Page 17 - ELG2410 October Issue 492

UK RANKINGS 2024-25

Same chain, same course materials, same
curriculum, same student age groups and A systematic review conducted in 2017 by Manning et al. found that teacher
nationalities. Apart from the towns in which qualification level is positively associated with teaching quality. This was based
they are located, there is nothing different on 48 eligible studies, spanning a diverse range of definitions for teaching
about the contexts, but the school with more quality and teacher qualifications, conducted across a variety of early years
highly qualified teachers scored lower under
the old system, than its sister schools, with educational settings and regions of the world.
slightly less qualified teachers, scored under To investigate if this relationship persists in UK English Language schools,
the new. we specified a linear regression model. We selected British Council
Were our rankings to give equal weight to assessments in teaching strength as the response variable, and British Council
the teacher quality as measured under the assessments in academic staff profile as the explanatory variable. The sample
new criteria—as we give to those awarded included all 371 British Council Accredited Centres.
before 2024—it could negatively affect the We found a highly statistically significant, medium strength positive
ranking position of centres inspected before relationship between academic staff profile and teaching score. A reported
that date. R^2 value of 0.167 approximates that a change in assessed teaching quality
To avoid this, we looked for another is explained to a degree of 16.7% by the academic staff profile of teachers.
variable which, educational research A p-value of 0.000 confirms that there is an extremely low probability these
suggests, is closely correlated to teacher findings are down to chance. Hence, we can assume with confidence that in
quality. The answer is teaching quality our sample, more highly-qualified teachers are correlated with higher teaching
(as measured by classroom observation). quality in UK ELT.
Across cultures and in all educational Repeated experiments focused on specific types of centres such as
contexts, including for students as young universities and language schools, and returned almost identical values,
as three, the teaching observed is likely to indicating the relationship persists across varied educational settings.
be better where teachers are fully qualified
graduates. Whilst these findings align with widely accepted literature on the topic,
This seems to hold true in UK EFL where they assume the British Council’s reports are an entirely accurate reflection of
state sector colleges and universities demand teaching and academic staff quality across UK English language schools.
higher qualifications and educational levels
than those mandated by the British council REFERENCE
inspections. They are also more likely to be n Manning, M., et al. (2017), The relationship between teacher qualification and the quality of
awarded areas of strength in teaching based the early childhood education and care environment. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 13: 1–82.
on classroom observation. https://doi.org/10.4073/csr.2017.1
Some 83% of state sector FE colleges
and some 86% of university language
centres were awarded an area of strength
in teaching. The figure in private language
schools is just 25%.

Statistical analysis
To confirm our hypothesis that higher
teaching qualifications are likely to lead to
better observed teaching we ran a statistical
analysis of the entire Gazette dataset of
inspection outcomes (see box).
We found a positive correlation between
teacher qualifications and teaching quality
across all sectors. Correlation is not
causation, but while the BC criteria for
teacher quality has been changed, the criteria
for teaching quality has not. Therefore,
centres which are strong in both Academic
Staff Profiles and Observed are more likely
to be of consistent quality regardless of the
educational context.
The simplest way of reducing the variation
between the two systems was to create
an algorithm to adjust the ranking score
providing a slight uplift for centres which
are strong in both teaching and Academic
Staff Profile. As a result, some entries score
slightly lower than in previous years and
some slightly higher. However, since the
difference is less than a full point, in most
cases they remain in the same percentile
ranking as before.
Centres with both areas of strength are
marked with † on our rankings. As you will
notice from the table on page 19, every single
centre in the top 3% in the UK is marked thusly.
editorial@elgazette.com 17