16 March 2020

By John Jerrim

The latest set of results from the TALIS 2018 study are about to come out. These will, among other things, present new evidence on how teachers’ mental health and stress levels compare across more than 40 countries. 

While England takes part in TALIS, the rest of the UK does not. This is unfortunate, as it is becoming increasingly difficult to compare education systems across different parts of the UK, despite these comparisons sometimes being the most interesting.

This prompts the question – how exactly does the wellbeing of teachers vary across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales?

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12 March 2020

By John Jerrim

We have written before about how teachers in England work longer hours, on average, than teachers in other countries. And this is an active area of government policy in England.

But the distribution of working hours of teachers also matters. Are some teachers not pulling their weight, while others are having to work excessive hours to cover for their workshy colleagues?

Although this is the case in some countries, England is not (more…)

14 January 2020

By Francesca Borgonovi

Results from PISA 2018 reveal a persistent gender gap in favour of 15-year-old girls in reading. On average, across 35 OECD countries with comparable data, this gap was 39 points in 2009 but ‘only’ 30 points in 2018 – i.e. the gap narrowed by 9 points. 

I should be celebrating, but I won’t. PISA results in fact suggest that, on average across OECD countries gender gaps in reading closed because the performance of girls declined, rather than because the performance of boys improved. Even more worryingly, the decline appears to be especially pronounced among poorly achieving girls. 

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12 December 2019

By Jay Derrick

Exactly 100 years ago, it was argued in the 1919 Report, published by the Government Ministry for Reconstruction after World War 1, that Adult Education was essential for a confident, fair and democratic society. Its central recommendation was:

‘Adult education must not be regarded as a luxury for a few exceptional persons here and there… but a permanent national necessity, an inseparable aspect of citizenship, and therefore should be both universal and lifelong’.

Three separate Commissions on Lifelong Learning have published their reports in the last few weeks, and a fourth, a Parliamentary Inquiry, published its oral and written evidence in October.

The timing of these reports – by the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, and also a politically-independent Centenary Commission, is striking. Rates of participation in learning activities among adults have fallen dramatically over the last decade, and the decline is sharpest among those who have benefitted least from their schooling. 

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10 December 2019

By Jan Germen Janmaat and Bryony Hoskins

The low turnout of young people in elections is a persistent problem in many Western democracies. In the UK, turnout among  18 to 24-year-olds in the last two general elections was almost half of that of pensioners.

Although there has been a surge in voter registrations among the under 35s for the 12 December elections, we don’t know if this will translate in actual votes. 

Amidst all the debate about youth participation, few scholars look at differences among young people. In our new book we focus on social class differences in political involvement among young people. We argue that the education system only widens these disparities. 

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6 December 2019

By Paul Morris

A recent IOE Blog asks whether England should continue its involvement with the triennial PISA tests and concludes that we should, as it provides a wealth of unexplored data for analysis.

The question is timely as the outcomes of the 2018 PISA exercise have just been released. They show once again that England’s scores are fairly stable and around the average – although the they do show improved scores in Reading and Maths and a decline in Science and Life Satisfaction.

The important question in deciding whether to continue with PISA is: what have been the major benefits over the last 19 years?

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3 December 2019

By John Jerrim

The PISA 2018 results are out today. PISA is supposed to test a representative sample of 15-year-olds across more than 70 countries around the world.

However, questions sometimes arise over how representative the PISA data really is.

And it seems that there were some problems with the PISA 2018 data for the UK. This blogpost will try to explain the issue.

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3 December 2019

By John Jerrim

Results from the PISA 2018 study have just been released. This is the triennial update of how the UK has performed on these closely scrutinised (and highly politicised) tests.

Given that this is election season, and that this is the first set of results since Michael Gove’s GCSE reforms properly took effect, I am expecting to see a lot of discussion about the results.

Some of which will, of course, be more accurate than others.

My job today will be to try and help people see the wood for the trees so we can all properly understand the results.

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2 December 2019

By John Jerrim

The results from PISA 2018 are to be released tomorrow. And, as with every PISA release, there will be the usual media circus.

There will, of course, be all the obvious things to look out for – have PISA scores for England in reading/science/maths gone up or down, are any countries doing surprisingly well/badly etc.

But, as always with PISA, the headline results are not always as straightforward to interpret as on initial inspection.

The purpose of this blogpost is therefore to flag some important things to remember when the results are released.

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26 November 2019

By John Jerrim

PISA has now been running since 2000, with England participating in every cycle. Yet involvement does not come cheap. It costs more than £2m every three years for England, Wales and Northern Ireland to take part. Not to mention the burden it places upon nearly 500 schools.

It therefore seems important that we consider whether all this time and effort is worthwhile. Is England really getting enough out of its continued participation in the PISA study?

This blogpost focuses on four key reasons why England has participated in the PISA study, and the value that they bring.

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