PRESS RELEASE Immediate Release

PISA CONFERENCE 30 January 2003

INTRODUCTORY SPEECH

Doug McAvoy, NUT General Secretary

Doug McAvoy, NUT General Secretary,speaking at a conference on the OECD PISA report into education standards andjust before David Miliband, Schools Standards Minister, will say:

This is a unique event. For the first time, a Conference has been held by teacher unionson a single research report. The importance of that research is confirmed bythe fact that both David and Andreas are speaking here today. I welcome themand all our colleagues from Education International, ETUCE, the DfES and allour guests.

Speaking for theNational Union of Teachers, I would say, however, that unique as this event maybe, it is not an isolated event. I think I can truthfully say that the NUT doesnot move on major policy issues without having the results of studies andsurveys informing its decisions. ThisConference, then, is perhaps a logical outcome of our respect for high qualityresearch.

And, making nobones about it, the PISA Report has had a fundamental impact on the educationpolicies of some powerful and influential countries. You only have to read the report of the Joint Conference,organised by the OECD and the German Government, on the implications of PISAwhich my colleague, John Bangs, has written, to understand how important thePISA Report is.

I want, justbriefly, to touch on what I think are policy lessons for the education service,for teachers, for parents, and above all, for government. Before I do, I want to celebrate, as I knowDavid does, the work of teachers and the achievements of young people. But Ialso want to ask David a question as a Minister in the current Government.

If we areprepared to learn lessons from hard evidence, is he?

For me, PISA, ispowerful because it assessed young peoples ability to use their knowledge andskills in order to meet real life challenges and their ability to solveproblems, rather than focusing only on retrieving knowledge.

It is an excitingapproach, simply because our young people as they grow into adults are going tohave to face everything that society throws at them throughout their adultlives.

Let me highlightsome pointers which have relevance to some of the most intense debates that weare engaged in; those on school workforce reform and how to protect and developthe principles and practices of comprehensive education.

Firstly, schoolworkforce reform. Let me refer to Finland, the top performer in the PISA study.Before I do, I want to say how closely we work with OAJ, the Finnish teachersunion, and their representatives Marjatta Melto. We know that Finland has thehighest levels of reading literacy. TheFinnish National Report identified some factors behind that success.

Finnish schoolshave a high degree of autonomy in teaching and in the curriculum. Finnish teachers have more say than theircolleagues in other countries in determining course content, establishingstudent assessment policies, deciding which courses the school should offer andallocating budgets within the school.

I quote from theFinnish Report:

Teachers have been trusted to do their best as trueprofessionals of education.

All Finnish teachers are expected to be highly qualified and wellacquainted with educational research.

They have supportalongside them in the classroom something for which we have pressedconsistently.

Consequently, theteaching profession in Finland is greatly valued and popular amongst Finnishpost-secondary students.

These findingsare broadly reflected in the success factors, identified by OECD, across allthose countries which do well by all their students.

The Governmentmust ask itself: are these factors reflected in the heavy duty accountabilitymeasures we have in this country or, indeed, within the school workforcereforms?

Why, whenindividual professional development and teachers research are such strongfactors in success, is the Government dropping the individual professionaldevelopment programme; a programme which includes research scholarships andbursaries?

My second pointis this. PISA demonstrates thatcomprehensive education works. Thesmall between-school variations in pupil performance in the successfulcountries are a product of countries wherethere is a genuine comprehensive system.

Let me quote thereport itself.

The more differentiated and selective aneducation system is, the larger are the typical performance differences betweenthe students from more and less advantaged family backgrounds.

The lesson fromthis must be that diversity in the organisation of schools and multi-tieredsystems works against the achievement of all our young people.

This is anuncomfortable fact which the Government has ignored. Or has it? I welcomeCharles Clarkes dropping of the term post-comprehensive education. The

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elite designationspecialist is effectively undermined if he is calling for the resourcesspecialists schools currently enjoy being given to all secondary schools.

I want to closeby saying this. It is not enough for you and I, David, simply to say thatschools and teachers across the country are achieving great things for theirpupils.

Highly trained,confident teachers, with considerable autonomy, working in a comprehensiveeducation system based on equity, is what we must aim for.

Of course,there are uncomfortable lessons for us all in the PISA Report. It concludes that a well-resourced system isnot necessarily a guarantee of quality.Then, neither are the current recipes of a multi-tiered education systemand even more hard-edged performance management.

That said, I amlooking forward to the day. I amlooking forward to more debates, seminars and discussions about the on-goingwork of PISA. I look forward to continuing to work in partnership with theGovernment on policies and programmes on which we agree.

E N D PR.8/03

For furtherinformation contact: Olive Forsythe tel: 020 73804706 (office) 020 8313 1692 (weekday evenings) if all else fails 07879480061.