Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, I am afraid we may be putting off supper longer than some noble Lords expect by going on to this amendment. Certainly, I had expected to be released before supper, but there we go. I reassure the Minister that I do not actually want to put the word "apporpiate" into statute and that there are other reasons for not intending to press this amendment. We are returning to the question of JACQA and the control that the Secretary of State has on what qualifications are provided in English schools. JACQA is explained at some length in a 45-page document that I had the pleasure of browsing through. It was not drafted with the same skill as the Bill, if I can put it that way, but the intent is quite clear. On page 6, it shows where the Government are heading, which is towards a very limited range of qualifications to be available in English schools: either GCSEs and A-levels or diplomas, apprenticeships, and, beyond that, foundation learning and some specialist qualifications. We have had the first taste of that today with the decision by the Government not to approve IGCSEs for use in English mainstream schools. Not so long ago, the Minister was praising diversity and innovation—indeed, that is embedded in the Bill in the requirements for Ofqual—but that is not where her colleagues in another place are headed. To quote from today’s press announcement: ""Our qualifications strategy is securing real choice for young people with different learning needs"." That lines up with what the Minister said. It continues: ""GCSE is robust, rigorous and proven … It … allows plenty of opportunity for pupils to be stretched"." Many people have disagreed with that for many years. The main way in which that has expressed itself has been the growth of the IGCSE. The GCSE has never gained any currency internationally. The IGCSE has become increasingly popular in schools that are free to choose between it and GCSE because of the stretch that it provides—the way in which, for instance, in languages, it provides a real qualification rather than a pretend one—and many other aspects of the way in which it is better fitted to pupils with a degree of ambition who are likely to want to take the subject further. The Commons Minister concludes: ""We don't want to go back to where qualifications served the needs only of a tiny few"." What the Minister is doing is making sure that qualifications serve only the majority and that those who would be fitted by something different—by a minority qualification—are not to be allowed that qualification. What is to come after this? Presumably the international baccalaureate—I can see no mention here of the words in any context— which so recently was promoted by the noble Baroness’s department, is to be wiped off the face of state education. We are to have a system where the particular needs of pupils are subjugated to the wish of the Government for conformity and a system of examinations that is plain vanilla and simple and does not allow for variations. In particular, it does not allow for other qualifications to, I suppose the Minister would argue, show up the weaknesses in the qualifications that the department has chosen. This is an immensely regrettable state of affairs. I do not have much hope that the Government will change their mind—in fact I have no hope—but I very much hope that my noble friends on the Front Bench and my colleagues in another place will continue to share my view about the iniquity of this. Qualifications ought, at the ultimate, to suit the people who are doing the learning. That ought to be what we care about. It is reasonable to wish to impose some structure on this and make it sensible, but it ought not to be done at the expense of the learners. Here we are, disadvantaging the whole of the state sector compared with independent schools, equipping them with a qualification that in many instances is a worse preparation for A-level than the IGCSE. I presume that the Bill is looking to deprive those schools of the international baccalaureate—a qualification which for breadth stands over and above anything offered in the UK pantheon. It restricts vocational qualifications to diplomas, which are as yet untried and unproven; as with any innovation, they will clunk and squeak and need oiling, repairing and reassessing. Yet we are looking at destroying vocational qualifications, which have achieved a wide currency and respect, all in the name of conformity and of not allowing the best to succeed where the mediocre can be universal. I really hope that we will not find ourselves going in that direction. I have a suggestion for how to deal with this—I am mainly talking to my noble friends. If we do not have flexibility generally and we want to be able to keep control of what is happening in the majority of schools, at least we should allow the best—those who we are absolutely certain are capable of taking decisions in the interests of their pupils—to vary from the government line and strike out to find qualifications that suit their learners. They will be approved by Ofqual and that whole process will be gone through to obtain a proper level of funding for them, which will be reflected in the determination, as we have seen elsewhere in this Bill, of the learning hours involved. This is looking at where the balance should be between schools and the Secretary of State and what qualifications should be delivered, and saying that the best schools should be allowed to choose the best qualifications for their pupils and should not be subject to the blanket blindness of the Secretary of State. I beg to move.