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12.6 pm
Mr. Keith Darvill (Upminster): I welcome the White Paper, "Excellence in schools" and the fact that it has been prepared and presented so quickly. I associate myself with the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty).
I have had some experience in this area, although I am not a teacher. I have been a school governor for more than 15 years, working with both primary and secondary schools and I have been governor of a sixth-form college. I have chaired an independent appeals committee. Drawing on those experiences, as well as on my experience as a parent, I have some contribution to make to the debate.
On the points raised by the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant), one problem of the past 18 years has been the hijacking by the Conservative party of the word "choice" in education. All parents want choice for their children and when they look for schools, they make those choices. In reality, there are few choices. The White Paper tries to make choice more relevant, by ensuring that standards are improved across the board. Grant-maintained schools, the few grammar schools and the assisted places scheme do not affect the majority of parents. The White Paper aims to do that.
School governors play an important role, but not much has been said about it today. It would be useful to focus on their role, because there are more than 300,000 of them. We have already spoken about partnership, and that genuinely applies to education. Opposition Members have suggested that the White Paper contains an element of statism. I do not agree. That is certainly not relevant to the work of the school governors.
School governors welcome the local management of schools and the delegation of school budgets. They like to influence the planning and management of schools. Over the years, governors have contributed a great deal to many schools, but schools also require the support of their local education authorities. We need to get the balance right. I hope that the Opposition agree. In my experience of working with Conservative representatives on school governing bodies and local education authorities, there is usually a great deal of consensus. Most school governors and members of local education committees work hard for the benefit of children in the borough. Members of LEAs often have specialist skills, and schools rely on having quick and easy access to their expertise. If we diffuse the structure of our education system, we may lose much of that expertise, which is a great advantage.
Local political parties stand on their education policies and they go to the electorate regularly. To that extent, they are accountable. There is much to be said for developing the partnership between everyone involved in education--local education authorities, schools and school governing bodies. Through partnership, accountability and placing emphasis on standards, we can make a serious attack on the inherent problems in our education system. I am sure that the bipartisan approach of many LEAs is the best way forward.
I am also concerned about the burden being placed on school governors. As a school governor, I often receive big wodges of paper. All school governors are voluntary
and most of them have other jobs. They have to prepare for and attend meetings at schools and put decisions into effect. If we place additional burdens on them, they will become less effective.
The position of school governors has changed remarkably over the years. When I first became a school governor 17 or 18 years ago, the termly meetings used to consist of a report from the head teacher and a discussion of events at the school, followed by some light chat. The meetings would take about two hours. Now, we meet three or four times a term. The board of governors might be broken down into sub-committees and working parties involved in budgets, the maintenance of premises, and so on. If legislation continues to place more burdens on school governors, there is a real danger that schools will not get the support that they need. We must consider that when we develop the detailed legislative proposals that will result from the White Paper.
There are also dangers in involving school governors in the achievement of standards in schools. The White Paper specifically states that governors should demand various pieces of information from head teachers, in an attempt to drive up standards. I welcome the main thrust of the White Paper, but there is a danger that school governors will become too involved in the day-to-day management of schools. There has always been a grey area between the management of schools and the responsibilities of school governors. In my view, a code of practice should be produced and sent to all schools. Of course, it should be the subject of consultation first, but it would be helpful if the White Paper resulted in a code of practice.
I have one or two other points to raise. Since the election, I have continued to visit schools in my constituency and to seek the views of teachers generally. There is a danger that the messages that we send to schools and the language that we use will attack teacher morale. Although there is clearly a need to attack low standards where they exist, that must be done sensitively, because teachers worry about how action taken by this place, parents, and local authorities undermines their status. We must give careful consideration to that issue.
The assessment of children when they first go to school is an important move. I should like there to be much earlier screening, especially for learning difficulties such as dyslexia. The learning difficulties of many children throughout the country are not identified early enough in their school career. Local authorities and schools should become more responsible for that. Identification of such problems and the training of teachers to identify them is an important matter.
I have already mentioned the role of local education authorities. Some of the rhetoric used by Conservative Members sends out the wrong messages. Local education authorities have a firm role to play in the development of our schools, and I am sure that they will continue to play it.
Mr. Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale, West):
We have heard some excellent and constructive contributions from hon. Members of all parties and I hope that I shall continue in the same vein. I have followed my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant) before--as chairman of Durham University Conservative Association--and I am especially pleased to be following him today, albeit after a slightly shorter interval.
I am delighted that the White Paper states that it focuses on standards and not on structure. That is something we can all welcome, although the White Paper raises many questions and leaves the way open for many new structures to be introduced. Whether or not they are to be subject to consultation, we are told to expect a new White Paper on structures in the near future.
The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) referred to a sterile debate on structures and I agree that that is largely unhelpful. The people I represent are keen to move away from that debate, because we have a local education system which is tried and tested--we have grammar schools, high schools and a variety of other schools. It is a popular system, it works and it does not consign any of our children to failure.
I find it objectionable when hon. Members occasionally utter the outdated cliche that the 11-plus consigns some children to failure--it does not. If there are good high schools and good grammar schools, we can select and provide good education for all children, and that is what we do in the borough of Trafford. All too often, the experience of Labour in government--whether central or local--has been about levelling down in education, not levelling up. I devoutly hope that the White Paper is, indeed, a departure from that experience.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) referred to the distance that has been travelled by Labour. If it really has been travelled, I welcome it. We can perceive another distance, however, between the utterances of Ministers and the behaviour of Labour-controlled local authorities. I certainly want that distance to be closed, too. I am reminded that the Secretary of State for Education and Employment used to preside over schools in the city of Sheffield, where no great renaissance of standards took place. Indeed, the reverse was perhaps the case. I hope that that experience has taught him something.
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