Clause 138

Part of – in a Public Bill Committee at 2:15 pm on 26 March 2009.

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Photo of Nick Gibb Nick Gibb Shadow Minister (Education) (Schools) 2:15, 26 March 2009

I am grateful to the Minister for that very full response to the amendments. The hon. Member for Wakefield made a point about knowledge versus skills. Amendment 141 would not rule out criteria to assess skills, but the concern is that, over the past 10 years, the knowledge content of some of our qualifications—not all, but some—has been depleted or removed from the GCSE qualification. Ofqual agrees with us on that point, and that is why our concern is about the level of knowledge: we are not concerned about the level of skills being assessed but we are genuinely concerned, as are the public, about how much knowledge we ask our children to acquire. On many occasions, such knowledge is reduced, and that is very damaging.