22 June 2007
An independent body should be given responsibility for determining whether pupil performance is really getting better, leading educationalists said this week.
A report commissioned by the education charity the Sutton Trust reviewed the UK's record in education under Tony Blair's ten-year premiership. It stated that, although GCSE and national test results had improved over the past decade, it was difficult to capture an honest picture of progress because the government was too involved in the collection and interpretation of exam and test statistics.
Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham, who carried out the research, said: 'The Blair government, more than any previous government, took explicit responsibility for the “delivery” of better performance in education and other public services.
'But it became very difficult for ministers and policy-makers to look at the results of national and international tests dispassionately. Favourable results tended to become part of the government's presentation of itself to the electorate and unfavourable ones tended to be sidelined.'
Smithers' report, published on June 22, suggests a 'genuinely independent' body, such as the National Audit Office, take on the job of monitoring educational progress.
Sutton Trust chair Sir Peter Lampl backed the call, saying: 'Such a body would serve the interest of the public at large, not the vested interests of a particular government, with particular educational policies at stake.'
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