Education and Inspections Bill

Before speaking to my own amendment I should like to comment on the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe. It is difficult to avoid a major debate on these issues. I was chairman of the body responsible for the national curriculum and tests at GCSE and A-level for three years and I should like to give a bit of the relevant history. During my tenure it was clear to me that we must find space within the key stage 4 curriculum for a vocational option and I fought very hard to get in the GNVQ Part 1, as it was called. But I had to make space and I did so by advising—my advice was accepted—that one could do history and geography if one wished, but one could drop one or the other to do a GNVQ. There was an entitlement, if the student wanted, to do both, but I thought it was important to provide a motivation—an engagement—for those who were not academically minded, and who preferred and were more apt at learning by finding out than by reading books and listening to teacher. It was highly motivating and teachers said it could be transforming. Indeed, it motivated the teachers because they responded to the pupils’ enthusiasm. That is the history. In support of a view which I advocated in a report I made to Government in 1996—which we were told this morning was bearing fruit through the £12 million being devoted to financing music—I argued very much for a Baccalaureate-style option in which students could, if they wished, combine vocational learning with academic learning. I feel that it is an advantage, at least to a modest extent, for all to have experience of the other form of learning. It is engaging, enlightening and can be very motivating, so I support that. Turning to specifics, I agree with all that the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, said about history, but I should like to speak about science. When I was chairman, I wanted very much to encourage the individual sciences. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, about entitlement; if one has reached level 6 by the end of key stage 3, one should have entitlement, if one wishes, to do the three sciences. There are two points on that: do we have the science teachers in our state schools to offer that? In physics and chemistry, we probably do not. We have to address that problem. In parenthesis, in another debate on another occasion I made the case for an open school. By that I meant having first-rate interactive material in a distance-learning programme which would be available to all schools and adjusted to different levels of understanding. The programme would enable a student in key stage 4, whose school did not have the competence to teach physics at that level, to do the theoretical side of that subject. That could also apply to chemistry, although the laboratory work would have to be done separately. We have to face up to that problem. Secondly, to move from level 6 attainment in double science to a high score in the three individual sciences in the two years of key stage 4 is a big stride. That brings me back to a review on which I think the department is engaged about whether key stage 3 should last for only two years. That has much to recommend it. As for languages—yes, of course, we all know this. I recall listening to a lecture last year which argued that our exports to the whole of south America—people do not speak English there and we do not speak Spanish—were no more than to the small country of Denmark, where everyone speaks English. I do not know whether that is true, but it makes the point that although English may be the most widely used language at the high levels, a lot of people would respond much better to us if we had a competence in their language. It would be in our own interests. We will not solve these matters tonight, but I feel very strongly that these are the right issues to put forward and seek to settle. Although the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority is reviewing the curriculum for key stages 1, 2 and 3 and the criteria for A-levels, for some reason I do not understand it is not looking at the key stage 4 curriculum. There may be scope for the curriculum authority to engage with these matters.