Badenoch’s ‘pupil improvements’ claim at PMQs was actually from fiddled figures

At Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said:

The OECD found children in England rose up global league tables in maths, reading and science. Conservative government action means English schools now top the Western world

Cooked figures at PMQs

But a University College London (UCL) study found “serious flaws” in the government’s education statistics.

The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data compares attainment by 15 year old pupils across developed countries. UCL found that in the UK for 2018 about 40% of students were not included in the statistics.

This could result in those with lower attainment being excluded from the data, given freedom of information requests by UCL showed schools with lower grades were less likely to participate in the study.

Badenoch and Starmer both argued at PMQs that vast academisation has improved standards. Starmer said:

Mr Speaker, it was Labour that introduced academies in the first place to drive up standards

In 2010, around 6% of secondary schools were academies. Now 81.9% of secondaries are academies, along with 42.7% of primary schools.

But, in another study, UCL found no educational improvement as a result of children attending multi-academy chains. And an Education Policy Institute (EPI) report found that academy chains are “over-represented in the lowest performing groups” for primary schools. It’s no wonder the National Education Union (NEU) are against academisation.

Academisation

When it comes to GCSEs, the results have slumped to 2010 levels, underscoring the idea that academisation has driven up standards is misplaced.

One issue with academies is the ‘top slicing’ of excessive executive pay, funded by the public purse. 44 academy trust CEOs now earn more than £200,000 per year in what resembles the corporate sector. That’s wage rises of up to 50% in five years. Whereas, according to the NEU, teachers pay in real terms remains 20% lower than in 2010.

From 2010 to 2016, schools could become academies if they ‘voluntarily chose to’. But this choice is not as voluntary as was made out. From 2010, the Tory government cut the education budget by 25% over four years. At the same time, they told schools that they will award them £25,000 and increase their budget by up to 10% if they become academies.

Thus, schools do not choose to become academies because they believe they are better, but to survive arbitrary austerity conditions imposed by the government. The Tories then mandated the transition to academies in 2016.

There’s no evidence it has improved anything (and some to the contrary).

Featured image via House of Commons