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9 Dec 2002 : Column 96W—continued
Craft Subjects
Tony Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans there are to recruit more lecturers to further education colleges in craft subjects. [85462]
Margaret Hodge: As independent organisations it is for individual colleges to recruit their own staff within the context of the overall resources available to them.
We are making a #1.2 billion investment to increase expenditure in FE over the next three years. That is equivalent to a 19 per cent. real terms increase. Colleges will use this investment to increase participation in learning and to improve student outcomes. They will be able to raise standards of teaching and learning, improve the capability of the workforce and become more responsive to the demands of both employers and students. Importantly, they will also have the flexibility to use the resource to meet specific local or subject recruitment needs.
We will continue to fund a range of recruitment and retention initiatives to attract new FE teachers into the profession. These include teaching bursaries for people undertaking post graduate certificates of education and certificates of education to enter FE and golden hellos and the repayment of teacher loans for new teachers in identified shortage subject areas. Although Xcraft" subjects are not a priority for golden hellos or the repayment of teacher loans, we are keeping the list of shortage subjects under review.
Degrees
Mr. George Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what regulations prevent private institutions from awarding degrees; what (a) advice and (b) representations he has received on allowing private institutions to award degrees; and if he will place copies in the Library. [84141]
Margaret Hodge: The regulations that limit the awarding of UK degrees are contained within the Education Reform Act 1988, which stipulates that UK degrees can be awarded only by organisations with powers granted by Royal Charter or Act of Parliament. Section 76 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 allows the Privy Council to specify any institution
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offering higher education as competent to grant degrees. There is no legislation preventing private organisations from applying for degree awarding powers. I have received no representations about allowing private organisations to award degrees. However, the Privy Council has received two applications from private organisations for degree awarding powers. These are currently being considered by the Quality Assurance Agency through the normal process of scrutiny for such powers.
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Education Provision (Buckinghamshire)
Mrs. Gillan: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many pupils have been excluded from schools in (a) Chesham and Amersham and (b) Buckinghamshire in each year since 1 January 1996. [85128]
Mr. Stephen Twigg [holding answer 3 December 2002]: The information on permanent exclusions is shown in the table. Information on fixed term exclusions is not held centrally.
| Primary(17) | Secondary(17) | Special(18) | Total | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of exclusions | Percentage of the school population(19) | Number of exclusions | Percentage of the school population(19) | Number of exclusions | Percentage of the school population(19) | Number of exclusions | Percentage of the school population(19) | |
| 1996–97 | 0 | 0.00 | 14 | 0.18 | 2 | 0.66 | 16 | 0.10 |
| 1997–98 | 1 | 0.01 | 12 | 0.15 | 0 | 0.00 | 13 | 0.08 |
| 1998–99 | 0 | 0.00 | 16 | 0.18 | 0 | 0.00 | 16 | 0.09 |
| 1999–2000 | 0 | 0.00 | 15 | 0.17 | 1 | 0.30 | 16 | 0.09 |
| 2000–01 | 1 | 0.01 | 13 | 0.14 | 0 | 0.00 | 14 | 0.08 |
| Primary(17) | Secondary(17) | Special(18) | Total | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of exclusions | Percentage of the school population(19) | Number of exclusions | Percentage of the school population(19) | Number of exclusions | Percentage of the school population(19) | Number of exclusions | Percentage of the school population(19) | |
| 1996–97(20) | 5 | 0.01 | 42 | 0.16 | 2 | 0.17 | 49 | 0.07 |
| 1997–98 | 13 | 0.03 | 54 | 0.20 | 10 | 0.85 | 77 | 0.10 |
| 1998–99 | 8 | 0.02 | 52 | 0.17 | 5 | 0.43 | 65 | 0.09 |
| 1999–2000 | 5 | 0.01 | 51 | 0.16 | 7 | 0.60 | 63 | 0.08 |
| 2000–01 | 11 | 0.03 | 55 | 0.17 | 6 | 0.53 | 72 | 0.10 |
(17) Includes middle schools as deemed.
(18) Includes maintained and non-maintained special schools.
(19) The number of permanent exclusions expressed as a percentage of the number (headcount) of pupils in Primary, Secondary and Special schools.
(20) Before local government reorganisation.
Source:
Annual Schools Census
Further Education Lecturers
Jeremy Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many further education lecturers were employed at colleges in England in each of the last five years, broken down by those on (a) permanent and (b) part-time contracts; and what average hours were worked by each group. [84122]
Margaret Hodge [holding answer 2 December 2002]: Information on the number of FE lecturers with permanent and part-time contracts is published in 'Staff Statistics', which is available in the Library of the House.
| 1996–97 | 1997–98 | 1998–99 | 1999–2000 | 2000–01 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All lecturers | 130,858 | 139,693 | 141,755 | 136,730 | 134,316 |
| Part-time lecturers | 82,100 | 92,681 | 95,662 | 91,108 | 87,547 |
| Permanent lecturers | 59,700 | 56,600 | 60,421 | 60,656 | 61,779 |
Note:
Information on the average hours worked by permanent and part-time lecturers is not available.
Source
Staff statistics, summary table and table 4
Graduate Incomes
Mr. Rendel: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to his answer of 2 December 2002, Official Report, column 556W, on graduate incomes, if he will place a copy of the working paper, in which the figures of #1,075,000 and #675,000 are calculated, in the Library. [85550]
Margaret Hodge [holding answer 5 December 2002]: The information requested has been placed in the library.
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Higher Education Students (Warrington)
Helen Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many students from Warrington entered higher education in the past five years, broken down by social class. [84231]
Margaret Hodge [holding answer 2 December 2002]: The latest available information, covering students who were accepted for entry to full-time and sandwich first degree courses via the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), is shown in the table. Comparable figures for 2002 will be available in January 2003.
The Government are committed to raising the participation of those from social classes which are currently under-represented in higher education, and has introduced Excellence Challenge, including the AimHigher campaign, which is targeted at raising attainment and aspirations among young people who traditionally would not consider going to university.
| Year of entry | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Social class: | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 |
| Professional | 116 | 122 | 116 | 141 |
| Intermediate | 340 | 370 | 351 | 350 |
| Skilled non manual | 79 | 78 | 94 | 93 |
| Skilled manual | 133 | 116 | 126 | 128 |
| Partly skilled | 75 | 74 | 67 | 61 |
| Unskilled | 10 | 8 | 6 | 5 |
| Unknown | 80 | 77 | 93 | 109 |
| Total | 833 | 845 | 853 | 887 |
Inspection
Tony Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans he has to establish a standard framework for inspection bodies in the further education sector. [85461]
Margaret Hodge: The common inspection framework was introduced by the Office for Standards in Education and the Adult Learning Inspectorate on 1 April 2001, as required by the Learning and Skills Act 2000. It sets out the principles applicable to the inspections of all Government funded post-16 non-higher education and training, (except school sixth forms), including the further education sector.
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