Orders of the Day — Scotland (Education)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 2 July 1964.

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Photo of Miss Betty Harvie Anderson Miss Betty Harvie Anderson , Renfrewshire East 12:00, 2 July 1964

Yes, that is, broadly, my proposition. It would enable the Scottish Office to use—I hesitate to call them such, but I can think of no better term—prefabricated schools of varying design to meet the various needs. Such schools could be put up quickly at moderate cost—again, I have in mind what was said on this point by my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns—and they could be of the same design for the same type of area, wherever appropriate.

The tables on pages 120 to 124 of the Report on Education in Scotland show very encouraging examination results, but I wish to draw attention to the disappointing use made by girls of their successes in qualifying. The findings of the working party of the Association of Headmistresses—I realise that it concentrated on a restricted number of girls—show that of the girls who gained five O levels in the G.C.E. 80 per cent. received no more education, and that of the girls who gained two A levels 33 per cent. received no more education. The comparable figures for boys were 39 per cent. and 1 per cent. receiving no more education. Here is a huge reserve of educationally qualified manpower, quite unused.

There is good ground for the view either that the curricula are wrong in some respects or that girls are not encouraged in mathematics and science. In an article in the Sunday Telegraph of 28th June, there was a remarkable statement about the lack of girl scientists at Oxford. Presumably Oxford has the pick of the girl scientists of the country. If the existing places cannot be filled, this suggests either that girls are not being diverted into this stream of endeavour, or that teachers are not encouraging girls to go into a field where, according to the article, there is known opportunity.

If we could provide greater flexibility in the curricula and facilitate the possibility of transfer, the situation might be improved. I do not believe—I am sure that constituency correspondence generally bears this out—that it is easy for a child to change from one type of curriculum to another. Nor do I believe that it is sufficiently easy for a child to be transferred from one type of school to another. I shall not weary the Committee by developing this point, but I believe that it is one of the most important of all and it should be gone into much more thoroughly than I have time to do today.

I am sure that the late developers do not get their full chance and that parents would be infinitely happier if they could feel that there was a wider second chance than there is under our present system. I know that many experiments are going on at present, and I hope that my noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State will refer to some of them, but I feel that here again we waste a great potential.

My greatest fear about raising the school-leaving age, and perhaps raising it so quickly, is the most significant tribute to the work which the Government have done in education over the past 10 years. Unless this opportunity is matched by the programme that is offered to those who remain for the extra year, we shall not give young people the full benefit of that opportunity. There was strong criticism over two or three years that the last raising of the school-leaving age was a complete waste and that children got bored because they had to repeat what they had done in the previous year. In my view, they were not taken out into the world and shown enough of the world which they were about to enter.

I hope that a bold and imaginative plan for the new final year is being devised now, because only by a really significant final year will the wonderful work which is being done to bring about this raising of the school-leaving age give young people the full benefit of this step forward.