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Public Services for All > Published by Martin McCluskey, September 8th 2009 at 2:15 pm

OECD education report encouraging for Britain

The publication today of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s annual “Education at a Glance” report reveals a number of encouraging signs for the UK education sector.

Sixth-form pupils Britain remains in the top quartile of OECD countries in terms of investment per pupil. The report, however, points to areas where continued and increasing investment is necessary, to further increase the proportion of people in higher education, improve competitiveness, and increase the proportion of the population that completes upper secondary education (where the UK is still below average).

The OECD’s Director for Education, Barbara Ischinger, said:

“Education has always been a critical investment for the future, for individuals, for economies and for societies at large. As far-reaching as the labour market impacts of the crisis are, the potential social consequences may last even longer.

“Educational attainment seems to be positively associated with such social outcomes as better health, political interest and interpersonal trust and this is bound to feature in public policy discussions about spending priorities. Education can therefore be a powerful lever to moderate the social consequences too.”

Today’s ComRes poll for the Independent showed more than 80% of the public support real terms increases in education and health spending year on year, despite the deficit in public finances.

And this evening Chancellor Alistair Darling will give a speech in Cardiff where he will set out the “hard choices” that Labour will face on public sector spending after the next election. He’ll talk about how Labour will prioritise spending and will commit to education being among these priorities; the Conservatives, by contrast, have made no such commitment.

http://twitter.com/shamikdas/status/3839896539 Shamik Das

RT @leftfootfwd: OECD praises Britain’s Education system, reports @martinmccluskey – http://tinyurl.com/oecd-uk-education
http://twitter.com/martinmccluskey/status/3841891038 Martin McCluskey

New post on @leftfootfwd about today’s OECD education report- http://tinyurl.com/oecd-uk-education
http://www.hundredpockets.com Pockets

This seems a highly jaundiced account of the OECD report. The OECD’s own UK press release on this report opens with the sentence “High public spending on child welfare and education in the UK is failing to produce results in many key areas.” (http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/21/6/43590251.pdf)

Spending more money than other countries is not in itself a good thing. We spend money in order to ‘buy’ better outcomes for children. But the link between education spending and results in OECD countries is virtually nonexistent. (See e.g. http://www.hundredpockets.com/2009/08/spending-success/)

Does LeftFootForward plan to address the problems facing education policymakers in the UK? Or just cherry-pick positive statistics from otherwise unpalatable reports?
The Earl

Thank you, ‘Pockets’ (above). You have proven what lengths These People will go to in order to peddle their deceitful propoganda. I will repeat everything you just said because it was so good:

This seems a highly jaundiced account of the OECD report. The OECD’s own UK press release on this report opens with the sentence “High public spending on child welfare and education in the UK is failing to produce results in many key areas.” (http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/21/6/43590251.pdf)
Spending more money than other countries is not in itself a good thing. We spend money in order to ‘buy’ better outcomes for children. But the link between education spending and results in OECD countries is virtually nonexistent. (See e.g. http://www.hundredpockets.com/2009/08/spending-success/)
Does LeftFootForward plan to address the problems facing education policymakers in the UK? Or just cherry-pick positive statistics from otherwise unpalatable reports?

Can you people please stop distorting facts to backup your twisted socialist doctrine.
And no, Cameron hasn’t ringfenced education. He’s committed the Tories -unwisely- to an EVEN MORE expensive part of the state apparatus, the NHS.
Once again I find myself debunking the plethora of untruths that are part of the fabric of the Great Socialist Deception.