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Gap between rich, poor UK pupils widening: Statistics

Friday, 30 January 2015 6:26 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 30 January 2015 6:32 AM ]

GCSEs were first introduced in 1980s to replace harshly graded O-level exams.

New figures suggest the gap in performance between disadvantaged students and better-off pupils has increased despite government efforts on trying to narrow the difference.

One in three poor students (33.5 percent) obtained five passing grades on the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examination system, compared to 60.5 percent of all students in the past year, statistics provided by the charity Teach First showed.

The exam league tables demonstrated a performance gap increase of over 1 percent.

“Over recent years, great strides have been made to close the gap but [this] data sees a reversal overall: things are getting worse for poorer children instead of better,” said Teach First founder and CEO Brett Wigdortz.

The number of schools producing lower than the minimum target for exam success has also more than doubled in the past year – from 154 to 330 – the tables showed.

Headteachers’ organizations have long claimed changes to the GCSE would hit disadvantaged pupils hardest.

“Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are disproportionately dealt a bad hand in education... David Cameron’s schools policy is making the situation worse,” added Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt.

However, Teach First’s Wigdortz dismissed the criticism, saying the performance gap would have been wider had it not been for changes in the GCSE and league tables.

In 2012, former Britain’s Education Secretary Michael Gove and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg introduced a plan to reform the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examination system.

The move came in response to higher-achieving students of other nations such as Finland and Singapore.

GCSEs were first introduced in the 1980s to replace harshly graded O-level exams.

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