THE release of results for GCSEs and primary school test results on the same day provides an opportunity to assess Tony Blair's record after nine years of “education, education, education”.

The proportion of GCSEs passed at grade C and above rose by 1.2 percentage points this year to a new high of 62.4 per cent. The pass rate has risen by eight percentage points from 54.4 per cent since Mr Blair took office in 1997.

This is an average annual increase of 0.9 of a percentage point, exactly the same rate of improvement recorded over the previous six years under John Major’s Conservatives.

Spending per pupil in secondary schools actually fell in real terms under Mr Major, but will have risen under Mr Blair from £2,500 per pupil to £5,500 by 2007-08. Labour’s case for pouring so much additional investment into public services has been that it will produce better results, but this has not been borne out so far at GCSE level.

The children who sat their GCSEs this summer were the first to go through the Government’s Key Stage 3 strategy in 2001. Reforms to teaching were introduced to increase the pace of learning in the early secondary years and to build on rising literacy and numeracy standards in primary schools.

The increase of 1.2 percentage points in the proportion of GCSEs that were awarded good grades this year is lower than the rise in 2005, however, and about the same as that recorded in 2004. The expected “step change” in performance as a result of the reforms has yet to be seen.

One welcome achievement has been a fall in the proportion of students who complete 11 years of compulsory education without passing a single GCSE. The rate has halved for boys since 1997 from 8.8 to 4.4 per cent, and has gone from 6.5 to 2.8 per cent for girls.

At primary school, the introduction of the literacy and numeracy strategies produced early improvements in the proportions achieving level 4, the expected standard, in tests at age 11. The percentage at level 4 in English rose from 63 per cent in 1997 to 75 per cent by 2000, and from 62 per cent to 72 per cent in mathematics.

The rate of increase has slowed markedly since, rising to 79 per cent in English this year, still below the Government’s target for 2002 of 80 per cent. The total is 76 per cent in mathematics now, one point above the 2002 target of 75 per cent. Ministers had set a target for 2006 of 85 per cent reaching level 4 in both subjects, but long ago abandoned any expectation that it would be met.

More disturbingly, four out of ten pupils left primary school this summer without reaching level 4 in reading, writing and maths, the “three Rs”. Successive education secretaries have stated that level 4 is the standard necessary to equip pupils to cope with the demands of the secondary curriculum.

The picture is bleaker for boys. Only just over half, 54 per cent, mastered the three Rs to level 4 this year compared with 65 per cent of girls. The number of expulsions from school doubles between the ages of 11 and 12, and 80 per cent of them are boys.

There is evidence, too, of a widening achievement gap at primary school. The biggest improvement in results this year came among the most able 11-year-olds at level 5.

The proportion reaching level 5 rose by five percentage points in English to 32 per cent and by two percentage points in maths to 33 per cent.

After nine years, Labour is still struggling to work out how to bring the bottom fifth of pupils up to the standard necessary to have a chance of doing well at secondary school.

Meanwhile, the most able children are racing ahead as never before, only to find secondary schools ill- prepared to meet their needs.

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