LOCAL AM Elin Jones has described the latest PISA figures on educational achievement as a ‘wake-up call’ for the Welsh Government.

The scores for Welsh pupils were 38th out of 67 countries for reading, 40th for maths and 30th for science, according to figures released on Tuesday, December 3.

The figures were significantly worse than the UK average for all measures, and substantially lower than Scotland.

Ceredigion AM Elin Jones said: “Although Ceredigion is consistently near the top of the education league tables for Wales, these international comparisons are a wake-up call for the Welsh Government. Following Wales’ disappointing results in 2009 the then Education Minister set the target to be in the top 20 of school systems measured in the PISA scores in 2015 with the aim of improvements in 2012 over the 2009 results. These are important skills for the Welsh economy which need to be developed if we are to reach our potential.

She added: “After 14 years of Labour control of our education system, the Welsh Government must take responsibility. Scotland has the same powers over education as we do, and they’re above the UK average, whereas we are below.”