International comparisons need to be treated with caution
Commenting on the report released by the Sutton Trust on
achievement by young people in maths in international tests,
Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, the largest
teachers' union, said: "Teachers across the country want to
ensure that all pupils are achieving. There is more that can be
done and no-one is complacent. "However, this daily denigration
of our education system by one self-promoting organisation after
another is corrosive and demoralising for pupils and teachers
alike, particularly when simplistic conclusions are drawn from
highly complex information. "The maths tests to which the Sutton
Trust refers are one-off tests and those responsible for
devising the tests caution against using them to make such hard-
and-fast comparisons between countries. "Their conclusions raise
more questions than they answer. They are not comparing like
with like. "The education systems are different. The pupils
taking the tests are selected different