Pupils need better teachers, not smaller classes, says academic

Published on Tuesday 8 September 2009 22:05

SMALLER class sizes are a "red herring" and the focus should be on improving the quality of people becoming teachers to raise exam results, according to a Scottish academic.

John McLaren, an honorary research fellow at Glasgow University, cast doubt on the key SNP policy that has seen few councils reduce classes in the first three years of primary to the target of 18 pupils.

Mr McLaren said achievement among Scottish pupils had remained static in recent years. The political economist, who previously worked for the Treasury and Scottish Office, said that was despite spending being 20-30 per cent higher in Scotland than in England.

He said: "Achievement levels in the last year of comprehensive education have not changed since devolution.

"It is stuck at about 50 per cent of pupils getting five or more good passes (A-C] at GCSE or Standard grade level.

"In England, that has improved from around 44 per cent to 62, in Wales from 48 to 54 per cent and in Northern Ireland from 56 to 65 per cent."

He said it was time to look at countries such as Finland, where entry tests to become a teacher were more stringent.

Helen Connor, president of the EIS, Scotland's largest teaching union, said: "As someone who teaches and has been in lots of classrooms, I can assure you the expectation and standards of teachers have certainly not gone down over the last 25 years. It is now an all-graduate profession, which it wasn't when I started."

Mr McLaren cited an international study that showed a dip in performance.

The recent Trends in International Maths and Science Survey saw Scotland fare far worse in science than many other western nations – at P5 level, only 51 per cent of pupils had teachers who considered themselves very well prepared to teach science.

The report said the poor score was caused by non-specialists not knowing enough about the subject. Mr McLaren said class sizes were not the fix-all solution many believe them to be. He said: "There is little evidence the policy has any impact and, even if it did, it would be very expensive and could probably be produced some other way.

"It is not a complete red herring, but it is by and large. If your class size goes up to 40 or if they go down to five, there might be an effect; but if it is 20 versus 22 or 26 versus 28, I'm not sure it makes much difference."

Mr McLaren was speaking at an education conference in Edinburgh organised by the Scottish Conservatives, who unveiled key policies. They vowed to improve standards in reading, writing and maths.

Murdo Fraser, the Scottish Tories' education spokesman, said: "The figures show that Scottish education is not performing as well as it could.

"Successive Scottish governments have not done enough and despite record spending have failed to improve standards."