Pupils in Wales perform only as well as disadvantaged children in England – IFS

Improving schools is first challenge for new first minister, Vaughan Gething, as IFS study shows lower attainment is not due to poverty

Wales’s new first minister, Vaughan Gething, faces a major challenge in improving the country’s schools, after the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that pupils in Wales were performing only as well as disadvantaged children in England.

The IFS study follows Wales’s weak performance in the OECD’s most recent Programme for international student assessment (Pisa) standings, in which results in Wales declined by more than in other UK nations and were well below the average across OECD countries.