Badenoch’s ‘pupil improvements’ claim at PMQs was actually from fiddled figures
At Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said:
The OECD found children in England rose up global league tables in maths, reading and science. Conservative government action means English schools now top the Western world
Cooked figures at PMQs
But a University College London (UCL) study found “serious flaws” in the government’s education statistics.
The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data compares attainment by 15 year old pupils across developed countries. UCL found that in the UK for 2018 about 40% of students were not included in the statistics.
This could result in those with lower attainment being excluded from the data, given freedom of information requests by UCL showed schools with lower grades were less likely to participate in the study.
Badenoch and Starmer both argued at PMQs that vast academisation has improved standards. Starmer said:
Mr Speaker, it was Labour that introduced academies in the first place to drive up standards
In 2010, around 6% of secondary schools were academies. Now 81.9% of secondaries are academies, along with 42.7% of primary schools.
But, in another study, UCL found no educational improvement as a result of children attending multi-academy chains. And an Education Policy Institute (EPI) report found that academy chains are “over-represented in the lowest performing groups” for primary schools. It’s no wonder the National Education Union (NEU) are against academisation.
Academisation
When it comes to GCSEs, the results have slumped to 2010 levels, underscoring the idea that academisation has driven up standards is misplaced.
One issue with academies is the ‘top slicing’ of excessive executive pay, funded by the public purse. 44 academy trust CEOs now earn more than £200,000 per year in what resembles the corporate sector. That’s wage rises of up to 50% in five years. Whereas, according to the NEU, teachers pay in real terms remains 20% lower than in 2010.
From 2010 to 2016, schools could become academies if they ‘voluntarily chose to’. But this choice is not as voluntary as was made out. From 2010, the Tory government cut the education budget by 25% over four years. At the same time, they told schools that they will award them £25,000 and increase their budget by up to 10% if they become academies.
Thus, schools do not choose to become academies because they believe they are better, but to survive arbitrary austerity conditions imposed by the government. The Tories then mandated the transition to academies in 2016.
There’s no evidence it has improved anything (and some to the contrary).
Featured image via House of Commons
Comments 3
Leave a Reply
The Canary
PO Box 71199
LONDON
SE20 9EX
Canary Media Ltd – registered in England. Company registration number 09788095.
For guest posting, contact [email protected]
For other enquiries, contact: [email protected]
© Canary Media Ltd 2026, all rights reserved | Website by Monster | Hosted by Krystal | Privacy Settings
Badenoch’s ‘pupil improvements’ claim at PMQs
was actually from fiddled figures.
Come on our U.K. elected Govt members be them M.P.-Minister-P.M. alike. When are all you going to STOP lying
To us British people (voters) on Govt figures that are NOT correct or are made up to miss lead us public NOW.
Put the figures and information in the public eye so we can look at the information and fact check it for ourselves also DO NOT charge any fees to read this information as we U.K. taxpayer pay for you to collect the facts so we have funded any Govt information collecting already so should NOT pay any fees for any Govt information of any kind we have all paid for already us U.K. taxpayer.
Therefore, to all Govt party leaders below
Labour leader Mr Starmer
Tory leader Ms Badenoch
Reform leader Mr Farage
Lib-Dem leader Mr Davey
Start giving us voter the true information at NO charge before next G.E.as we own the information us taxpayer your teams put together in the back rooms of parliament for you all it is Not your private info to sell off Govt party leaders.
Hmm, that could explain quite a bit. Until recently results for Scottish schools were consistently better than those for English Schools. Then a sudden improvement in England results, overtaking Scotland. Cue much mocking of Scotland’s poor performance, SNP baad, etc. etc. Now it turns out that the English figures were fiddled. Well, well, well. colour me surprised.
Starmer claimed that it was Labour that introduced Academies. Well only if you think Snickers were a new thing, and not a renamed Marathon.
Thatcher introduced Grant maintained schools. Blair promised that he would get rid of these. and duly did. He then reintroduced grant-maintained schools, but appears to have fooled everyone (especially Starmer) into thinking they were new by calling them academies!!
His mate Gove then went big on having as many change to academies as possible. For no GOOD reason! All that seems to have occured is some CEOs (what’s a CEO in a school?) got fabulously wealthy at taxpayers’ expense, and kids were expected to wear an expensive corporate uniform (the eaiest of easy ways to keep the poor families out!).