Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180
- 188)
WEDNESDAY 15 OCTOBER 2003
DR PHILIP
HUNTER
Q180 Chairman: Dr Hunter, that is
true, but it is a lottery, is it not? There is a body of evidence
which suggests that people who have the least chance are the people
with the least wherewithal, the lower incomes, the least education,
and the whole system really is predicated on an awful lot of people
who are less knowledgeable, do not exercise their options, in
the way perhaps a middle-class, professional parent would exercise
those options. For a lot of parents from the working-class communities
in many of our constituencies there is no choice, is not that
the case?
Dr Hunter: I think we are back
to the role of local authorities, and all the rest of it, because
the general system that we have got is predicated, I think correctly,
on the idea that you should be able to aspire to send your child
to the local school, and we have this system, and, I think correctly,
across the country, a feeling of community spirit. Where you have
got that, it is inevitable that you have high-performing, posh
schools in posh areas and schools that are finding it much more
difficult to deliver the same sorts of results in other areas,
and that is inevitable. Honestly, I do not see anything wrong
with that. If you have got a good community school in a difficult
estate which is doing good things for those children, adding value,
then that seems to me to be fine.
Q181 Chairman: What I am pressing
you on, Dr Hunter, is that if you have those two schools, those
two sorts of neighbourhoods, what I resent, on behalf of some
of my constituents, who are less articulate and less well-heeled,
is that presumably they should have the option to apply to go
to the high-achieving school, which is not the school on their
rather run-down estate. To what extent do you think the process
that we have now gives them that full opportunity to do so?
Dr Hunter: Clearly, it does not,
because the school up the hill is oversubscribed by children who
are more local to that school than the ones on the estate. Clearly,
those parents would like the opportunity to send their child to
that school up the hill but cannot do it because that is further
away than their own school, and that is the way the system is
operating. This is what I am trying to say, you will not deal
with that problem through the admissions system, you will deal
with that problem by making sure that those schools on those estates
are improving fast and turn into schools which themselves are
attractive to those local people. You do that not through the
admissions system, you do it through all sorts of other ways,
you do it through leadership and in-service training and support,
and all the rest of it. You cannot turn a poor-performing school
into a higher-performing school by forcing parents to send their
children there.
Q182 Chairman: In an age of published
test results and examination results, you will know as well as
members of this Committee that what we see is an accelerated process
of where there used to be quite a mixed community school, where
parents were happy to send their children to the local school,
even if they were more affluent and had a differentiated area.
As those tests and exams have been published, there has been this
much, much more mobile population amongst those either who can
afford to travel or can afford to buy a house in a different area.
In a sense, it is all very well saying, "Okay, it's up to
those schools to become more attractive than the higher-achieving,
with greater leadership;" is that totally honest?
Dr Hunter: Yes, I think it is.
Of course, you were correct in what you were saying, but to counter
that, to some extent, there is the fact that the difference between
examination results in high-performing schools and local authority
schools is narrowing, and that is what we must see. We must see
a position in which those poor-performing schools are getting
better, faster, than the higher-performing schools, and that is
happening to some extent, and that is the hopeful side.
Chairman: I am not disagreeing with you
on that, Dr Hunter.
Q183 Mr Chaytor: Just pursuing that
issue, Chair. The impact of league tables on the exercise of parental
preference, do you think it has made your job and the administration
of the whole system easier or more difficult? You referred earlier
to the importance of value added, where do you think value-added
measures should be in this whole process?
Dr Hunter: It was interesting,
looking at the Sheffield research, how low down league tables
came in the way parents perceived their local school. Parents
perceived their local school in a lot of other ways, behaviour
and just looking at it, and league tables came quite low down
that list, and that is interesting. I think people are getting
to grips with league tables now, actually, the general population
are beginning to put them into context. I do not think that people
know the difference generally between value-added tables and other
kinds of league tables. I think that, on the whole, they are looking
at raw results.
Q184 Mr Chaytor: Do you think they
ought to be looking at value added?
Dr Hunter: Yes, of course they
should, but they tend not to, because local newspapers tend not
to.
Q185 Mr Chaytor: When you say you
cannot even out the mix of children through the admissions process,
what is wrong with the system that applies in New Zealand, where
oversubscribed schools are allocated by lottery, it is entirely
at random? Would not this give the opportunity for less well-informed
parents, who nevertheless aspire to the school up the hill, to
get there?
Dr Hunter: I come back to the
question of trust. They use that in America too, I may say, quite
a lot. I do not think the British population, the English population,
is familiar with that. I think they would think of that as being
rather unfair, and certainly it is better if you can have some
very clear, objective criteria, related to distance, or what have
you.
Q186 Mr Chaytor: This is a nation
which plays the Lottery every Wednesday night and every Saturday
night, and you say they would not accept it in terms of the allocation
of places in schools?
Dr Hunter: It is a matter for
you to decide; you write this thing, not me, I just administer
it. If you want lotteries then write it in there and I will administer
it.
Q187 Chairman: I think that was about
three to one to Dr Hunter. All of us do have this concern about
certain people in our community having real choice, and others
not. Of course, some people have the choice to enunciate that
they would rather go begging on the streets than send their children
to a comprehensive school.
Dr Hunter: You will not expect
me to comment on that.
Q188 Chairman: I am sure you are
not going to comment on that, Dr Hunter, and nor will I. The fact
of the matter is that we do have, when things go wrong, objections
and an adjudication process. If you have thrown the ball back
into our court and said, "Look, you're the politicians, you
make these laws," are there bits of what you have to administer
at the moment that you would like to see strengthened, or improved,
or just made better, because you have worked the system for over
a year, you know it? Just advising us, is there something that
would make your job more efficient and more effective?
Dr Hunter: I think that my principal
demand of you is clarity. If you are very clear and if the Code
is very clear about what you expect of me, as a Chief Adjudicator,
of adjudicators, then we can administer it. Where we get into
difficulties is where the rules seem to be changing somehow, perhaps
because a judge takes a different view on what has been happening
and what should happen. That is difficult. For example, this Code
was less clear than the last one on distance as being an important
factor to take into account in admissions procedures. Now that
was unhelpful. It would have been much better if you had stuck
to the old words and made it clear that is an important thing.
What we need, as adjudicators, is clarity. I think, on the whole,
we are managing reasonably well. I think, on the whole, we are
administering the system, I hope, in the way that you want us
to administer the system. Certainly we are managing to do it reasonably
quickly, certainly we are managing to do it clearly, in producing
all our stuff on the website, and all the rest of it, and I hope
you are satisfied with it, that is all I can say.
Chairman: We are very satisfied with
the evidence you have given us this morning. Can I thank you a
great deal, Dr Hunter. It has been a really informative session
and we value it very much. Thank you.
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