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Secondary School Pupils

Mr. Clappison: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, pursuant to his answer of 7 December 1998, Official Report, column 85, on secondary school pupils, if he will list the six maintained schools in England with more than 2,000 pupils in January. [64192]

Ms Estelle Morris: The information requested, taken from The 1998 Secondary School Performance Tables is as follows:

Maintained secondary schools with more than 2,000 pupils as at January 1998

Crown Woods School, Greenwich

Great Barr GM School, Birmingham

Outwood Grange School, Wakefield

Wolfreton School, Hull

Exmouth Community College, Devon

Collingwood College, Surrey.

Education Expenditure

Mr. MacShane: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what percentage of GNP was spent on (a) education and (b) secondary schools in (i) Germany, (ii) France, (iii) the Netherlands, (iv) Sweden, (v) Switzerland, (vi) the US and (vii) the UK in each year since 1968. [62085]

Mr. Mudie: Information on expenditure on all levels of education as a percentage of GDP has, for the countries mentioned, been collected by the OECD for the period 1970 to 1995 (the latest year for which such collated data are available). Information about secondary school expenditure has not been collected by the OECD separately from other forms of educational expenditure.

This information on all educational expenditure is given in the table. Any comparisons should be cautious, since the expenditure definitions used are not always fully comparable, (particularly in their treatment of research and development expenditure) and definitions, as indicated in the table, have sometimes changed over time. In addition, the special OECD definitions mean that the OECD figures for the UK may differ from those published in "Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses".

Public expenditure on education as a proportion of GDP fell between 1994-95 and 1997-98. However, as a result of the investment in education announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review, expenditure on education as a proportion of GDP will rise from 4.6 per cent. in 1998-99 to 5.0 per cent. in 2001-02.

Public expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP, 1970-1995

Year	France	Germany	Netherlands	Sweden	Switzerland	United Kingdom	United States
1970	n/a	3.7	7.5	7.9	3.9	6.2	6.0
1971	n/a	4.2	7.5	8.0	4.3	6.3	6.0
1972	n/a	4.4	7.4	7.9	4.5	6.5	5.7
1973	n/a	4.5	7.3	7.6	4.7	6.3	5.5
1974	5.5	4.9	7.1	7.3	4.9	6.9	5.5
1975	5.6	5.1	7.4	7.1	5.3	6.8	5.7
1976	5.5	4.9	7.2	7.2	5.5	6.4	5.6
1977	5.4	4.7	7.1	7.7	5.5	6.0	5.3
1978	5.3	4.6	7.1	8.0	5.4	5.8	5.0
1979	5.2	4.6	7.0	8.6	5.3	5.7	4.9
1980	5.1	4.8	7.1	8.5	5.2	5.7	4.9
1981	5.5	4.8	7.2	8.0	5.1	5.6	4.8
1982	5.6	4.7	7.2	7.8	5.2	5.5	4.9
1983	5.7	4.8	7.0	7.4	5.3	5.2	4.8
1984	5.7	4.6	6.6	7.2	5.2	5.2	4.6
1985	5.7	4.6	6.6	7.0	5.1	4.9	4.6
1986	5.7	4.5	6.7	7.0	5.2	4.9	4.8
1987	5.6	4.4	6.9	6.9	5.2	4.8	4.8
1988	5.5	4.3	6.1	6.5	5.0	4.8	4.9
1989	5.1	4.2	5.7	5.4	n/a	4.8	5.0
1990	5.1	4.1	5.7	5.6	5.2	4.9	5.2
1991	5.4	4.1	5.6	6.5	5.4	5.3	5.5
1992	5.5	4.1	5.6	7.7	5.7	5.2	5.4
1993	5.7	4.8	5.4	7.7	5.8	5.1	5.2
1994	5.9	4.7	5.2	7.7	5.7	5.2	4.9
1995	6.0	4.8	5.2	7.7	5.6	5.2	5.0

Notes:

Horizontal lines indicate a break in the series

n/a--data not available

Source:

Data supplied to OECD by individual countries for the "Education at a Glance" series.

17 Dec 1998 : Column: 675

17 Dec 1998 : Column: 675

Numeracy Hour

Mr. Sawford: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when he expects the numeracy hour to be introduced in schools; and if he will ensure that teaching materials arrive in sufficient time for staff to be trained and organise resources. [62348]

Ms Estelle Morris: Dedicated daily mathematics lessons of up to an hour are expected to be introduced in primary schools from September 1999. Suitable materials will be provided in the early part of next year.

Key Stage 2 National Curriculum Tests

Mr. Don Foster: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment (1) what percentage of schools have had an above average percentage of pupils scoring

17 Dec 1998 : Column: 676

below the national average at Key Stage 2, level 4 in (a) reading, (b) writing and (c) numeracy; and how many of these schools are in education action zones; [63312]

(2) what percentage of schools had an above average percentage of pupils scoring below the national average at Key Stage 2, level 4 in (a) reading, (b) writing and (c) numeracy; and how many of these schools are in education action zones. [63980]

Ms Estelle Morris: The table shows the number and percentage of maintained mainstream schools where the proportion of pupils achieving level 4 in the Key Stage 2 National Curriculum tests is below the overall national proportion reaching that level. Data are shown for the English and mathematics tests, together with the reading and writing components of the English test. The proportion of these schools in the first tranche of education action zones is also shown.

The National Curriculum standards have been designed so that most pupils will move up one level every two years. Level 4 is the level expected for most 11 year olds.

17 Dec 1998 : Column: 675

	Percentage of pupils achieving level 4 or	Schools whose performance is below the national result		Schools with performance below national result in education action zones
	above in England	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage (9)
English	65	6,520	44	230	4
Reading	71	6,150	42	220	4
Writing	53	7,180	49	230	3
Mathematics	59	6,770	46	230	3

(9) As a percentage of the number of schools below the national result

17 Dec 1998 : Column: 677

Competitive Bidding

Mr. Don Foster: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many bids were (a) received and (b) successful in each local education authority area for each competitive bidding process launched by his Department since May 1997. [63979]

Ms Estelle Morris: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 18 November 1998, Official Report, columns 644-45.

Mr. Don Foster: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list the total value in each local education authority of the bids which were (a) received and (b) successful for each competitive bidding process launched by his Department since May 1997. [64184]

Ms Estelle Morris: This question could only be answered at disproportionate cost.

GCSEs

Mr. Don Foster: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what percentage of schools had a smaller percentage of pupils gaining (a) five GCSEs at grades A* to C and (b) five GCSEs at grades A to G, in 1998 than in 1994; and how many of those schools are in education action zones. [63982]

Ms Estelle Morris: The GCSE information requested is shown in the table:

GCSE information
Total Schools	3,840
Number of schools with a smaller percentage of pupils achieving 5+A*-C GCSE grades in 1998 than in 1994	976
Percentage	25.4
Number of those schools in Education Action Zones	16
Total Schools	3,840
Number of schools with a smaller percentage of pupils achieving 5+A*-G GCSE grades in 1998 than in 1994	946
Percentage	24.6
Number of those schools in Education Action Zones	9

Free Milk

Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if the Government will re-introduce free milk at school for children in deprived communities. [64430]

Mr. Charles Clarke: The law requires those Local Education Authorities and grant-maintained schools that provide milk to make this available, without charge, to pupils whose parents receive income support or income based job-seekers allowance. The Government have no plans to extend this eligibility or to make the serving of free milk compulsory.

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