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Mr. Tim Smith: No one takes exception to the idea of a review. The Labour party's fundamental error was to pre-empt the results of the review by announcing that it would abolish child benefit for 16 and 17-year-olds without announcing also a replacement for it.
Mr. Foster: I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but he does not go far enough. The biggest problem was that certain Labour Members said one thing and, almost immediately, other Labour Members said another. That confused us even more than if the Labour party had gone in one direction and then changed its stance.
Today's debate is important because it has highlighted two problems in this country. We are well aware of the figures--they were repeated on many occasions in many different places--in the world competitiveness report. The report ranked our work force 24th in the world in terms of skill levels. Our education system came 35th out of 48 countries in terms of adequacy. That result was achieved after 17 years of Conservative government. It must be clear to us all that, if we are to halt the decline and to succeed in the increasingly global market, we must invest more in our most important resource: the people of this country. We must ensure that every individual can achieve his or her potential.
It would be foolish to say that there have been no changes or improvements. However, on the whole, the Government have failed to make the improvements that the country needs desperately. The hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen)--who is no longer in his place--let the cat out of the bag in a telling intervention when he conceded that education standards in this country have slipped. That is a real condemnation of a Government who have been in power for so long.
Other figures demonstrate that failure also. In 1995, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research found that 64 per cent. of this country's work force have no vocational qualifications. The similar figures are27 per cent. in Germany and 23 per cent in Switzerland. The institute found also that qualifications and education and training of the work force were a major determining factor in the companies' results. For example, in Germany about 90 per cent. of those who work on the shop floor in the woodworking industry have a relevant vocational qualification. In this country, the figure is only10 per cent. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the output per person in that industry is 2.3 times higher in
Germany than in this country. The skills and qualifications of the work force are critical to the productivity, and hence the economic success, of this country. I do not think that the hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant) will dispute that point.
Mr. Fabricant:
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is dangerous to make international comparisons of that sort, because he is comparing apples with pears? Vocational qualifications differ between countries. If the levels of vocational qualifications are higher in one country than in another, obviously fewer people will achieve those qualifications.
Mr. Foster:
The hon. Gentleman might have an interesting and a valid point if he had listened to the figure that I gave earlier: 64 per cent. of the work force in this country have no vocational qualifications. We could argue about the value of certain vocational qualifications between nations: I accept that there are differences. However, we are seeking to establish the broad principle that high-quality vocational qualifications are critical to this country's productive output. We are lagging a long way behind other competitor nations.
Many hon. Members have referred to statistics regarding the stay-on rate and so on. It is important to recognise that the stay-on rate in this country has increased. The hon. Member for Eastbourne said that72 per cent. of 16-year-olds now stay on at school. My figure is slightly higher at 75 per cent., but it matters not. That figure is higher still in other countries--particularly those of our European competitors. However, there is a worrying trend that hon. Members have not identified: those who choose to stay on in education at age 16 do not often remain for long. By the ages of 17 and 18, there is a rapid reduction in the number of people who remain in education compared with the position in other European countries.
Mr. MacShane:
That is an important point. At the Rotherham college of arts and technology the enrolment rate is high, but so too is the drop-out rate. Up to 56 per cent. of students drop out of many courses after six months. I wonder whether the Government statistics for enrolments take into account the drop-out rate also.
Mr. Foster:
The statistics show clearly that only55 per cent. of 17-year-olds are in full-time education, compared with 87 per cent. in France and 93 per cent. in Germany. By age 18, the percentage has dropped still further. We could argue about the statistics, but I hope that all hon. Members will agree that there is real cause for concern.
The problem has been around for a long time. While looking at some old reports, I came across that of the royal commission on secondary education from 1895--101 years ago. I apologise for the sexist nature of the report's language, but it is appropriate to the time. The report states:
That said, we welcome Sir Ron's approach to the development of a qualifications framework based on different levels. Particularly with the new badging arrangements that he mentioned, it will enable the 16,000 or so qualifications that currently exist to be recognised and valued by society more quickly than, sadly, has been the case with GNVQs. The progress envisaged by Sir Ron Dearing may well be helped by a reduction in the number of qualifications available and the amalgamation of a number of the boards responsible for them. I very much welcome the Government's review on the potential amalgamation of the SCAA and NCVQ.
It is crucial that the proposed framework can form the basis for building on the work that has already been done on course modularisation and the development of credit accumulation and transfer. That would allow people to build up credits towards various qualifications in a way that focuses on their successes rather than their failures. It would also enable them to enter and leave the system at various times. The hon. Member for Mid-Kent(Mr. Rowe) said that people need to be able to enter and leave the system of education and training in accordance with their specific needs and perhaps those of their employers. That is why a modular, credit-based system with a clear framework will be so important.
Mention has already been made--perhaps too briefly by some other hon. Members--of the importance of guidance. It is an incredibly complicated system and it is vital that we provide clear, easily available guidance to young people who are trying to find their way through it. That guidance must be disinterested; it must not be biased or unavailable from any of the providing organisations in education and training.
I should mention another issue on which I have slight qualms about Sir Ron Dearing's recommendations. Following my intervention in her speech, the right hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden appeared to agree with me. It concerns the key or core skills that Sir Ron Dearing said every young person must have. He stressed three: communication--including oracy--the application of numbers and information technology. Employers are
telling me that they require three more--that all young people should have the skills of self-development, problem solving and working with others. If we are to prepare young people for the world of work, we should incorporate those additional skills in our long-term planning.
The Government have displayed a certain smug satisfaction about Sir Ron Dearing's proposals and a failure to remember that Sir Ron was brought in to make proposals to get us out of the present difficult mess that--to a large extent--is of the Government's own making. Surely no one could deny that we have a real problem with the range of youth training schemes--youth training, youth credits and modern apprenticeships. The youth training scheme has not been a success, with its wholly unacceptable completion rate of under 50 per cent.
The Government cannot simply blame others. The hon. Member for Shoreham wanted to blame the teachers and left-wing trendy LEAs. The present failure must be placed at the door of the Government, not least because of their simple failure to increase the funding of courses in line with inflation. Training providers are expected to do more with less money. It is hardly surprising that so many disaffected young people--pre and post-16--have dropped out of full-time education and desperately need to be persuaded that there is something else worth doing. Currently, that something else is simply not available.
The Government have withdrawn money from the training and enterprise councils--£200 million last year and a further £70 million this year. They have squeezed local education authorities so hard that many do not have sufficient funds to provide discretionary awards. The introduction of a market-driven system in further education has led to a dog-eat-dog approach which is setting colleges against each other. That, combined with the funding cuts, has put a large percentage of further education colleges into serious financial difficulties.
Let me briefly digress into a subject that is most important to the education of that age group. The morale of staff in further education colleges is very low. Not only do they have to work with larger groups of students and shortages of books and equipment in increasingly ramshackle buildings, but they have to cope with constantly changing demands, the new employment contracts that have been imposed and uncertainties about funding arrangements as battles rage between local education authorities where schools plan to reintroduce sixth forms and the Further Education Funding Council.
The large number of part-time lecturers in further education also have to cope with growing uncertainty in respect of employment protection rights due to the influx of agency agreements with organisations such as the Education Lecturers Service.
The Liberal Democrats have expressed our clear commitment to increase investment in education. We have said clearly that, if necessary, we would raise the level of income tax by 1p in the pound to pay for it. We have acknowledged that increased expenditure cannot pay for everything and that we have to be clear about where we plan to spend the money. We know that it cannot be spent more than once--I shall return to that in respect of the Labour party's proposals.
We have made it clear that some of the extra money--and we have described in detail how we would spend it--was spent on the education of 16 to 19-year-olds' ensuring
that, whether or not they were in work, a minimum of two days' a week education or training was made available to them. We recently announced our policies for the establishment of individual learning accounts, which would have money put into them by the state, employers--most important--and individual learners. We would encourage employers to make their contribution, although many already do, through a 2 per cent. remissible levy. We have stressed the importance of restoring benefit entitlement to 16 to 18-year-olds not in work, education or training, and of companies listing in their accounts the details of the money that they have spent on training. We have emphasised the importance of companies including in contracts of employment a commitment to training for their employees.
"The educational opportunities offered to boys and girls who do not proceed to universities, but leave school at 16, are still far behind the requirements of our time. The disadvantages from which young Englishmen suffer in industry and commerce owing to the superior preparation of their competitors in several countries of continental Europe are real."
17 May 1996 : Column 1211
The same point has been made today, 101 years later. We shall succeed only if there is a radical overhaul of the courses and qualification framework for those aged 16to 19--or even for those aged 14 to 19. We shall end the damaging academic and vocational divide only if we acknowledge the need for increased investment in education and training.
Hon. Members have referred to Sir Ron Dearing's review. My party welcomes many of his recommendations. However, we have some reservations, as do all hon. Members. Perhaps our biggest reservation relates to A-levels, which were mentioned by the right hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden, among others. Perhaps because of the over-prescriptive remit of his review, Sir Ron Dearing has recommended retaining the title A-level. We are concerned that the title A-level, which the right hon. Lady referred to as a gold standard and the Minister described as the anchor point for academic courses, may inhibit the true parity of esteem between academic and vocational courses and qualifications. We are worried that the retention of that title and everything that it stands for may continue the practice whereby far too many young people embark on A-level courses that are inappropriate or too narrow for their requirements.
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