Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, as we grope our way into this mammoth Bill, I am increasingly of the persuasion of the noble Lord, Lord Baker. It is a very difficult Bill to get one’s mind around the whole and, inevitably, I shall concentrate on some of the parts. Our situation is like that of the blind men in the fairy story who encountered an elephant, which they carefully inspected before coming to rather different conclusions about what the beast was like. As we look at apprenticeships and the various new agencies, I feel that we are in that position. We have an alphabet soup of quangos and agencies, and, very helpfully, the Explanatory Notes give us a glossary, including 46 acronyms, several of which will be unmemorable. My fear is that this Bill, if passed, will create a cobweb of lines of supposed accountability, which the many institutions affected, not least the schools, will find it very difficult to deal with. The levers are invisible. My most fundamental test for adequate—and I do not mean good—legislation is that it be comprehensible and compliable for those who have to comply. I fear that this legislation may not meet that test, although we need to do our best by it. I should declare some interests. I have—more behind me than ahead of me because it was rather long—a university career in this country and overseas and in a number of other academic institutions. I also chair the Nuffield Foundation, which runs a curriculum centre that has produced many curricular innovations over the years, and continues to do so. It is rather curious, by the way, that, with all the responsibility that the Government take, curriculum development has hitherto not been handled entirely by government. From these activities, I have been able to see the effects of a changing school and examination system on what young people can and cannot do when they leave school with a variety of qualifications, and in particular regulated qualifications. I have also been able to form a rather wider judgment of the quality of their educational experience. What recent pupils tell one is often the biggest and best guide to what is really happening at school level, and it is not a happy situation. At present, we have many different qualifications and, above all, many different regulated qualifications, each with their own subjects and examinations and so on, particularly for older pupils. There are more in prospect with the proposed diplomas, although we shall have to wait and see what happens on that front. Pupils and schools consequently have to make intricate choices between qualifications, in the knowledge that the marks awarded them will be used by future employers or by university admissions officers, and will also help to determine the reputations and futures of their teachers and schools. When a measure is used for too many different purposes, perhaps it ceases to be a good measure—and when it is used as a target, doubly so. All this has been very well documented, as noble Lords will know, in the galaxy of perverse incentives introduced by the assessment system for schools by Mr Warwick Mansell in his book, Education by Numbers. The noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, has already mentioned a number of criticisms of the present system. He is right, but there are more. Many think that standards have fallen, at least in some areas, noting subjects in which pupils are now less well prepared for further study or work than they used to be. That applies both in apprenticeships and in sixth-form work leading to university. In another place, some robust—and some less robust—evidence of decline was cited. Some comment that examinations are simply now more boring than they used to be—I think that matters—and too numerous. Some worry excess teaching time is lost to examinations and mock examinations, and fear that the assessment tail is wagging the education dog. Some worry about excess reliance on course assessment in some qualifications, which may cover parental and teacher assistance and plagiarism, electronic and traditional. Others note that serial retaking of modules may disguise lack of consolidated grasp of the material. Many point out that, if qualifications and assessment are changed without sufficient care and lead time, employers and universities will be unsure of their merits and public confidence in them will be damaged. So it matters greatly that the Bill provides appropriate governance both for curriculum and, particularly, for regulated qualifications and their assessment. The Bill provides for two bodies. The QC is to split. The curriculum becomes the responsibility of the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, the main successor to the QCA; the examinations by which regulated qualifications are assessed fall into the lesser body, Ofqual. It is far from clear whether the Bill provides adequate structures for the regulation of qualifications by Ofqual. In particular, it is unclear whether it provides adequate ways to secure the integrity and independence of the examinations and assessments that are relevant to regulated qualifications. It is not so difficult in many ways. There is great agreement about the objectives that examinations and assessments for qualifications should provide. They should provide reliable evidence of skills and standards at each level of pass, for pupils and parents, employers and universities, which they can use to differentiate candidates and make decisions about futures. They should be efficient in various respects, and should not displace teaching unnecessarily. They should be fair and manageable for candidates, teachers and schools and command public confidence. The current system does not meet these objectives. In particular, there is no doubt that public confidence in standards has sagged. Ostensibly the Ofqual objectives cover a number of these requirements. They are listed: the qualifications standards objective; the assessments standards objective; the public confidence objective; the awareness objective; and the efficiency objective—not very revealing. However, the Bill does not give Ofqual adequate independence from government, which may undermine all and any of the purported objectives. Clause 126 says: ""In performing its functions Ofqual must also have regard to such aspects of government policy as the Secretary of State may direct";" one of the many uses of "direct". This general power is specified more narrowly in Clause 138: ""The Secretary of State may make a determination specifying minimum requirements in respect of a specified qualification"." It is also said that: ""The Government intends that this power would be used only in exceptional circumstances"." In winding, can the Minister tell the House what will constitute "exceptional circumstances", and why they cannot be specified in the Bill—or can they, perhaps? In another place the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Schools and Learners, Ms McCarthy-Fry, stated that, ""we do not have … anything in the Bill that tells Ofqual exactly what it should do to safeguard standards".—[Official Report, Commons, 5/5/09; col. 115.]" Indeed, no. They are supposed to exercise judgment. So that is not enough reassurance. What is there to prevent the Government or a future Government from reaching in to lower minimum standards? Incentives exist because Governments may wish to show themselves, if not others, that standards are rising. The Minister in another place gave the example of reaching in to determine which texts should be set for exams in English. Others commented that that could be applied not just to English but to politics or history. Above all, it could be used to alter the difficulty of obtaining a pass or a C, B or A grade. Is not the safe way forward to place a barrier in the way of the Secretary of State adjusting standards at all? If in winding the Minister could tell the House why the Government resisted an amendment to this effect in another place, I believe that it would greatly aid your Lordships’ House in Committee.