Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, we have a great deal of sympathy with this amendment. It seems reasonable that, should a local authority wish to place a student in a college, it should at least consult the college before placing them there. It is well known that, where there are difficult pupils, there is an informal agreement among the heads of secondary schools to the effect that, "If you have one of mine; I’ll have one of yours". There is a passing around of those very few pupils who are excluded from school where a fresh start is wanted. Now that we are raising the participation age to 18, young people will be expected to be either at school, at college or at work where they are receiving education and training, possibly as an apprentice as we were discussing earlier. However, there will inevitably be some who are expected to be in education, or find themselves placed in a college, who do not attend. As we know very well, there are many 14 and 15-year-olds who have truanted from school and, as we said when we discussed the Bill that went through this House last year, if they were truanting at 14 and 15, why should they be expected not to truant when they are 16 and 17? There will be some difficult pupils, for whom local authorities will wish find a place. It is not fair on the colleges to be regarded as the dumping ground for some of these young people. It is only reasonable that they should be consulted before having to take on pupils; there should be some burden sharing among secondary schools and colleges at this point—although, very often the college courses will be more appropriate for them. Colleges have an extremely good record helping those who need extra support through the additional learning support that they provide and often helping to motivate pupils who have been turned off by school, partly because they often provide more practical courses, which many of these pupils find more attractive than the more academic learning provided by schools. This is a very mild amendment. It asks only that there should be consultation before the right to require a governing body of such an institution to take on individuals is exercised. It seems to me a perfectly reasonable amendment.