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11 Nov 2004 : Column 927W—continued
Strategy 2010
Mr. Trimble:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what procedures are in place to assess the progress Strategy 2010 is making towards meeting
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its 10-year targets; what progress has been made since 1999; and if he will make a statement on the relationship between Strategy 2010 and the draft Economic Vision published in October. [196861]
Mr. Gardiner: The Economic Development Forum (EDF), chaired at ministerial level, was set up as one of the recommendations of Strategy 2010. Subsequently EDF used the information in Strategy 2010, including proposals on targets, in formulating its Medium Term Strategic Priorities (MTSPs) and associated targets for the Northern Ireland economy. EDF has given a commitment to monitor Northern Ireland's economic performance against targets on an annual basis. EDF's first statement on progress towards the MTSPs targets was published in January 2004.
The draft Economic Vision is a proposed corporate and cohesive view of the Northern Ireland economy going forward and overarches all other strategies.
Copies of the MTSPs and the draft Economic Vision referred to above have been placed in the House Library.
Student Suspensions
Mr. Beggs: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many students have been suspended from each of Northern Ireland's universities in each of the last five years; and how many have been suspended for anti-social behaviour that took place off-campus. [193668]
Mr. Gardiner: Universities are independent, autonomous institutions responsible for their own policies and practices in relation to student discipline, where appropriate. The Department for Employment and Learning does not maintain statistics pertaining to student discipline as this lies within the locus of the Universities. Queen's University and The University of Ulster have provided statistics on suspensions within their Institutions.
(36) As at 21 October 2004.
Terrorism Act
Mr. Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people have been arrested and charged under the Terrorism Act 2000 in Northern Ireland in each of the last three years. [196178]
Mr. Pearson:
The following table provides details of the number of persons arrested and charged under
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section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000 from 19 January 2001 (when the Act came into force) to 31 December 2003.
| Number of persons arrested | Number of persons charged | |
|---|---|---|
| 19 February–31 December 2001 | 179 | 50 |
| 2002 | 236 | 80 |
| 2003 | 359 | 121 |
Sources:
NIO Research and Statistical Bulletins 7/2002, 4/2003 and 3/2004—'Northern Ireland Statistics on the Operation of the Terrorism Act 2000: Annual Statistics 2001, 2002 and 2003'.
Water Charges
Mr. Beggs: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether charges for water applied through the regional rate will be removed when water meters are introduced. [193564]
Mr. Pearson: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave on 25 October 2004, Official Report, column 1073W.
EDUCATION AND SKILLS
Civil Servants
Mr. Jenkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the average length of continuous service for civil servants within the Department is. [194403]
Mr. Charles Clarke: I would refer my right hon. Friend to the reply given by the Minister for the Cabinet Office on 3 November 2004, Official Report, column 268W.
Departmental Offices
Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the cost of (a) decoration and (b) refurbishment of the London offices of the Department was in each of the last four years. [196147]
Mr. Stephen Twigg: The cost of decoration and refurbishment carried out in my London Headquarter Offices in each of the last four years is set out in the following table:
| £ | |
|---|---|
| 2000–01 | 774,744 |
| 2001–02 | 1,335,207 |
| 2002–03 | 1,154,363 |
| 2003–04 | 2,108,082 |
The way in which my Department holds the information means we are unable to break the figures down.
Foreign Language Teaching
Helen Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps he is taking to ensure that there are adequate numbers of teachers available to teach foreign languages in primary schools. [197640]
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Mr. Charles Clarke: There has been considerable progress on the development of language learning in primary schools, underpinned by the launch in December 2002 of the Government's National Languages Strategy for England. Implementation of the Strategy is being driven by Lid King, the National Director for Languages.
The Strategy recognises the importance of developing a workforce and resources to support successful implementation of primary language learning, and much of our work to date has focussed on these areas.
In developing a school workforce, we are building up a cadre of specialist teachers and non-teacher specialists to support primary language learning. 580 places have been allocated this year for Primary Initial Teacher Training with a specialism in French, German, Spanish or Italian, and we intend to expand this programme further next year. This means that over 1200 teacher trainees will have been trained by the end of this year. In addition we have allocated 50 primary MFL places a year to the Graduate Teacher Programme.
For existing teachers, we have funded primary MFL Advanced Skills Teacher posts and are working with the TTA to develop and pilot CPD courses for existing primary teachers to enhance language skills and MFL pedagogy.
For non-teacher specialists, we are working with the British council to extend the foreign language assistants programme into primary schools, and are developing training for teaching assistants to support primary language learning.
Information Technology (Schools)
Dan Norris: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what research has been commissioned to establish the proportion of (a) primary and (b) secondary teachers who were confident about using ICT in each year since 1997. [196762]
Mr. Charles Clarke: My Department has carried out an annual survey of ICT in schools since 1998 which includes a question about the confidence of teachers in using ICT in their job. The full survey data is in the House of Commons Library. It shows that the percentage of teaching staff who feel confident to use ICT in their subject teaching has risen as follows:
| Primary | Secondary | |
|---|---|---|
| 1998 | 65 | 61 |
| 1999 | 68 | 66 |
| 2000 | 67 | 65 |
| 2001 | 76 | 70 |
| 2002 | 81 | 75 |
| 2003 | 87 | 82 |
Although my Department has not commissioned any research studies specifically about teachers' confidence in using ICT, this topic has been covered in a number of other recent research and evaluation studies, such as the evaluations of Computers for Teachers, Laptops for Teachers and Curriculum Online.
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Becta (2001) Computers for Teachers: An evaluation of Phase 1: survey of recipients. NGfL Research and Evaluation Series No. 3. Becta/DfES.
Kington, A. et al (2003) Computers for Teachers: a qualitative evaluation of Phase 1. ICT in Schools Research and Evaluation Series No. 14. Becta/DfES.
Kitchen, S. et al (2003) Evaluation of Curriculum Online: Report of the baseline survey of schools. ICT in Schools Research and Evaluation Series No. 15. Becta/DfES.
Cunningham, M. et al (2004) Laptops for Teachers: An evaluation of the first year of the initiative. ICT in Schools Research and Evaluation Series No. 19. Becta/DfES.
Mr. Skinner: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many (a) primary and (b) secondary schools in the constituency of Bolsover were connected to the internet at the latest available date. [197096]
Mr. Miliband: The information is not available in the form requested.
It is estimated from a sample survey of schools that over 99 per cent. of both primary and secondary schools in England were connected to the internet at 31 March 2003.
The latest provisional data on ICT in schools was published in the Statistical First Release "Survey of Information and Communications Technology in Schools 2004", which is available on the Department's website www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/.
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