Britain below Greece in school league

Britain has slumped down the international school league table, according to a study today which shows the devastating legacy of decades of education failure.

In little more than a generation, our schools have slipped from the top to the bottom half of the table that shows achievement at age 16 across developed countries.

Britain is now outstripped in achievement by countries including Korea, the Slovak Republic, Ireland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Greece.

The study, by the respected Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, damages the boasts of successive governments about an ever-rising pass rate at GCSE.

The stark truth is that while achievement in British schools has been improving, the rate of improvement in other countries has been much faster.

The OECD study looks at the exam results of people aged between 25 and 60. It does not consider the performance of those who have left school since the mid-Nineties.

And it does not take account of Labour efforts to boost the numbers going into further education.

Just over 40 years ago, when people now in their fifties and sixties were leaving school, 55 per cent did so with good results, the equivalent of five good passes at GCSE today.

That put Britain well in the top half of the developed world, 12th out of a list of 30 countries. Over the next 30

years, standards in British schools rose - but those in other countries rose faster.

As a result, when people currently in their twenties and thirties left school in Britain, more than two thirds - 68 per cent - left with five good GCSEs.

But that progress concealed a relative decline, which left Britain languishing only nine places from the bottom of the table. By contrast, over the same period Korea leapt from 20th position to top. The study does not compare global trends for today's teenagers - but fears are raised by this year's GCSE results which showed a fall in the overall pass rate for the first since Labour came to power.

Britain's relative decline began in the Seventies and Eighties, the high water mark of progressive education when mixed-ability teaching dominated comprehensive schools. Schools made modest progress narrowing the gap during the Nineties, when both Conservative and Labour governments backed regular testing, the publication of exam results and a return to "setting" pupils by ability in class.

But fears were raised by this year's GCSE results that schools had reached the limit of their improvement.

Today's OECD study shows the heavy price paid by those failing to hit the key GCSE benchmark - twice the chance of unemployment in later life and earnings likely to reach only two thirds the level of those achieving top grades.

The study does have good news when it comes to achievements at university. For those who do go into higher education, results are improving and are ranked with the best in the world. But this only highlights the growing gap between the achievement of the brightest and the thousands more consigned to the education scrap heap.