UK Parliament / Open data

Education Bill

Proceeding contribution from Andy Burnham (Labour) in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 8 February 2011. It occurred during Debate on bills on Education Bill.
Why did I make that comment? I made it because I believe in student choice and parent choice. I believe that the same subjects will not be right for everyone and I do not believe that an arbitrary selection of subjects that seems to have come from the Secretary of State and his office should be used to judge the performance of every child and school in the country. I do not understand why ICT, religious education and business studies are not in the selection if he wants to create the work force of tomorrow, as he said earlier. Yesterday, he stood at the Dispatch Box and quoted the Henley review of music education in England that he was publishing on that day. We all received a fairly pious lecture about this issue yesterday, but let me quote from the review. Paragraph 3.6 states:"““Music is an important academic subject in the secondary school curriculum. When its constituent parts are next reviewed, I believe that Music should be included as one of the subjects that go to make up the new English Baccalaureate.””" So, experts commissioned by him are telling him that his choices are too narrow and restrictive. [Interruption.] Does he want to comment on that?
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
523 c186 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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