Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I think that the national curriculum is the chicken and the assessments and qualifications are the egg. That could probably make a good essay for a budding education student. No doubt I shall hear from many of them because there are bound to be lots of people listening to these debates. I hope that I can respond fully to these amendments. As I have asserted, Ministers need the QCDA to provide expert and professional advice and support to the development and delivery of their objectives for the curriculum, assessment and qualifications. I appreciate that many people wish to give advice to Secretaries of State about a whole host of issues. However, the QCDA is very much about bringing together that professional advice systematically, being in touch with the national curriculum, keeping it very tightly scrutinised, commissioning research and carrying out a whole host of activities which support the role of giving Ministers that professional advice systematically. Amendment 271, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, concerns coherence and makes a very interesting point. Everything that the QCDA does, for example on the curriculum, should be with a view to helping young people leave school with the skills and knowledge that enable them to play their part in society, and to be successful in future education or employment. QCDA cannot achieve that by looking at individual parts of the curriculum in isolation. That is where the word "coherence" comes in. QCDA should seek to ensure that, collectively, those parts provide a broad and balanced curriculum—that is very important, as the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, stressed—so that skills and knowledge in different parts of the curriculum reinforce each other. Learning at one stage of the curriculum should build on what has gone before and provide the foundation for what follows. That has been clearly articulated following the reviews of the secondary and primary curriculums. Both words—"quality" and "coherence"—need to be in the Bill. We do not necessarily want Amendment 272 on awarding bodies in the Bill. The QCDA will be responsible for the development of draft criteria for qualifications such as GCSEs and A-levels. I want to be clear that the QCDA will act as an expert adviser to the Government on qualification policy issues, too. It could not do these jobs effectively without a strong relationship with a wide range of partners, including, of course, higher education—as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, made clear—employers, schools, colleges and awarding bodies. We do not need to tell the QCDA to do that; it will be easier for it to have a strong relationship with awarding bodies, particularly now that it will not be regulating them—Royal Assent permitting. I hope that we will see strong relationships developing. On the further amendment on the Secretary of State’s power to remove qualifications from the QCDA’s scope, I am not sure that the Committee needs me to go into this, but if Ministers no longer need the QCDA’s advice on a particular area of qualifications, it should not be obliged to keep on providing it. That probably goes without saying. Amendment 275 on including academies in the QCDA’s remit is unnecessary. Our current funding agreements require academies to inform the QCA of its assessment arrangements in respect of the core national curriculum subjects, and it would not be reasonable or proportionate in this case to legislate and hence alter the previously agreed position set out in signed funding agreements. The department already monitors the curriculum in academies before and after they open, and results show that they are improving faster than the national average, as we know very well. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, talked about the importance of getting the governance right for the QCDA. Under the current legislation, the QCA board has to have between eight and 13 members, and that has served us well. It is big enough to allow for a rich mix of people but small enough to allow it to take decisions effectively. In fact, on the QCA there is strong expertise from the higher education and education sectors. There is a vice-chancellor, a head teacher, an FE principal, as well as employers. However, I appreciate the noble Baroness’s concern to obtain the right involvement in the right way from the right experts. The QCDA has general duties to have regard to reasonable requirements of learners, employers and HE. You do not necessarily have to have members on the board to have regard to the requirements of learners, employers and HE. That is not necessarily the only way of ensuring that their views are taken on board at the highest levels. The QCDA will listen to those views and those of all key stakeholders. However, the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, were very reasonable, and I am happy to continue the conversation on that issue. I think that I have picked up most of the points that noble Lords raised and that they will consider withdrawing or not moving their amendments.