example – they are doing much better in relation to other outcomes.

3. The reason for worse performance in Scotland and Wales since devolution are to do with some other factor than reform.

I won’t pretend that I don’t find the first explanation the most likely. But I am very interested to hear if there are other interpretations.

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8 Comments on Why are Scottish schools falling behind?

  1. Joe Nutt on Thu, 8th Oct 2009 1:12 pm

    2. Scotland also introduced two other major changes. The first was to do with teacher workload, The McCrone agreement, which gave teachers a contractual 35 hour week. I never worked less than a 45 hour week as a day school teacher in my entire career and in the boarding sector it was literally 24 hours a day.

    Secondly, there is the Curriculum for Excellence. Having some knowledge of this through working up in Scotland a few years ago when it was first introduced, my view would be it has quite a lot to do with the findings of the CPPR. Scottish secondary education was in many ways extremely conventional, even old fashioned, until the curriculum for excellence came along. You can get a flavour of how big a shift it has meant for Scottish teachers and children here.
    http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/curriculumforexcellence/curriculumoverview/aims/index.asp And if that intrigues you, explore what a child is meant to be able to do under the curriculum heading, “Science.”

  2. Judith on Thu, 8th Oct 2009 5:40 pm

    3. While I wouldn’t dream of trying to explain the drop in levels of attainment, the spending can been put down to preparation for the implementation of the Curriculum for Excellence, a competence based approach to learning . A significant amount has been spent on creating additional teachers’ resources and seconding teachers to work on the Curriculum for Excellence on much higher salaries.

  3. Louise Macdonald on Thu, 8th Oct 2009 8:14 pm

    4. Hard to know where to begin with this one, so thought I’d keep it simple – the report is flawed in the extreme. To quote a senior politician up here, who is furious about the il-informed media coverage…”attacking Scottish education because of a ‘report’ that would be unacceptable in any system that had quality control. The document is riddled with qualifications and inconsistencies that negate the dramatic headlines. CPPR have achieved the negative spin they wanted because those that report and comment for us didn’t stop to think about the actual content. Shame on them.”

    Hear hear. The Curriculum for Excellence, though not perfect, is a vast improvement re how we engage, inspire and respect young learners as they grow and develop. It’s potential should be celebrated and supported., particularly by the RSA, as it has such complimentary attributes to Opening Minds.

  4. oliver cook on Thu, 8th Oct 2009 9:49 pm

    5. As a relatively new teacher, I fear this thinking focussed on ‘cost v attainment’ may hinder the implementation of currulum for excellence. The Scottish National debate has given teachers a mandate to move away from attainment as a primary focus.
    We are attempting to develop lessons and an ethos that encourages pupils to think autonomously and develop their own measure of success, thus giving us successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens, effective contributors.
    Crude measures don’t work in education. As a teacher, attainment data is important to me because it is used to hold me to account. I can coach pupils to better attainment but the stakeholders in education (including pupils and parents) have asked me to develop active thinkers and active learners.

    So, why are Scottish schools falling behind in attainment? We are in a state of flux and our measures are failing to keep up. Attainment must be reviewed but not in isolation. If we continue to comment on attainment alone we risk teachers focussing on teaching to tests rather than trying to develop good pedagogy.

  5. Shuggy on Fri, 9th Oct 2009 10:57 am

    6. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/TrendAttainmentS4S6

    According to the above, attainment has more or less flatlined at S4 since devolution whereas there has been about a 10% improvement at S6 since devolution. So we assume the decline is relative?

    I would agree simply spending more money on education doesn’t necessarily raise standards – and neither do smaller classes per se. But you’re taking this to support your preference for a ‘choice’ agenda – yet we have not been provided with any evidence to support it. Isn’t it possible that more choice leads to more grade inflation? This has been the alleged result of the voucher system in Sweden.

    Other than that, perhaps Scottish schools are in relative decline because we’re all too busy on the Curriculum for Excellence: we’re still trying to find someone who knows what it means…

    “The Curriculum for Excellence, though not perfect, is a vast improvement re how we engage, inspire and respect young learners as they grow and develop.”

    The person who left that remark has lost their damn mind.

  6. Louise Macdonald on Fri, 9th Oct 2009 7:43 pm

    7. Shuggy: in your view – which I respect your right to have without insult – I have lost my mind; but then again, perhaps I just have another perspective informed by my own experience.

  7. Ross on Wed, 14th Oct 2009 1:30 pm

    8. I don’t think Matthew actually read this report. (link to report: http://www.cppr.ac.uk/media/media_133107_en.pdf)

    One striking line in the actual published report says: “In terms of attainment, Scotland has flatlined since devolution while each of the other home nations has improved, particularly England.” Looking in greater depth at the statistics – Scotland’s performance has remained steady, while England’s has improved considerably. Arguably England had to up its game and improve and has made its own decisions on how to improve performance. There is a significant debate to be had at what cost has this been done – some English FE providers are now commenting that a GSCE qualification does not equate to a student’s actual academic ability when they undertake screening at induction. Therefore I think the jury is still out on whether the attainment agenda is a true reflection of children’s ability and better overall for English children’s education.

    Looking at the statistics on page five of the report, Scotland still compares better in key subjects (Maths, English, Languages and Science) in terms of attainment than its English cousins. I think Matthew should check out a report more fully before making general ideological generalisations about education policy in other nations – although I accept that this is my brief 5 minute analysis of the report…!

  8. matthewtaylor on Thu, 15th Oct 2009 8:31 am

    9. It’s a fair cop Ross. I’m afraid I responded the the news reports – which is never very wise. Mind you I’m yet to have a response from Wales questioning the problem of longer waiting lists

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