| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
School Selection
8. Mr. Stephen O'Brien (Eddisbury): If he will make a statement on selection in schools. [109137]
The Minister for School Standards (Ms Estelle Morris): The Government set out their approach to selection in schools in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. We want an education system that benefits the many, not the few, and we want all children in all schools to receive good-quality education.
Mr. O'Brien: Selection also relates, by definition, to special needs, and the Prime Minister said, during the 1997 election campaign:
- "We will not close good schools just on financial grounds."
In relation to selection generally, on what basis did the Government decide that a mere 10 parents are sufficient to appeal to the schools adjudicator to rule against the admission policies and arrangements of a local education authority?
Ms Morris: On the first of those two supplementary questions, I was fortunate enough to meet some of the
representatives from the school to which the hon. Gentleman referred, who put forward a powerful case, and I understood the strength of their feelings. Decisions about the planning of special needs places are never easy and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State considered all the evidence that he had before him. There is bound to be a need to look at the provision of special needs places at certain times and, given the local authority reorganisation that has taken place in the hon. Gentleman's area, it was appropriate to make the difficult decisions that have to be made. My right hon. Friend is confident that the children will continue to receive good-quality education, and that must always be what guides us.In answer to the hon. Gentleman's second supplementary question, I cannot see why he would argue against giving parents the right to have their concerns considered by a third party.
Mr. Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale, East): What conclusions does my right hon. Friend draw from the fact that in Trafford, where we have a wholly selective education system, one in three secondary-age pupils goes to a grammar school, whereas only one in 10 of those on free school meals does so and only one in 20 of those with special educational needs does so?
Ms Morris: I conclude that more children who receive free school meals do not go to grammar schools. The point that my hon. Friend makes is interesting, but--although the statistics are right--we need to keep focused on the real challenge, which is to have high expectations of every child and to have a school system that values them. To give children on free school meals, and all the others, the best possible start in life, we must ensure there are good-quality teachers in well-equipped classrooms in schools that are ready to face the new century. With respect, the issue is not the structure but what is happening in the classroom.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): The Minister's reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) was grossly unsatisfactory. Why should unelected schools adjudicators, such as the Secretary of State's Sheffield socialist chum, the Rev. Dr. Alan Billings, be able to ride roughshod over the wishes of individual schools and elected education authorities simply because 10 local malcontents demand it? Given that a string of Labour Members of Parliament send their children to grammar schools but deny that other parents have the right to do the same, is it not now abundantly clear that Labour's message today is what it has always been--do as we say, not as we do?
Ms Morris: That was one of the most interesting policy announcements made this Question Time--that the new Tory word for parents is "malcontents". I think that those "malcontents" are some of the most important people in the education service. It is crucial that we seek every opportunity to give parents a role in expressing a view about their children's education. It is clear from the hon. Gentleman's question that, were he ever to come to government, he would act to remove that power from parents. This Government want to empower parents, in this and other matters.
Labour Market Access
10. Mr. Ernie Ross (Dundee, West): What role he plans for intermediary organisations in widening access to the labour market. [109140]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Ms Margaret Hodge): The Employment Service works with a wide range of organisations to help unemployed people find jobs. Intermediary organisations can offer valuable opportunities to unemployed people through work experience and by matching the skills that people have to offer with those needed by employers.
Mr. Ross: Does my hon. Friend agree that intermediary organisations have a significant role to play, and that their detailed knowledge will help communities and employers to match people with jobs? Is not that help vital in assisting people to find work?
Ms Hodge: Intermediary organisations have a powerful role to play in matching job opportunities with the skills of individuals. The support for such organisations is evident in the work of the policy action team on jobs and of the new deal taskforce. The Tayside scheme which operates in my hon. Friend's constituency of Dundee, West is already successfully matching young jobseekers to job opportunities. Of the 28 people who started that scheme, 16 have found jobs.
Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset): Has the Minister had the chance to review the Government's three years' experience of running the new deal, under which new deal officials are the intermediaries who help people into work? The statistics show that, in the year before the new deal began, the Government were spectacularly successful in getting people back to work. However, since the new deal was introduced, the same success has not been achieved. Is it not the case that people find jobs more readily for themselves than they do through the new deal? Will the Minister take that into account, in order to save taxpayers' money and get more people back to work?
Ms Hodge: I disagree completely with the hon. Gentleman's contention. The new deal exists to support people who have been unemployed for six months and who therefore require help to get back to work. Our data so far show that, in areas where the new deal operates, we have achieved a return-to-work rate that is 18 per cent. higher than in the rest of the country, and that 6 per cent. more people are finding work. The new deal employment advisers are doing a spectacularly good job in improving peoples' employability. In addition, with the help of the intermediary organisations, we are finding new ways to match people with the growing job opportunities in the labour market.
Mr. Derek Foster (Bishop Auckland): Is my hon. Friend aware that the Government's supply-side measures on employment, which include the new deal and intermediary agencies, are probably among the best that I have witnessed in 30 years in politics? They are also producing the highest employment rates that we have had for 30 years. However, is my hon. Friend also aware that the employment rate in the south-east is 79 per cent.,
compared with only 67 per cent. in the north-east? If we are to achieve the one nation that the Government want--I share their ambition in that respect--do we not need a more even spread of prosperity?
Ms Hodge: I very much welcome my right hon. Friend's comments, especially about the interventions in the labour market that have resulted from the new deal. I accept that work remains to be done, especially in the north-east, to ensure that people have more job opportunities. However, may I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the fact that, according to the statistics announced by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Employment, Welfare to Work and Equal Opportunities earlier this week, the north-east is one of the fastest-growing labour markets in the country,
Specialist Schools
12. Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle): What proportion of secondary schools he expects to have specialist school status by May 2002. [109142]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Jacqui Smith): Plans provide for more than 600 specialist schools to be operational by May 2002. That figure represents 19 per cent. of all maintained secondary schools.
Mr. Prentice: I congratulate the Government on their decision to award technology college status to West Craven high school in Barnoldswick, in my constituency. When that decision was made, I reflected on the schools which have applied for that status and have been turned down, or which will be turned down in future. Once we have set up the complex matrix of art, technology, language and sport colleges, how will the 80 per cent. of schools that do not fall into any of those categories feel? Is there not a danger that they will feel isolated, and that they are failures?
Jacqui Smith: I join my hon. Friend in congratulating West Craven high school, which set targets to raise standards in design and technology, science, mathematics and information communication technology. I share his concern that the good work of developing specialist schools should benefit other schools in the system. The Government have ensured that there is a link between the funding provided for the specialist facilities in the school and the support provided to neighbouring schools, as a fundamental part both of the process of planning to become a specialist school and of the evaluation of an establishment's progress once it is in the scheme.
Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam): Does the Minister accept that, if schools are to enhance educational opportunity, parents must feel comfortable about choosing between different specialist schools, according to the aptitudes and needs of their children? Does she share my concern that, in areas such as Sheffield, parents are
reluctant to exercise parental preference because schools are so full that parents are being offered their second or third choice rather than being able to fall back on catchment schools? Can the hon. Lady offer such parents any prospect of being able safely to express a preference between specialist and other schools, so that they can take advantage of the initiative?
Jacqui Smith: Although I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern about parents being able to express a preference and have it recognised, that is not a function of the specialist school programme. What is important is the fact that the Government have enabled parents to obtain clearer information about admission arrangements--which is what parents expect and what we have delivered.
Mr. Ian Pearson (Dudley, South): Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a world of difference between teaching in a secondary school in a comfortable suburb, with well-behaved middle-class kids, and teaching in an area where there is massive deprivation and frequently challenging classroom behaviour? I know that teachers are motivated by more than money, but should the Government not consider providing financial incentives to encourage more of our best teachers to work in some of our worst schools?
Jacqui Smith: I agree with my hon. Friend's contention that many teachers fill a challenging role in some difficult schools--and I congratulate them. Our proposals in the forthcoming Green Paper on reform in the teaching profession will address the need to recruit teachers and to ensure that those working in challenging circumstances and making a difference to their pupils' progress--which is what they are in the profession to do--will receive the recognition they deserve. Enhancing the status of teaching will also improve professionalism and recruitment to precisely the sort of schools to which my hon. Friend referred.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |