Scots pupils falling behind England a ‘national emergency’, says Reform

Scottish school pupils falling behind English counterparts is a “national emergency”, Reform Scotland’s leader Malcolm Offord has said.

That follows the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) showing 15-year-olds in Scotland lagged behind English teens in their maths, science and reading performance.

But First Minister John Swinney said Pisa was only “one part of the dataset” and insisted he was “proud” of his government’s record.

The international survey was released earlier this week and confirmed the educational performance of Scottish teenagers remains “significantly below” historic levels.

While Scottish pupils outperformed the international average (achieving a score of 488 in reading, 491 in science and 467 in maths), they were well behind English pupils who obtained scores of 497, 516 and 492 in reading, science and maths, respectively.

Raising the report at First Minister’s Questions, Offord said: “This is disastrous for our young people and embarrassing for our nation.

“To fall so far behind England in education in a national emergency… Scottish pupils are now a full academic year behind their English peers in science, and Scotland has scored the worst results ever in maths and reading. Meanwhile, England scored a top ten place in all three disciplines. This is shocking.”

It was also raised by Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay, who accused the government of being “utterly delusional” about the results.

He added: “Of all the SNP's many failures, is trashing Scottish education the greatest of them all?”

But Swinney said: “I accept the outcome of the Pisa assessments, but the Pisa assessments are one part of the dataset that looks at Scottish education.”

He went on to point to other statistics showing school pupils’ performance in a better light, including data from teachers showing more S3 pupils were achieving “third level or better in literacy and numeracy” that ever.

More pupils going on the positive destinations, record levels of Scots going to university, higher National 5 pass rates and a slight reduction in the attainment gap in National 5s, Higher and Advanced Higher were also highlighted by the first minister.

“That is the full report card on Scottish education and I’m proud of Scottish education,” he said.