Tristram Hunt MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, responding to the publication of the OECD PISA results, said:

“David Cameron’s schools policy is failing to confront the international challenge we face.

“The PISA report is a big wake-up call. Eastern dominance centres on the importance that these high performing education systems place on the quality and status of the teaching profession as the central lever for driving up standards. This report exposes the failings of this Government’s schools policy: a policy that has sent unqualified teachers into the classroom and prevented effective collaboration between schools.

“Because David Cameron has failed to deliver a reform agenda that will raise the quality of teaching and learning in all of our schools, he is charting a course that will make our international standing worse, not better.”