English children are the most literate in Europe and fourth in world

English children are the most literate in Europe and shoot up the leaderboard to become fourth best in the world when it comes to their reading skills, study shows

  • Nine and ten-year-olds outperformed their counterparts in the United States 

England has moved into the top five in international rankings for reading but girls’ skills have declined, a global study has found.

Primary school children in England are the fourth most literate in the world, the latest Progress in International Reading Literacy Study shows.

Nine and ten-year-olds outperformed their counterparts in the United States and overtook Finland and Poland to perform better than any country in Europe.

The results were hailed by Rishi Sunak who said pupils and teachers ‘should be incredibly proud of this achievement’.

He said: ‘Driving up literacy rates is central to our plan to grow the economy, one of my five key priorities, so it’s great to see England move up to fourth in the international rankings for reading.

England has moved into the top five in international rankings for reading but girls’ skills have declined, a global study has found (File image)

‘These results also show a welcome narrowing in the attainment gap between boys and girls and the highest and lowest performing pupils. This shows that our approach is working.’

Overall, girls were ahead of boys in their reading achievement in nearly all the countries that took part in the study.

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But the gender gap in reading performance in England has narrowed after girls’ average scores fell slightly, data suggests.

Schools minister Nick Gibb said the Government’s reforms – such as a focus on phonics, which teaches children to read using sounds – are behind the country’s successful performance despite disruption from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Asked if he was concerned that girls’ reading scores have dropped, Mr Gibb said the decline was ‘very minimal’.

He said: ‘In terms of girls, we don’t want there to be any decline of any group within these reading surveys.

‘But what’s significant is if you take the results overall we are not seeing a significant drop in our actual score despite all the challenges of the Covid-19 period – and when other countries amongst these 43 countries did see declines in their score.’

Nearly 400,000 students took part in the 2021 PIRLS study which is typically carried out every five years.

Singapore topped the table of 43 countries, followed by Hong Kong and Russia.

Primary school children in England are the fourth most literate in the world, the latest Progress in International Reading Literacy Study shows (File image)

England’s fourth-place score of 558 was above the international average of 520 – an improvement from 2016 when it placed joint-eighth.

Northern Ireland and Ireland, two countries that had previously beaten England, were not included in the list due to testing delays caused by the pandemic. Meanwhile Scotland and Wales did not participate in the test.

South Africa had the lowest score.

Dirk Hastedt, of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, which runs the study, said: ‘It’s very positive that England was able to maintain the same high achievement despite the Covid-19 pandemic that we have had, with all the school closures and other negative impacts on education.

‘One might also assume that without Covid, the education would have been even improved further than that. England was on a positive trend since 2006 already.’

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