Education and Inspections Bill

In her very impressive speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, raised a wide range of issues, and I shall do my best to cover as many of them as I can. However, perhaps I may stand back for just a moment. As the Minister responsible for the school curriculum, these issues are on my mind day in and day out. They involve some very difficult trade-offs, and perhaps I may bring out the nature of those trade-offs. I believe that one of the most difficult decisions that we took as a Government was to disapply the statutory requirement that pupils must continue to study a modern foreign language up to the age of 16. I emphasise to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that we did not withdraw modern languages from the curriculum—I can think of nothing more monstrous that a Government could do. We did something distinctly different: we no longer made it a statutory requirement that pupils should study languages at key stage 4. That was an immensely difficult decision to take and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said, we did so in conjunction with a significant boost to primary languages. That has been successful—I have the figures, which I can give to the noble Baroness. There is a significant increase in language teaching in primary schools, and I hope that that may go some way to realising the ambitions that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, had back in the 1970s. It is a very sad state of affairs that in this country historically we did not start teaching languages until pupils had reached the age of 11. Why did we make that change at key stage 4? We did so for two reasons. First, we come back to the issue of bureaucracy. As anyone who visited the schools will know, a large number of pupils were seriously disengaged from the study of languages at key stage 4. For them, it was far more appropriate and in the interests of their employability, their engagement in school and so on that they should follow vocational programmes of study. Those were increasingly available but could not be timetabled properly with the other requirements. Before we made the change, it was necessary for schools to get each individual pupil disapplied by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. That was a massively bureaucratic process, even with administrators of the capacity of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing. Expecting him and his officials to engage in that level of central prescription and bureaucratic form-filling had the effect of the burdens on schools which we debated earlier. The trade-off that we had to face was whether we were prepared to see schools enter fewer candidates for language GCSEs because we wanted to enlarge the options offered to pupils, particularly in the vocational areas of study, and to remove an extremely bureaucratic process. That was one of the most difficult trade-offs that we had to make. The other example of a trade-off is precisely that given by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, in response to the issue of the three sciences: whether the key stage 3 programme, which is currently a three-year programme of study for most people, should be reduced to two years. We have had a pilot of a two-year key stage 3, which is an attractive option for many schools. It is available to other schools; they can seek to teach key stage 3 in two years, which means that pupils go on to GCSE programmes at age 13 rather than 14. The geography and history communities are very strongly opposed to that move because history and geography are mandatory in key stage 3 but not in key stage 4. So other subject communities see the very benefit that the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, seeks to achieve—having longer to teach the sciences, making it easier to teach the three individual sciences—as being at the expense of their own subject, which is no longer a statutory requirement. Those are the trade-offs that we have to face in this area, day in and day out. There is no easy answer to them. Almost all subject associations that enter my office want their subjects to be mandatory; they want a more substantial programme of study and they give me 15 very important reasons, connected with the national economy and the development of individuals, why that should be so. If we did them all, pupils would never get time to sleep, let alone to engage in the many other extracurricular activities such as sport in which we want them to participate. That puts the matter into context for the Committee and shows the trade-offs that we face. I am very mindful of Helmut Schmidt’s famous remark on languages, which I think he made to a Labour Party conference. He said that they are delighted to sell to us in English but it would be good if at least sometimes they could buy from us in German. Perhaps he would now refer to Spanish—although maybe not in respect of Germany. That highlights the problem. In most countries in the world now, the foreign language that is taught is English. Part of our problem in focusing high-quality language teaching in our schools is deciding which language should be taught. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, mentioned Spanish. I am glad to say that Spanish teaching is increasing in our schools. The number of entries for GCSE Spanish has risen from 34,400 to 51,700 in the past nine years. There has been a big improvement in Spanish. Of course, traditionally, French has been the main foreign language taught in our schools, and it is still given primacy in PGCE courses and training. The trade-offs here are difficult, including that in respect of Mandarin, which the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, mentioned. We have not extended Mandarin into the entitlements, as she sought—or Arabic, which she also mentioned—precisely because we want to promote the official working languages of the European Union, which we regard as important in our wider European policy. Clearly there would be a benefit if we also taught those other languages, but it would be likely that in some schools no European language would be taught or given primacy. That is precisely the kind of trade-off we are talking about. Our policy on languages has been to introduce better interactive materials, such as the languages ladder. I sent the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, our interactive materials in Spanish, including the dance mat, which I think she has been performing on recently. We have been doing a good deal to improve the quality of language teaching in secondary schools, but the thrust of our policy has been the promotion of languages in primary schools, including, for the first time, training PGCE students in languages in primary schools and providing significant additional monetary support to primary schools for teaching languages. To reach our target, which the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, mentioned, by 2010, all seven to 11 year-olds in key stage 2 will have the opportunity to learn a language at their primary school. By 2010, we will have funded 6,000 primary trainees to follow a teacher training course which also develops their language skills. There is evidence that this is bearing fruit. In 2002, only 21 per cent of schools were offering language programmes—most of them on an extracurricular basis, not even in the main school teaching time. A survey in January 2005 found that 56 per cent of all primary schools were either delivering language programmes or had plans to do so, so there has been a significant advance. That provides hope for the follow-through into secondary schools and up to GCSE. We had a recent debate about history, on a Motion by the noble Lord, Lord Luke, in which I gave a full account of what the Government were seeking to do. I refer noble Lords to that, rather than rehearsing everything now, except to say that, on quality of teaching, history is one of the most highly rated subjects by Ofsted. The uptake of history GCSE has remained good, at a consistent 31 to 32 per cent, despite the wider range of subjects offered at GCSE. History is in a strong state all the way through to GCSE. Geography is still the fourth most popular option at GCSE. It has, however, been in decline, which has been of concern to the geography community and the Government. That is why we are devoting £2 million over the next two years on a geography action plan which will do a good deal to improve the support for teachers and schools in the teaching of geography and boost the resources available to them. The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, referred to the Budget announcement which set ambitious goals for improving science teaching at GCSE and A-level. It set goals to achieve year-on-year increases in the number of young people taking A-levels in physics, chemistry and mathematics, so that by 2014 entries to A-level physics should stand at 35,000, up from the current 24,000; in chemistry, 37,000 up from the current 33,000; and in mathematics, 56,000 up from 46,000. To take that forward, we have pledged that, by 2008, all secondary schools with a science specialism—now more than 200—will offer GCSEs in physics, chemistry and biology as well as the two general science GCSEs. I accept the noble Baroness’s point that we should seek to move beyond that, and I tell her that we will after 2008. But setting this objective for a group of several hundred secondary schools in addition to those that already offer the three sciences is a big step in the right direction. I hope that that will create a solid group of schools from which we can build out thereafter. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, and the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, so rightly said, everything in this area depends on having sufficient qualified teachers. That is a particular issue in physics and chemistry. Only 19 per cent of science teachers have a physics qualification, and only 25 per cent have a chemistry qualification. We have set a target that, by 2014,25 per cent of science teachers should have a physics specialism, and 31 per cent should have a chemistry specialism. To help bring that about, we are increasing the golden hellos in those subjects to attract more teachers, in addition to the training bursaries we currently pay. We are also increasing the number of career switcher posts available through the graduate teacher programme, particularly in those subjects; and substantially increasing the Teach First programme, which brings in new graduates who may only stay for two years in the profession, with a special training course particularly focused on science. So we have been improving provision. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, raised two issues. There is a good deal to be said for the IGCSE. It is an effective programme of study, and we have asked the QCA to advise us on whether it should be registered to be generally taught in state schools. That advice will come by the end of the month, and we will then consider it extremely seriously. Similarly, we are strong supporters of the right of students to choose to study the international baccalaureate. More than 70 schools and colleges in England now teach it; an increasing number of sixth-form colleges, for example, ensure that it is on offer in institutions with large post-16 provision. More can be done to encourage that. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, about the importance of work experience. Unfortunately, there is an issue about funding, and we owe him a reply on that subject. I will see that my honourable friend the Minister for Higher Education replies to him. I know his concerns in respect of Trident, the organisation with which he is associated; If I may, I will deal with them in correspondence.