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New Deal
Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list the amount spent per head of the population in Lancashire on the New Deal since its introduction. [94188]
Ms Jowell [holding answer 19 October 1999]: Almost £6.75 million has been spent in the county of Lancashire, for the New Deal for Young People, aged 18-24, and the New Deal for those aged 25 plus, between April 1998 and 31 August 1999.
A total of 6,896 people entered into the New Deal for Young People and 2,232 people entered into the New Deal for those aged 25 plus to the end of July 1999 and on 31 July 1999.
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Mr. Evans:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if people who leave the New Deal without a job are listed as long-term unemployed if they were listed as long-term unemployed before they entered the New Deal. [94189]
Ms Jowell
[holding answer 19 October 1999]: New Deal exists to get long-term unemployed people off benefit and into work. New Deal for Young People has been successful in doing this for 135,000 young people. In those cases where a young person reaches the end of their New Deal option and has still not obtained a job, they will enter a follow-through period and start a new claim to Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) whilst engaging in intensive job search activity with the assistance of their personal adviser. In these specific cases, unemployment duration is calculated from the date they returned to JSA.
Participants in the New Deal for Long-Term Unemployed People aged 25 plus who remain on JSA throughout will remain classed as long-term unemployed on leaving New Deal. If a jobseeker has an interruption to their claim, such as a period in subsidised employment or on Work-Based Learning for Adults, then their unemployment duration is calculated from the date they returned to JSA.
Mr. Rowlands:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what estimate he has made of (a) the costs of setting up and (b) the annual running costs of the United Kingdom network of national training organisations; and what proportion of these costs will be carried within public funds. [94823]
Mr. Wicks:
Since 1997 the Department has spent £151,854 on the independent panel assessing bids from organisations seeking to become national training organisations (NTOs). The Department does not hold complete information on the running costs of NTOs, most of which are met by employers, and is therefore unable to calculate the proportion of these costs carried within public funds.
Mr. Clappison:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, pursuant to his reply of 27 July 1999, Official Report, column 180, on mathematics and science teachers, when he plans to write to the hon. Member for Hertsmere. [94918]
Ms Estelle Morris:
The package of measures announced in October 1998 will affect teachers in the year 1999-2000. Information relating to returning teachers in 1999-2000 will not be published until the latter part of 2001. Copies of the relevant publications will be laid in the House of Commons Library.
Mr. Clappison:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what assessment he has made of the educational impact of class sizes of 41 or more. [94924]
Ms Estelle Morris:
Evidence from Ofsted and others has shown that it is at Key Stage 1 that class size is most important, and that is why we have pledged to
25 Oct 1999 : Column: 744
reduce the size of infant classes. Limiting the size of classes to 40 would have very little impact, whereas our pledge will ensure that all children benefit from infant classes of 30 or below. We are well on course to meet our pledge by September 2001 at the latest. More generally, the average size of classes taught by one teacher in all schools in England went down between January 1998 and January 1999, from 24.9 to 24.8.
Dr. Lynne Jones:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when he expects to publish a Green Paper on the Youth Service. [95077]
Mr. Wicks:
We have recently carried out a broad consultation exercise, announced in the Social Exclusion Unit's report "Bridging the Gap", about the establishment of a new service to provide support to young people. The key aim of this service will be to create a comprehensive support structure for all young people in the 13-19 age group. It will build mainly on what is currently undertaken by the Careers Service, parts of the Youth Service and a range of other specialist agencies. We will consider the role the Youth Service will play within the new structure in the light of the consultation responses.
Mrs. May:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what were the qualifying marks for Level 4 of the Key Stage 2 English SATs in the last three years. [95101]
Jacqui Smith:
The qualifying marks for Level 4 of the Key Stage 2 English SATs in the last three years were 1999--48 marks, 1998--51 marks and 1997--52 marks.
The level thresholds are the number of marks needed to achieve a specific level in the National Curriculum tests at Key Stages 2 and 3. The level setting procedures are the final stage of the test development process. The level-setting exercise is in two stages and draws on statistical data, from pre-testing and from a sample of live tests, and expert judgments made by test developers, teachers and markers concerning the difficulty of the test and the quality of pupils answers.
The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) is responsible for setting and maintaining the standards in the tests, and the level thresholds are designed to ensure that standards remain constant from year to year. For this reason the thresholds do not normally remain the same each year but change in response to the relative difficulty of the tests. They have changed in every year since the tests started in 1995.
In view of debate over the level thresholds this year, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment established an independent panel, with cross-party representation nominated by the shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment and the Liberal Democrats' education spokesman.
The independent panel reported their findings in July. The panel was convinced that the concerns about the arrangements for setting, and maintaining the standards of the tests were without foundation. It was their view that the current method of setting standards for the National
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Curriculum tests appears to be the most rigorous standard-setting procedure in use in any educational tests anywhere in the country and that our system of national tests is well in advance of many, if not all, of our international counterparts.
Mr. Boswell:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many students dropped out of their courses of higher education in each of the past five years; what proportion this represents of the student population; and what is the variation in the drop-out rate between institutions. [94946]
Mr. Wicks:
The available information is full-time and sandwich first degree non-completion rates for the UK, and is published in the Departmental Annual Report. It is as follows:
| Percentage | |
|---|---|
| Non-completion(14) | |
| 1993-94 | 17-18 |
| 1994-95 | 17-18 |
| 1995-96 | 18-19 |
(13) The institutional coverage of the non-completion rates is restricted to the former UFC-funded universities in the UK and former polytechnics in England.
(14) "Non-completion" covers all those leaving degree courses because of exam failure, ill health, personal and other reasons. It includes those switching to a lower level course but it excludes students transferring between degree courses or subjects.
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