Examination of Witnesses (Questions 520
- 539)
WEDNESDAY 9 JULY 2003
MR DAVID
MILIBAND MP
Q520 Chairman: Do they teach rhetoric
at the National College of School Leadership?
Mr Miliband: They certainly do
not teach that.
Q521 Chairman: I am talking about
leadership. We have said very plainly to you, Minister, that on
the one hand we are having evidence that shows there is a changing
world out there and we are not as a nation tapping the real potential
that is out there of teachers who could and should be teaching.
On the other hand, we are getting a rather defensive attitude
from the Minister in charge of these saying, "Well, you know
. . ."
Mr Miliband: I do not feel the
least bit defensive. I am saying to you that we are pursuing a
policy to promote innovation which is different from an easy one
that fobs you off by saying, "I have a £25 million programme,
so do not worry about it." I am saying we are trying to do
something different, which is to build a different culture of
managing people and different structures for managing people in
the system. I think that is a better way of doing it but it does
not say, "Look how good we are, here is a £25 million
programme."
Q522 Chairman: And that is not what
we want you to do.
Mr Miliband: Then you would not
think I am being defensive.
Chairman: It sounded a bit defensive.
That is up to other people to decide. I want to go on to a number
of other issues.
Q523 Mr Pollard: Doug McAvoy told
us a day or two ago, where schools are failing and are challenging
schools, that rather than giving allowances for that we should
put extra teachers in. Do you share the same view?
Mr Miliband: I am sorry, what
do you mean, giving allowances? Giving them more money allows
them to have more teachers.
Q524 Mr Pollard: No, no, to pay a
teacher more for teaching in that particular school.
Mr Miliband: We give recruitment
and retention allowances into the system. Only 3% of schools use
those retention allowances, so I do not understand what you are
saying. There is scope for schools, whether they are in challenging
circumstances or not—but the schools in challenging circumstances
have more money generally, money allocated by us—to use
that money to—
Q525 Mr Pollard: How they wish?
Mr Miliband: How they wish. Exactly.
Q526 Mr Pollard: How could measures
to improve retention in challenging schools be targeted more effectively?
Mr Miliband: It is a big ask to
say, "Come and be part of a school turnaround," but
it is also a fantastic thing to be a part of. The trick of making
it an attractive offer is to say that you are going to get real
support in it. Maybe it is especially true for women teachers
in secondary education. To say, "You are going to have people
in the classroom supporting you. You are not just going to be
a victim of yobbish behaviour, you are going to have real support
there," if we can deliver on that, that it is a big thing.
That is what I mean by support. That is a big thing for recruitment,
a big thing for retention. I mentioned "Teach First",
there you are getting some of the top graduates in the country
wanting to be a part of it, and through a mixture of perspiration
and inspiration they are being given the chance to do so.
Q527 Chairman: What sort of schools
are they teaching in? Primary, secondary? They are all secondary,
are they?
Mr Miliband: They are in the toughest
secondary schools in London.
Q528 Chairman: I was asking are they
all in secondary schools or are they across the piece?
Mr Miliband: No, secondary.
Q529 Chairman: All in secondary.
Mr Miliband: Yes.
Q530 Mr Pollard: You mentioned earlier
on, Minister, 50,000 less pupils in the system in due course.
Certainly, in my constituency, as far as we can project into the
future, school rolls will be rising. That is because it is a high
employment area, with access to London, excellent schools, a cracking
MP! All those sorts of things mean that people want to come and
live there.
Mr Miliband: A new retention and
recruitment policy is to use the inspiration of the MP. I shall
send a press release to the St Albans Advertiser to tell
them that the MP is—
Chairman: You are also partly responsible
for the birthrate, are you not?
Mr Pollard: Not entirely, just seven,
Chairman. I was the best customer.
Jonathan Shaw: He has a federation, not
a family!
Q531 Mr Pollard: You suggested that
falling roles would mean that perhaps we would require less teachers.
That was the implication. I am saying to you that this might not
be entirely true. It might be true in St Helens but not in St
Albans.
Mr Miliband: That is one reason
to look carefully at the statistics that are trotted out to prove
there is a crisis. In a significant part of the system there are
changing student profiles and profiles of student numbers. There
are problems of growth as well as decline.
Q532 Mr Pollard: May I move on quickly
to ethnic minorities. You will know as well as I do that many
ethnic minority pupils are not achieving as well as they might.
Pupil behaviour suffers as a consequence. It seems to me that
we need role models, particularly for ethnic minority pupils,
and role models might be ethnic minority teachers. What efforts
are being made to recruit more teachers? Do you agree that it
is a vital ingredient in improving pupil behaviour?
Mr Miliband: This was raised at
the previous session, Chairman, I think by Mr Pollard.
Q533 Chairman: It was.
Mr Miliband: I asked for some
data on this. Someone gave me some stuff before I came in.
Q534 Mr Pollard: Consistency there
then, Minister.
Mr Miliband: Indeed. But no initiatives.
The TTA are working on this. The proportion of recruits from ethnic
minorities: 1999-2000, 6%. 2000-01, 6.8%. 2001-02, 7%. 2002-03,
7.8%. I had not seen those figures before today.
Q535 Chairman: These are new recruits.
Mr Miliband: Yes, the percentage
of new recruits, and at a time when the number of recruits has
been rising as well so it is not just a rising percentage of a
declining number. I take some encouragement from that. I think
that has been about the direction of their PR rather than financial
inducement. And, yes, that does make a big difference, the role
model issue must be right. I think the TTA are aiming for 9%—that
is their target—so they are obviously doing something right.
Q536 Mr Turner: Is it your policy
to match or broadly match the proportion of ethnic minority pupils
with a similar proportion of ethnic minority teachers, or is that
just something that—
Mr Miliband: That is not a policy,
that is an aspiration.
Q537 Mr Turner: It is your aspiration.
Mr Miliband: Are you asking is
it my aspiration?
Q538 Mr Turner: Yes.
Mr Miliband: I think it is healthy
for ethnic minority students to see role models in the teaching
force as well as in other aspects of public life. We have not
set a target to match percentages. Of course the national figure
in a way is less helpful because of the variation of distribution
of ethnic minority pupils around the country. If it is correct
that in Leicester more than half the population is going to be
from an ethnic minority in 15 years time, there is obviously a
bigger need there than in other parts of the country. I would
say that it is healthy, whether in teaching or anywhere else,
to see ethnic minority adults getting positions of recognition
on the basis of merit and desert and that has a positive impact
on kids' attainment. That is why it was worrying to see the very
low percentage of recruitment from ethnic minorities. It is encouraging
to see it go up.
Q539 Mr Turner: But it is not an
aspiration.
Mr Miliband: It is an aspiration
to see that we have healthy recruitment from ethnic minority communities
that is reflective of the importance and significance of the minority
children in our education system.
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