| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. St. Aubyn: I know that a former Education Minister could not even master the seven times table, but it is obvious that, if there is a limited number of teachers--we know that there is a problem of teacher supply about which the Government were warned at the outset of their term of office--there will be a problem. Those teachers have to come from somewhere. The strains in the system are showing by the fact that the number of classes with more than 40 pupils has doubled. That is the scandal of the Government's record in their first year in office.
King's Manor school in my constituency is the first school in the country to have been contracted out to the private sector. It was a great achievement for Conservative-run Surrey education authority. It has won the support of the Minister for School Standards and the chief inspector. Let me say why it is such a significant move.
Jacqui Smith (Redditch):
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate, although I am disappointed by the Tory motion, which displays a narrow, negative and carping approach to education policy. We heard no positive proposals for action on standards from the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts). The Conservatives are more interested in weighing pieces of paper than in making positive proposals for improving what happens in classrooms and creating opportunities for our children. We have heard no recognition of the fact that 18 years of Conservative Government left our education system underfunded, with teachers demoralised and children having been failed.
The Opposition still believe that the only way to improve standards is by imposing a crude, laissez-faire market model of competition on the education system, so ably described by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) as mad market chaos. In the Tory world, parents are consumers, schools are production units and children, presumably, are products. Have the Conservatives not yet learned that setting school against school does not raise standards?
We have also heard that the Conservatives did not even pursue the logic of that policy, as they distorted their view with the imposition of a dogmatic, overcrowded and inflexible national curriculum in 1988, despite the pleas of teachers and academics, whom they now claim to care so much about. The Conservative years were characterised by a combination of the irresponsible imposition of market forces on schools, and the centralising dogma of their national curriculum.
Miss Julie Kirkbride (Bromsgrove):
Could the hon. Lady be more interesting?
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. We cannot have an extraneous conversation between the Whip on Government Front Bench and an Opposition Back Bencher while an hon. Member has the Floor.
Jacqui Smith:
Where was the incentive in the Conservative years for schools to share best practice? Why should schools have worked together to promote higher standards in the culture that was promulgated by the Conservatives? We could hope that the Conservatives had learned the lesson of those years, but unfortunately they have not. We have the evidence of that. Our Whip was not handing round Labour party propaganda, but was giving us the benefit of the Conservative party brief on
Jacqui Smith:
Perhaps we shall hear some ideas.
Mr. Fraser:
Unlike Labour Members, we are free thinkers and we do not need aids to put our ideas together.
Jacqui Smith:
That brief is not an aid, it is the Conservative party position on education.
I am being unfair. Three more policies are outlined in the Conservative document: first, they do not like our class size policy; secondly, they do not like the literacy hour; and thirdly, they like grammar schools. That is hardly a comprehensive approach to raising standards and putting right the damage that their Government did.
As an ex-teacher and a current member of the National Union of Teachers, I am concerned about the bureaucratic burdens placed on teachers. I welcome the recent NUT survey on those bureaucratic burdens. If, however, the Conservatives wanted to enlist support for their case from the NUT, they would be disappointed because, unlike them, the NUT and teachers can see a clear distinction in the uses to which Government paperwork and activities are put.
The NUT press release says:
The one task on the list that I think should not be there--although I did not have any experience of it--is the auditing of standard fund spending. I have to disagree with my erstwhile colleagues in the NUT, because I wish that, in my 11 years of teaching under a Conservative Government, I had had the opportunity to audit extra spending, as opposed to spending my time wondering where money for improving standards was to come from.
I welcome the fact that the Government have addressed the real concerns through the bureaucracy working party, which issued guidance in May 1998 that was welcomed by teaching unions. As my hon. Friend the Minister said, the Government have followed the working party's advice and changed the way in which mailings are sent out. If teachers are still doing too many bureaucratic tasks, that is a matter of how schools are being managed and how resources are being used locally.
Mr. Fraser:
Does the hon. Lady agree that it is better to spend money closer to the pupil, taking away a lot of the bureaucracy in local education authorities? Does she agree that there should be choice and the opportunity for all parents to participate in how their children
Jacqui Smith:
There are several questions involved there, and I will certainly touch on those issues later on. Money is indeed important, which is why I condemned the underfunding under the previous Government, and why I think the present Government are right to have considered, in the fair funding proposals, how to get money down to schools and ensure that it is spent there.
One of the problems identified by the NUT was too many lunchtime meetings. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his team are powerful and important but they cannot be held responsible if school management results in too many lunchtime meetings. Perhaps that highlights the need for training for headship, to make heads better able to manage both staff and resources--we know that the Government are delivering that--and the importance of the Green Paper.
The Green Paper is not only about pay, although it is worth noting that it will give many teachers a larger pay rise than I ever had in my teaching career and offer them the potential to earn more and stay in the classroom, raising standards for children. Bearing in mind the criticisms offered by the Conservative opportunists--I meant Opposition, but perhaps I was right the first time--it is worth asking whether Conservative Front Benchers are opposed to increased pay for teachers and, if not, how they would institute such increases.
Mr. Paterson:
The hon. Lady has at last got round to discussing Government policy--the subject of the debate. Could she answer some questions that have been posed on the Green Paper by a senior head teacher in my constituency? He said that the amount of paperwork would be greatly increased if the proposed appraisal scheme went through. He asked who would do the appraisal, and how time would be spent by key managers in the school. He added that there was a huge assumption that that scheme would happen without the adequate provision of extra resources. Could she kindly answer those questions?
"Teachers draw a clear distinction between activities which promote high-quality teaching and learning and bureaucratic tasks which undermine it."
Teachers were asked to list the bureaucratic tasks that they felt were unhelpful. The list includes copying out lists, copy typing, collecting money, unnecessary preparation for Ofsted, bulk photocopying, analysing attendance registers and a variety of other tasks. Only one of the tasks listed did not develop under the previous Government. The bureaucratic burdens on teachers were imposed by the Conservative Government.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |