Examination of Witness (Questions 140-159)
WEDNESDAY 18 DECEMBER 2002
MR DAVID
MILIBAND MP
140. All the better. That is what we like with
ministers.
(Mr Miliband) I was busy cramming for my interrogation.
141. Clearly you think that selection for music
of a limited number of pupils is okay and you would extend that
to the other specialisms without exception for which specialist
schools can be set up?
(Mr Miliband) Yes, although not science, I think I
am right in saying.
142. Why not science?
(Mr Miliband) Because the evidence that we have been
presented with and certainly my view is that the difference between
selection by aptitude and selection by ability is that aptitude
is in a particular area of the curriculum and selection by ability
is a general intelligence test which I think is not a good basis
on which to sort out children at age 11.
143. I do not see why it should be science bad,
language good, for selection.
(Mr Miliband) Science is a very broad designation.
We know that within science there is a whole range of subjects.
I think that is different from music.
144. Or languages?
(Mr Miliband) Or languages, yes.
Valerie Davey
145. Can we establish then which of the specialist
schools you would allow the 10%?
(Mr Miliband) I think I am right in saying it is in
all the colleges apart from the science colleges.
146. Is this in enterprise? You could have an
aptitude for business and enterprise or an aptitude for engineering.
(Mr Miliband) I think an aptitude for engineering
is perfectly—
147. I think personally the distinction is very
difficult to make. I think parents must find it fairly bewildering.
Do we offer them any support in making this decision as to whether
their child has an aptitude rather than an ability?
(Mr Miliband) I think there is a distinction between
aptitude and ability. It is more for individual schools if they
choose that they want to use the power to select up to 10% to
then make clear what they mean by that in an open and objective
way. I think that is the best way in which it could be developed.
148. The majority of course have not used it,
perhaps understandably.
(Mr Miliband) Not just the majority. The vast majority.
I think it is right that 94% of specialist schools do not use
this power. That includes all of those that were created before
1997 which had greater powers in this area. I think post-1997
it is a very small number of schools that have used this power.
Mr Chaytor
149. Just pursuing the distinction between aptitude
and ability, you are saying that you cannot test for aptitude
in science because it is indistinguishable from ability. What
does that say about the status of the science specialist schools
compared to the rest?
(Mr Miliband) I do not think I said it was indistinguishable
from ability. I said that I thought it veered into a general ability
test.[5]
What do you mean, what does it say about the science colleges?
150. Does it not say that higher ability children
are likely to go to science schools?
(Mr Miliband) Not if they are not using an aptitude
test for the 10% of places that might be reserved.
151. But do you not think there is a hierarchy
within the designated specialisms?
(Mr Miliband) You asked me that before, David, and
I do not actually. I was at a meeting on Monday with a group of
heads, some representing sports colleges, others science colleges.
Each was fiercely proud of their own specialism, determined that
it made a particular contribution in their own area. I think it
is only a peculiarly English problem if one insists that a technology
college is somehow lower grade than a science college, etc.
152. How many years before the first Cabinet
Minister sends their child to a sports college?
(Mr Miliband) I have no idea if any Cabinet Minister
currently sends their child to a sport college. I think quite
a lot of Cabinet Ministers would quite like their sons or daughters
to become leading sports people who can keep them in their old
age in the style to which they have become accustomed.
153. Just shifting to a different aspect of
admissions, last week the Secretary of State said, and I am quoting
from the transcript, "At the end of the day the bottom line
is that selection regimes produce a system that inhibits educational
opportunities for significant numbers of people." At that
point we were talking about ability, not aptitude. He then said,
"There are major questions about how we deal with that".
What do you think the major questions are about selection by ability?
(Mr Miliband) There is one major question which is
whether or not it is good for the kids.
154. What do you propose the Government should
be doing about that?
(Mr Miliband) Our view is that the Government has
to strike an important balance between setting a framework for
admissions at the centre and respecting local parental wishes
and local consensus. We have struck that balance through the 1997-98
legislation. We think that that balance is one that places considerable
responsibilities at local level and I think the Secretary of State
said that he thought that it was incumbent on all 150 LEAs to
interrogate their own systems for school improvement against the
single criterion, the extent to which they help raise standards,
and that that responsibility applied to all LEAs without exception.
155. In terms of the evidence base about selective
admission systems as against non-selective admission systems,
what does the Department's evidence suggest?
(Mr Miliband) What I know is that in the 30 years
since the introduction of widespread comprehensive all-ability
admissions there have been very significant improvements in school
achievement by young people. I do not think one should have a
mono-causal view of the link but notably for girls there have
been significant improvements. I think that significant educational
research would suggest that there has been a positive contribution
from comprehensivisation, if I can use that word, the end of the
11-plus, and certainly I think that was beneficial for the country,
to get rid of the 11-plus, and the preponderance of LEAs chose
to follow the circular that requested them to look at this. Having
said that, I am sure Mr Turner will jump in if I do not say that
his view is that the Northern Ireland system, where they have
kept the 11-plus, suggests other factors at work. I think the
Northern Ireland situation is exceptional for other reasons but
none the less this is an area that academics fight over. Our own
view is that overall the end of the 11-plus has been beneficial.
In the areas where the local authorities have chosen to end the
11-plus it has been beneficial for educational opportunity.
156. But Professor Jesson, whose research the
Department has depended on heavily in terms of the specialist
schools policy, has also done research in terms of the comparative
performance of different admission systems and his conclusion
is that areas with selective admissions policies perform overall
less well than areas with comprehensive admissions policies. The
Department has not chosen to give a high profile to those conclusions.
(Mr Miliband) That is your assertion. I do not know
if that is true.
157. It did not appear in the White Paper. His
research on selective admissions systems was not quoted in the
Schools White Paper but his research on specialist schools performance
was.
(Mr Miliband) Maybe that is because the Schools White
Paper did not go into questions of admission in the way that it
did into the questions of specialism. I have read Professor Jesson's
report on Kent but not the broader piece that you are referring
to. I think he would say himself that that research has some relatively
crude categories that it is working to, partly because he had
difficulty getting hold of some data. What the Secretary of State
said was that it is important for every LEA to look hard at any
data that relates to its schools' performance and the Jesson data
has as much status as any other.
158. But if the LEA looks hard, the LEA has
no power to change the admissions system because this is now determined
nationally and we have just published a new code of practice.
(Mr Miliband) With respect, it is not determined nationally.
There is an important principle of local consent that we have
tried to insert into the legislative arrangements. That means
parental consent, so an LEA cannot decide on its own to change
its school organisation. It needs parental consent and that is
an important principle of the system. We are often accused of
having too centralised a system of education in this country.
This is one area where we have tried to strike a balance between
central prescription and local responsibility.
Valerie Davey: I think we have come back
full circle on this because this is the last element of our report.
Paul Holmes
159. Continuing on this theme of admissions
and government attitudes and conflict of evidence, you said that
in general you think that the end of the 11-plus was a good thing,
that the Government are not saying categorically that therefore
they would want to end it in areas like Kent or Lincolnshire,
for example, which still retain the 11-plus. Why not? You say
you are in favour of an evidence-based approach. If the evidence
is, and the Government thinks that the evidence is, that ending
selection at 11 through the 11-plus is a good thing, why not end
it everywhere?
(Mr Miliband) Because we have since 1944 had a system
of education in this country that balances local and national
power and we think that it is incumbent on us to be respectful
of the boundaries for national power in this area. The original
circulars that brought in comprehensive schooling requested local
authorities to make proposals for school reorganisation and it
would be a very big step for central government and for me or
the Secretary of State to decide that we knew better than parents
how to organise schooling in different areas.
5 See Appendix p 39. Back
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