ENGLAND’S position in the world education league has slipped after not enough pupils and schools sent in results.

The Government has dismissed the embarrassing results, drawn up by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, as inconclusive and not comparable to other years and other countries.

It was the only OECD country to fail the criteria for the study this year and the poor results have raised suspicions that the Government was happy the see them left out.

In the second three-year study of about 250,000 students from 41 countries, English 15-year-olds scored worse in maths, science and reading than 17 other industrialised nations, including Liechtenstein and Macau, a region of China.

Maths tests for 14-year-olds at Key Stage 3 return ever-improving results year on year and the number gaining GCSE passes in English and maths is rising. The OECD study, released by the Programme for International Student Assessment, however, appears to show standards falling against an international criteria.

In 2000, the programme’s study ranked England eighth in maths and reading and fourth in science out of forty countries. In the past three years students have apparently fallen to No 18 in maths, No 12 in reading and No 11 in science.

David Miliband, the Schools Minister, said: “The OECD say themselves that the data cannot be compared with UK past performance or the performance of other nations as it doesn’t meet their technical requirements.

“We’ve made clear our disappointment that the UK response rate was below the technical requirements. We remain fully committed to international comparison studies and aim to learn the lessons with a view to full inclusion in Pisa 2006.”

Although almost two thirds of Britain’s schools returned results the OECD ruled that too few schools and pupils had responded to be eligible. The Government said yesterday that it would seek to ensure that sufficient schools participate in the next tests in 2006.

Alan Smithers, the director of education and employment research at the University of Buckingham, added to the Government’s woes by pointing out that England’s pupils were ranked No 18 overall on the basis of achieving 519 points in maths, but they could rank as low as No 24 if there were any bias. “If the response rate is low, it is likely that the better-performing schools and pupils would have taken part in the tests. So it is fair to assume that our results are an overestimate,” he said.

Professor Smithers said that he did not believe that the latest results reflected a particular downturn in teaching; rather that the study in 2000 was out of kilter with all previous findings, particularly in maths.

He added: “The Government should ask itself how it is that the results of national tests keep bounding up, whereas the performance in international tests are at best static and at worst falling.”

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