Clause 1 - Duties in relation to high standards and the fulfilment of potential
Education and Inspections Bill
11:30 am
John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland and The Deepings, Conservative)
That is where Professor White gets it right. He goes on to say in his essay, as I was about to mention, that if the only education offered to children is academic and we assume that all education is essentially literary, we fall into a trap where we disillusion and diminish those children to whom that sort of curriculum and educational experience are not best suited. That is why the Government are right, in my judgment, to put an appropriate emphasis on vocational education. I have heard the shadow Minister speak in much the same terms.
We need to understand that to be educated is not necessarily a literary matter. Some 300 or 400 years ago, most people were illiterate but they certainly were not uneducated. Education is about the skill of one’s hands as well as many other things. The people who carved the wood on the panels in this room, those who designed and printed the wallpaper and those who built this Palace were not necessarily literary people, but they were certainly educated. Re-evaluating our understanding of education is part of the process of delivering self-worth to a whole range of different types of person with different pre-occupations and talents and so different things to offer. I agree with the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough and I agree with Professor White about that. However, it would be a mistake to underestimate or, worse still, to undermine the argument in favour of that vital body of knowledge, that collective wisdom of ages, support for which is embodied in the argument that my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton made and in our amendment No. 3, which would be a happy and useful addition to the Bill.
It is perhaps worth adding that there will no doubt be a debate in the Committee about methodology and the different ways of teaching different things. To some extent we have had that debate this morning. I gather from hon. Members who have already contributed that it is necessary to lay before the Committee one’s credentials to comment on such matters. I make little of the fact that I was a member of an LEA in Nottinghamshire for many years, as shadow spokesman on education, and even less of the fact that I trained as a teacher. My principal qualification to speak on such matters is that I am the father of William and Edward—I have a photo that I shall pass round for hon. Members who are interested. Having two young sons, I spend a great deal of my leisure time dealing with the very business of teaching children to read, write, count and reason. Based on that experience, I have come to the conclusions that phonics are critical, although I do not entirely share my hon. Friend’s view about the real books method. My son is learning by a mix of the two. Although I learned to read, write and spell by a traditional means—in a golden past, in an idyllically happy childhood—my son is learning by a slightly different, mixed approach, which is proving effective. I believe in traditional methods, but I do not want to be hidebound by them. I am open-minded about methodology: different children learn in different ways.
Children certainly need the basics, however, and my hon. Friend is right to say that for too long those basics were neglected. A child who cannot sound the alphabet cannot make much use of the real books method. I first became politically involved in education in the mid-1980s, when the real books movement really got under way, and we were told that those basic things were not necessary. I entirely support the idea that phonics is a critical part of learning to read and write. The Government have also taken that on board, which is a negation of the views that were prevalent for too long. I am prepared to base my judgment on such matters on real life experience and to keep an open mind about methodology. I am sure that we shall talk much more about skills, attitudes and values, and knowledge as the days and weeks go by.
Amendment No. 4 proposes that we should raise
“the educational attainment of the most disadvantaged”.
That goes to the very heart of our conservatism. The Conservative party has a noble history of standing for the most disadvantaged. We are, after all, the party of Wilberforce, Shaftesbury and Disraeli. Over many years in this place, the Conservative party championed the cause of the disadvantaged against bitter opposition from Liberals and other reactionaries, and we do no less today. That is the reason for amendment No. 4. [Interruption.] I see that I have caused some hilarity among Government Members; I find that hard to understand, but no doubt they will share the joke with us later.
Perhaps it is worth quoting Rab Butler, who said of his great Education Act of 1944:
“Educationally ... Britain had to be one nation not two. So there must be an education system providing a training best suited to the talents of every individual”.
Our education system too often fails the most disadvantaged in our society. That is freely acknowledged by Members on both sides of the House. Indeed, when the Secretary of State introduced the Bill on Second Reading, she made it clear that there was still a long way to go in improving the quality of the education experience for the most disadvantaged children in society, although she of course advertised the claims of progress that the Government frequently make.
To state the position in graphic terms, in January 2005, 29 per cent. of all schools with special measures were located in the 20 per cent. most deprived communities. That statistic is drawn from the National Audit Office report published just a month or so ago. Nearly a million children—13 per cent. of the school population—are attending poorly performing schools, which means that there are 1,557 poorly performing schools in England, and that recent NAO study made it clear that those poorly performing schools were staying in difficulties for too long. The problem is not simply the number of schools in difficulties, but the time that the schools spend in less-than-ideal circumstances. They perform poorly for too long and take too long to react. As we heard again in the Budget debate yesterday, according to the Department’s own figures, almost half—44 per cent.—of all 11-year-olds leave primary school without mastering the three R’s. Less than half of school leavers—44 per cent.—attain five or more good GCSE grades, including English and maths.
If, as Chesterton remarked, education is the soul of society as it passes from one generation to another—I am reminded of earlier discussion in Committee—we must loosen the grip of the soullessness that besets our great cities and towns, and we must ensure that the wisdom of generations is passed down to all our children, not just the fortunate few. That is why, over generations, there has been debate about methodology and teaching and learning strategies. It is the kind of debate that we began this morning—one in which we consider the relationship between teacher and taught and how to elevate expectations. We engage in such debates in an effort to ensure that children aim for a more distant horizon, particularly those children who start with low self-esteem. That is also why we debate education structure.
It is legitimate to consider how far structure has inhibited the useful debate about methodology and how far it has facilitated a useful consideration of how to deal with disadvantage. To be frank, the jury is out. There is a case—my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton began to make it—for saying that the predominance of debate about structure in education has been unhelpful in addressing the more fundamental problems, which have tended to continue regardless of the structural changes made. Having said that, the Bill is in large measure about structure. We need to consider that in relation to the amendments, because if we are to talk about structure, we should not do so outside of considerations about the most disadvantaged pupils and the most poorly performing schools.
It is because of successive Governments’ determination to change the structure of education in order to raise standards that the Education Act 1944 was introduced. You, Mr. Cook, and the Committee will be relieved to know that I do not intend to speak about that in any great detail—not that you would permit me to do so. More especially, that is why the Education Reform Act 1988 was introduced. That is relevant, of course, because it has been said that the 1988 Act was a forerunner of the Bill in terms of the independence that the Act gave schools. The arguments that ran throughout the 80s were fierce; I was involved in them and I remember the 1988 Act as an active member of an LEA at the time. The debates were about whether by giving schools greater freedom and competence over their affairs, we could raise standards.
The debates have raged and been waged for 20 years since, and as my hon. Friend rightly said, a consensus has been emerging and is embodied in the Bill. By giving schools greater flexibility in what they do and thus greater freedom to prioritise, we might be able to raise educational standards and improve the quality of education offered to our children. Broadly speaking, I support that view. If we are to raise standards and improve the quality of education, we must give schools more freedom to develop in the way that best suited to the needs of their locality and most sensitive to the requirements of their children. We must allow schools to explore the capacity of their leaders, governors, heads and teachers to innovate. That is why we supported the Bill on Second Reading and broadly approve of it in essence.
Even so, there is a worry that some schools will continue to struggle. There is concern about children in the most difficult areas and schools with the most difficult cohorts, who are perhaps bound to fail. I am not prepared in Committee to accept that as the status quo. I, like Members throughout the Committee, want to ensure that every child has the chance to fulfil their potential—the chance that I guess we have all had. To that end, I urge the Committee to accept amendment No. 4 and add the emphasis on disadvantage to the Bill. Amendments Nos. 3 and 4 and others tabled by my hon. Friends would be constructive, consensual and intelligent additions to the Bill. They are designed not to frustrate its intent, but to improve the legislation that we hope will emanate from our considerations during the next few weeks. In that spirit, I urge my hon. Friends and other hon. Members throughout the Committee, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton did, to support the amendments tabled in our names.