Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills at the OECD

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has published Education at a Glance 2024, (EAG) , its annual report on education across the globe. This year’s EAG has a focus on equity and touches on the problems with academic selection.

The following is reproduced, with permission, from Education Journal. 

The report finds that family background remains a strong influence on education outcomes. This early disadvantage persists across the different levels, affecting performance in primary and secondary school assessments and reducing the likelihood of completing upper secondary and tertiary programmes.

While improving equity in education has long been an objective of the OECD, in some countries
policy choices mitigated against this. Education Journal asked Professor Schleicher, the Director of Education and Skills at the OECD, if the OECD data showed whether selecting children into different types of school, especially at a young age as in parts of England, was beneficial. He said that selection, or tracking as it is sometimes known in Europe, can reinforce inequality. thought that selection was “not a good answer”.

Professor Schleicher thought personalised learning was better. OECD reports like PISA (the Programme for International Student Assessment) have shown for many years that selection, especially at an early stage at about ten as in parts of England, cannot measure academic ability, measuring social factors instead. Those who pass the test tend to be those from families wealthy enough to pay for private tuition and who have the means to be supportive of their children.

The OECD’s PISA research has shown for years that selection, especially at a young age as it occurs in about 20% of England, cannot and does not select on the grounds of ability. Selection is on social grounds. The focus of this issue of Education at a Glance was on equity. As Professor Schleicher told Education Journal, selection can reinforce inequality. So what will this new Labour government, which knows this and which, at least in theory, supports the ending of selection, do about it? The answer is as little as it possibly can, for it would find ending selection in England politically inexpedient.