Clause 2 - Duties in relation to diversity and choice
Education and Inspections Bill
1:00 pm
David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)
I shall emphasise the point that I made before the break. The length of clause 2 is inversely proportionate to its significance in the Bill. That causes me concern for two reasons: first because the concepts of diversity and choice need to be defined more fully, and secondly because I am not sure that the Government have adequately distinguished in the Bill between the ends that they wish to ensure and the means by which they believe they can deliver those ends.
I made the point when speaking to amendments Nos. 97 and 98 that there is ambiguity about the concept of choice. It could mean simply the extension of the range of alternatives or it could mean that each parent has the capacity to ensure that their child obtains a place in their first-preference school. I also wish to say a little about diversity. It seems to me that the objective of Government policy is not simply to extend the range of diversity in the governance structures of our schools but to achieve greater innovation in educational practice, which is the most likely way to raise standards.
It may well be that more diversity in the structures of governance and ownership will lead to that innovation, but not necessarily. There are other forms of diversity that could do so equally well or even better. The point about ends and means is significant. Had we been drafting the Bill from scratch and had more time to consider the issue, we might have focused on innovation and quality as objectives of Government policy rather than simply on choice and diversity as the means of achieving those objectives.
My right hon. Friend the Minister responded thoroughly and fairly to the points on fair access that I raised on amendment No. 98. Fair access is an important counter-balancing principle to the focus simply on diversity and choice, because there are enormous risks to a policy that focuses only on widening the range of schools and prioritising an untrammelled version of parental choice. Choice needs to operate within a framework that guarantees not only that all parents have a choice, but that the choice policy works to the advantage of parents and children. My right hon. Friend responded fairly on the issue, and I look forward to seeing the fruit of her further deliberations on it as we move towards Report.
I am not sure that my right hon. Friend has responded fully to the issues of social inclusion and community cohesion referred to in amendment No. 97. The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) made an interesting intervention this morning about the importance of ending educational apartheid, on which I completely agree with him. He quoted the French system of education as a model. I share his enthusiasm for many aspects of the public services in France, but it is not an example of the absence of apartheid, given the riots in the northern suburbs of Paris and Lyon last November, the nightly demonstrations against Prime Minister Villepin’s new employment laws over the past few days and the general strike on Tuesday. France is not the best example at the moment of an education system that has produced an absence of social apartheid. I nevertheless strongly support the principles behind the objectives and secular basis of the French education system.
I shall dwell a moment or two longer on the question of segregation and social inclusion and exclusion. There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that the nature of school governance has a direct relationship to levels of social segregation. As I understand it, areas with a much higher proportion of wholly or partially selective schools, or of voluntary aided and foundation schools, have a higher level of social segregation. Between 1999 and 2004, levels of social segregation rose in 60 per cent. of English local education authorities. During that time, the areas with the greatest increase in social segregation were those that had the greatest proportion of pupils in voluntary aided schools.