In ‘After PISA: A way forward for education in Wales?’, Professor David Egan identifies poverty – and the impact that this has on achievement – as the major challenge facing Wales’ education system.
In the report, he calls on education policymakers to stop obsessing over indicators such as the PISA results as a measure of performance, and instead look at a much broader range of evidence including the wellbeing of children and young people, as well as a significant increase in the support available to teachers and an end to the school categorisation system.
Prof Egan, an Associate of the Bevan Foundation, recommends that there should be a renewed emphasis on a distinctive, Welsh approach to school improvement, a new approach to ensuring education works in partnership with communities and a relentless focus on improving equity. He has outlined the following principles to strengthen partnerships between education providers and the wider community:
- Recognition that parents and families have a critically important part to play in education.
- Realising all the assets that the community possesses to support education.
- An acceptance that relationships and processes are as important as hard outcomes such as test and examination results.
- That education is not the only public service that can contribute to educational outcomes.
- The importance of all education sectors (pre-school, schools, further education, adult and community-based learning, work-based learning and higher education) working together collaboratively within the community.
- The important role of shared and distributed leadership.