Andreas Schleicher of the OECD
Education Journal spoke to Andreas Schleicher, Director of Education and Skills Directorate at the OECD, and he gave a clear statement about the problems of academic selection. He said, “the evidence from PISA shows no positive correlation between early selection and better overall academic outcomes, but it does show a strong correlation between selection and the impact of social background on learning outcomes.”
In other words the evidence from PISA’s global studies of education, show that when pupils are selected to different schools at a young age the influence of social background works against those from disadvantaged backgrounds and their outcomes are worse. The government has a ‘levelling up’ agenda, but young people in deprived areas with poor educational attainments would be hindered by the introduction of 11-plus selection and more grammar schools.
Education Journal states, ‘The Government’s plans to reintroduce grammar schools have been dealt a blow as the Organisation for Economic Coordination and Development (OECD) launches its annual Education at a Glance report…
The report confirms what these research programmes have shown for decades, that selection into different types of school, known in England as grammar and secondary modern schools, at about the age of ten does not lead to an improvement in outcomes for children and instead harms them especially for those directed to the secondary moderns…. The OECD evidence shows that selection has the opposite effect on levelling up that ministers claim is the aim of Government policy. It is a way of skewering education outcomes in favour of the better off sections of the community at the expense of the disadvantaged.’
