My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for the amendments and welcome the opportunity to debate them. I fully understand why the noble Lords, Lord Watson, and Lord Hunt, are supporting Amendment 20. Having a sound grasp of English, maths and digital skills is fundamental to getting ahead in work and life. Raising literacy and numeracy levels at all stages of education, including post-16, is essential and remains an absolute priority.
We recognise that current requirements are still low by international standards, and we believe that individuals should have higher aspirations. In the longer term, as the quality of pre and post-16 English and maths teaching and associated learner outcomes improve, the Government should raise maths and English requirements to reflect those of higher-performing international technical education systems.
Since we made it a condition of funding, all 16 to 19 year-olds beginning a study programme who have not achieved an A* to C GCSE in English and maths must continue to study these subjects until they do so, unless specific special educational needs or disabilities prevent them. I will repeat that to underline it: unless specific special educational needs or disabilities prevent them from doing so, so there are exceptions. This has resulted in thousands more students securing these GCSEs by the age of 19. The OECD has commended us on our reforms and, working with schools, colleges and employers, we will build on them.
We will do so by implementing the Sainsbury panel’s recommendations on English and maths. We have accepted the panel’s recommendation that there should be a single set of English and maths exit requirements governing college-based technical education and apprenticeships, and we will continue to require all 16 to18 year-olds to study English and maths if they have yet to achieve GCSE A* to C in these subjects.
The Government consider that English and maths requirements should be included as steps towards occupational competence. As well as good literacy and numeracy, everyone needs an essential set of digital skills to succeed in the modern workplace. Digital skills requirements should be tailored and groups of persons will be in the lead to specify digital skills that are required for entry into particular groups of skilled occupations.
We believe that there should be a minimum level of English or maths which all individuals must achieve ahead of securing technical education certification, as is already the case for apprentices. We will work with the institute to ensure that occupation-specific English and maths requirements are incorporated into each route.
Before I turn to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, I repeat the point about exceptions. We are talking about people with special needs and so on, where it may be just too difficult. The noble Lord spoke about the resit culture, and we absolutely understand that. However, in an environment where we are offering young people the opportunity through apprenticeships for genuine employment in the world of work, there is a hope and desire that those people should understand that basic core skills in English, maths and digital skills will be essential for their future. That is not least because we all know that, in the current world of work, people change jobs a lot and are not necessarily going to follow the same role for ever. Therefore, they need that basic requirement to support themselves into their future.
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