14th November 2018 9:00
By Blue Tutors
An international study on social mobility has concluded that schools actually widen the gap between rich and poor, rather than creating a more equal playing field. Reported on the BBC, the study was conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and looked at test results in schools from over 60 countries. It showed that, on average, by the age of 15 the difference between the richest and poorest students is roughly 3 school years, and only one in ten students from poor backgrounds will do as well as their counterparts from richer backgrounds.
The study looked at 10 year olds’ test results in 1995, then the results in 2000 when the students were 15, and again ten years later. Apart from a few exceptions, the gaps widened as the students grew up. The argument for this is that students from wealthier families are more likely to get into good schools and universities and receive more educational interventions. On average, at the age of 15, 13% of educational difference is determined by students’ backgrounds.
The OECD’s head of education, Andreas Schleicher, pointed out that the differences in social standing do not have to determine a child’s future, and in some school systems poorer students do very well. In Singapore, Japan and Finland the poorest 20% of students do better than the richest 20% in the Slovak Republic, Brazil, Bulgaria and Uruguay. The UK’s median student does roughly as well as the top 20% in Italy and Spain.
It was suggested that a way of reducing the gap between students was to ensure that social standing did not determine who went to school with whom. When disadvantaged students are clustered together with similar students the results aren’t as good as when students from differing backgrounds go to school together.
Investment in education and increasing school and university places as long been seen as a way to increase social mobility, but the study showed that the majority of these extra places and extra investment actually end up helping students from wealthier backgrounds and so increase the social divide. Mr Schleicher said that it’s worrying that this divide has actually been growing and, particularly in western democracies, something needs to be done to improve social mobility.