Clause 1
Education and Skills Bill
9:15 am
Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister, Children, Schools and Families; Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, Conservative)
Yes, but the balance has shifted way too far towards skills. The key stage 3 curriculum that comes into place this September is based very much on the Opening Minds curriculum proposed by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce—I may cite the RSA later in Committee—thus demonstrating that the curriculum has moved to that end of the spectrum. I recently sat in on a history lesson that focused on skills—chronology in this case—in which children were taught isolated and unnuanced facts and dates about the civil war and asked to put them in chronological order. It was excruciating: all the nuances and interesting aspects of that important period in our history were lost in teaching the so-called skill of chronology.
I do not want to pursue that line of argument any further; the Committee has been very patient. However, when discussing changes in the law that require, on pain of criminal sanctions, a young person to participate in education or vocational training, it is important to understand why we have such a low participation rate compared with other developed nations. Unless we, as parliamentarians and Ministers, are prepared to challenge that ideology, as Michael Barber bravely did, and as Lord Adonis continues to to do, there will be no improvement in educational achievement in this country. New laws to compel attendance might result in data suggesting higher attendance rates, but new examinations and qualifications that prevent comparisons with results in previous years will not conceal the effects of an educational system from the real world, which increasingly demands high levels of knowledge, expertise and general education. The real objective is to help young people who are not in education or employment.
The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) concluded his speech on Second Reading thus:
“My plea is for the group whom we are failing most...they are in no way damaged...They are very bright. The question is: why, when they are so bright, do we fail them so dismally?”—[Official Report, 14 January 2008; Vol. 470, c. 705-706.]
Before imposing this new duty on young people, whom the Government, the education system—all of us—have failed, should we not first examine how young people have been let down by our education system, and put that right, rather than pass the whole burden of our failings on to a group of 16 and 17-year-olds from the most disadvantaged backgrounds and communities?