Merthyr Tydfil council leader Brendan Toomey said: "We recognise that there are significant challenges ahead for all who work within our education services in order to raise standards of attainment and achievement for our children and young people.
This is so because the end of acting from the motive of "happiness," or the sum of all my subjective and contingent desires and inclinations is an indeterminate concept, at any moment potentially self-contradictory, and therefore impossible to pursue coherently: it cannot guide practical reasoning and does not offer standards for its attainment.
However, it has not notably improved comparative standards: 2008 figures for attainment in reading, mathematics and science put the UK a little above the average for the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries as a whole, and well below Finland, South Korea and New Zealand.
Therefore, in some cases, the date for attainment of secondary standards specified in the SIP under section 110 may also not yet have passed.
In some cases, the dates for attainment of primary standards specified in the SIP under section 110 have not yet passed due to a delay in the promulgation of a plan under this section of the Act.
The commission, which is in the process of formulation, has already done good work to prepare its action plan for attainment of international standards in the quality of education, research, and development.
Were young people required to prepare for a standard attainment test in RE at KS1 and 2, the commensurate hike in the quality of outputs would be assured.
In addition the Act provides more flexibility with respect to the dates for attainment of secondary NAAQS than for primary standards.
§ 51.1204 Enforceable emission limits providing for attainment.
The big challenge, however, has been the drive for attainment.
Teachers said they were surprised that 74% of pupils met the expected standard for writing, because it tended to lag behind reading in terms of attainment.
