ARE we a nation of clever clogs or a bunch of classroom clots?

Media coverage last week of the worldwide education rankings, compiled by the International Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), covered both extremes.

At one end of the spectrum, the headline on the front page of the Scottish Daily Mail stated: "Shame as Scots are branded a nation of dunces".

The paper told us Scottish schools had "plummeted" in the world rankings, with the blame laid at the door of the SNP administration, and the leader column took up the theme under the heading "Humiliating price of educational failure".

The most positive spin on the figures was provided by BBC Scotland, with an article on its website highlighting the differences between England, Wales and Northern Ireland and stating "Scotland Top of UK for Maths and Reading".

"Scotland scores ahead of other UK countries in core school subjects, according to a major world study," the article stated, although accepting Scotland was lagging slightly behind England for science.

So what did the figures actually say - and more importantly what do they tell us?

The reality is that, overall, Scotland's performance has remained remarkably similar to previous years, both in terms of its score and its international position.

For maths, Scotland scored 498 points and came 17th in the OECD in 2012, compared with 499 points and 24th place in 2009. For reading, the country scored 506 points and came 14th, compared with 500 points and 17th place three years earlier, and in science Scotland scored 513 points and came 15th compared with 514 and 18th.

Far from Scotland "plummeting" down the world rankings, the country actually improved between 2009 and 2012, but so gradually that it probably made little difference to experiences in the classroom.

Whatever the conclusions drawn, no-one seems to doubt the importance of the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) as an indicator of success, with those at the top seen as beacons of good educational practice.

In fact, the methodology of Pisa is increasingly being questioned as a credible measure of performance because test questions used in the final analysis vary between countries.

Professor Jim Conroy, from Glasgow University's school of education, also believes that those nations that aspire to follow in the footsteps of the high-flyers should be careful what they wish for.

The rankings are dominated by Asian school systems including Chinese cities such as Shanghai and Hong Kong as well as Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. Professor Conroy describes many of these countries as having strong "command and control" cultures with strict top-down regulation of the education system.

"That sort of structure fits very well with Pisa because pupils are drilled in a limited range of skills and know exactly how to answer the sort of tests that are used in the assessment," he said. "What Pisa doesn't tell us anything about is the strengths of all sorts of other areas that are vital to the education of our young people."