Scotland’s education system has recorded its worst ever performance in an international survey and has fallen behind other parts of the UK, it emerged today in a damning indictment of the SNP government’s record during a decade in power.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for 2015 found Scotland has tumbled down league tables for maths, reading and science when compared to 34 other developed countries and the UK’s three other home nations.

Record low scores mean it no longer performs above the international average in any of the three core subject areas and the number of countries performing better than Scotland has increased in each report conducted since 2006, the year before the SNP came to office.

Overall, Scotland’s ranking has dropped from 11th to 23rd for reading since 2006, from 11th to 24th for maths and from 10th to 19 for science. A record number of nations are now doing better than Scotland, with the English education system boasting a significantly superior performance at science.

The proportion of Scottish children deemed to be performing below standard at science and reading has spiked since the survey was last conducted in 2012, with the scores of both boys and girls dropping significantly except among girls for maths.