Oral question asked in the House of Commons, by Rob Marris (Labour). It was answered on Monday, 17 December 2007 on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

International Comparisons

Question: May I urge my hon. Friend to be very cautious when looking at international comparisons? A couple of weeks ago, UNICEF published a report indicating that child poverty in Canada had worsened by 20 per cent. since 1989. Upon investigation, it turned out that a UNICEF official admitted that some of the figures were made up, and further investigation showed that there had been no marked change in child poverty in Canada since 1989. So will my hon. Friend be careful when examining statistics from bodies such as UNICEF?

Answer: We do proceed with a certain amount of caution, but we do decide to participate in some of these projects. We need to take forward certain things as a result of the comparative studies—for example, the very large gap in performance between the lower achieving and the highest achieving pupils in this country. Such a gap seems to be more particular to the UK than to elsewhere, and that fact lies behind a lot of the policies in our children's plan. Concerns about such studies also exist, and we are taking some of those up with the responsible bodies. For example, it is odd that one week's literacy study shows one country at the top, whereas the following week's literacy study, carried out by a different organisation, shows that country way below the United Kingdom, in the second division.

Secondary information

Type: Oral question
Reference: 469 c578
Session: 2007-08
Oral question type: Supplementary
Chamber / Committee: House of Commons chamber
Subjects: Education Statistics Standards UNICEF Curriculum Primary education Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Science Literacy Numeracy Programme for International Student Assessment
Link: View this Oral question on www.publications.parliament.uk