Labour's record on education is expected to come under attack this week when results from the most respected international study of achievement in literacy, maths and science are likely to show that schools in Britain are performing poorly compared with those in other countries.

The coalition government will point to OECD figures, published on Tuesday, that compare British pupils with teenagers in other developed nations as evidence of a decline in standards under the previous government. Meanwhile, ministers will praise Finland and South Korea, which have led the rest of the world in previous surveys.

The education secretary, Michael Gove, who is thought to have seen the OECD results, told the Commons recently that England was "failing to keep pace" with competitors. He said: "In the last three years of the last government reform went into reverse – schools lost freedoms, the curriculum lost rigour, Labour lost its way. Now, under this coalition government, we are once more travelling in the same direction as the most ambitious and most progressive nations."

The results are based on tests of 15-year-olds carried out in 2009, and follow a disastrous set of results for Britain in 2007, when the country was downgraded in literacy, maths and science.

Gove has made plain his ambition for schools in England to be more like Finland's; name-checking the country nine times in his recent education white paper. By contrast, Sweden – which helped inspire the Tories' free schools policy – is only mentioned once.

The survey, which included 57 countries, revealed that Britain had dropped from seventh to 17th place in reading and eighth to 24th in maths. Britain also slipped to 14th place in science, down from 4th when the last comparable UK results were published, in 2001. Pupils in New Zealand, Ireland, Australia and Estonia were among those who did better than British children at reading.

In the foreword to the schools white paper, David Cameron and Nick Clegg quoted the figures as evidence that England was being overtaken by international competitors.

The foreword stated: "The only way we can catch up, and have the world-class schools our children deserve, is by learning the lessons of other countries' success. The first and most important lesson is that no education system can be better than the quality of its teachers. The most successful countries ... are those where teaching has the highest status as a profession; South Korea recruits from their top 5% of graduates and Finland from the top 10%."

The Finnish system has inspired Gove to look at bringing in aptitude and personality tests to help select candidates for teacher training. While the coalition's approach emphasises the importance of teachers learning their profession in the classroom, Gove also wants to encourage university-based training schools.

The schools white paper praises university teacher training models in Finland and the US. The document says: "Every university offering education sciences in Finland is closely linked to a school in which prospective teachers undertake classroom teaching under the constant guidance and supervision of experienced teacher trainers. These schools act as a link between teaching and the latest academic research and innovation."

• This article was amended on 6 December 2010. The original stated that the survey in 2007 included 65 countries. This has been corrected.