Education and Skills Bill
12:00 pm
Mick Brookes: You have two groups of people who are outside, and we must ask what is happening to them if, at the end of key stage 2, about 80 per cent. of young people have gained good skills in reading, writing and arithmetic. The two groups are the can’t group and the won’t group. In the can’t group, there are two subdivisions: people who have told themselves that they can’t pick up the skills, so they will not focus on it, because it makes them feel bad when they fail; and people who really can’t—people who have severe special educational needs. That is the difference. I come across to the NUT position on the won’t group—the “I’m not going to do it” individuals; the belligerent and the disengaged. Perhaps there needs to be compulsion in that situation, but I do not think that it is the driving force.