Examination of Witnesses (Questions 807
- 819)
WEDNESDAY 21 APRIL 2004
MR DAVID
MILIBAND MP AND
MR IVAN
LEWIS MP
Q807 Chairman: Can I welcome our
two Ministers this morning, Ivan Lewis and David Miliband. You
know we are looking at skills which, in terms of this Committee,
is a rather neglected area. We have been away from looking at
skills for a very long time. We are getting into the full immersion
into the skills agenda at the moment and we are learning something
about it. It is interesting how we are all connected. Mr Miliband,
I have to say that yesterday I had a complaint about you. What
was interesting about the complaint was that it was a gentleman
who complained to me because you had passed a serious query he
had about some educational matter, about which I will not give
you details at the moment, to some official in your Department
and he thought he would get a personal answer. What amused me
was that he was a constituent of Charles Clarke! However, I will
let you have it a little later. Let us now get down to business.
Which of you would like to make an opening statement?
Mr Miliband: I thought you were
going to say that it was Ivan who had been complaining to you
about me, so that was a mild relief! I do not want to say too
much by way of introduction. I want to thank you for inviting
us and also thank you for taking up this topic which I think is
a really good one for the Committee, not just because, as you
say, skills issues can sometimes be neglected, but I think that
the 14-19 agenda and some of the other issues you are addressing
are one of the most open areas for policy debate in the country
at the moment. They are one of the areas where I think there is
an enormous amount of local enthusiasm for innovation and change
and I think they are one of the areas for debate where there is
real room for Government to be open about some of the difficult
choices that they face and to put together as wide a coalition
as possible to make change. So, I do think this is a really good
topic. I have read through most of the sessions you have already
had and I think there have been some really good discussions.
I look forward to this session and to the report. Ivan leads for
the Department on skills, as I think you know, and has taken a
key role on some of the delivery questions in 14-19 education
and in particular in tackling some of the issues relating to the
very high drop-out rate that continues to plague this country
at age 17. We have discussed before the impressive performance
of 15-year-olds in international and national tests putting the
UK and also England, which we are responsible for, in the top
quartile of international performers at age 15 and actually fourth
best in the world in science, but, by age 17, we have the fourth
highest drop-out rate in the industrialised world and Ivan has
taken particular leadership on analysing some of the reasons for
that and tackling it. I have overall responsibility for 14-19.
It might be useful to say that the Government have a very clear
aim for the 14-19 area and that is to develop a system of high
participation and high progression and I emphasise both aspects
of that—participation of itself would not be sufficient
grounds for success; we want students to progress in their studies—and
we think there are probably five key areas that we are working
on at the moment. First of all in relation to curriculum and how
we ensure that every student is able to get the right balance
of general and specialist study that is appropriate to their own
aptitude and interest; secondly around assessment and how we get
the burden right for students and for institutions, schools and
colleges; thirdly around qualifications and how we can structure
the incentives at 14-19 so that there really is an incentive for
as many young people as possible to break through what in our
country has been a barrier at 16 but what in many other countries
is a stepping stone on to further education; fourthly some delivery
issues where it is absolutely vital that, if we are going to ensure
that young people are able to combine general and specialist study
according to their own aptitude and interest, we ensure that schools,
colleges and work-based alternatives are available and delivered
in a collaborative way that makes sense to students; and fifthly
that we address some of the motivational or demotivational issues
that have plagued this area especially for, I would say, the bottom
or the least successful 40% of the school cohort. We have some
key decisions ahead but I want to finish by emphasising how struck
I have been over the last two years in my time as a minister by
the real progress on the ground that is being delivered. That
is partly shown in test and exam results. As you know, we do not
fall in the Department for the English curse that somehow more
means worse, that more achievement means worse outcomes. We believe
that rising standards in test and exams reflect the high standards
of teaching that Ofsted report and the better working and harder
working in many cases by youngsters, but also a new provision
that is being developed—people sometimes tell me that they
lament the decline of the apprenticeship and I have to tell them
that there are 250,000 young people in modern apprenticeships—and
also I think a real cultural change on the part of institutions,
schools, colleges and workplaces, about how they can work together
and, among youngsters, there is increasing recognition that the
old concept of an education-leaving age or a school-leaving age
of 15 or 16 is not going to prepare them for the world either
of work or of citizenship in the 21st century and I think it is
important that we build on those strengths while of course keeping
in mind the weaknesses that we have. I hope that gives you some
sense as to how we are approaching the wide set of issues on your
agenda.
Mr Lewis: If you look at our performance
as a country, we do well, relatively speaking, in primary and
we do well in higher education, but the great challenge is the
non-completion rate post-16. It is bad for our society in terms
of the social costs and it is very bad in terms of our economic
needs. There is absolutely no doubt that the challenge is to create
a range of ways that young people can progress through the education
system post-16 and stay in some form of education and/or training
if we are going to be able to respond to the economic challenges
of the future. It is the area of policy which has been, if you
like, the least developed. I believe that we are making significant
progress, as David has said, in two ways fundamentally: one by
freeing up the curriculum now and becoming more innovative and
a lot of that is bottom-up innovation coming from schools and
colleges and others working together on the ground; whilst, at
the same time, the Tomlinson exercise looking at the right long-term
structure to put in place to make a reality of the maximum number
of young people succeeding through the education system rather
than the education system actually being the first major failure
in their lives which goes on to be repeated in many of those young
people's cases, as they move into adulthood, as they move into
parenthood and we pay, as I say, the long-term inter-generational
cost of not getting this phase of education right. I am particularly
passionate about saying that it seems to me that progressing and
achieving through the vocational route should be every bit as
valued and as important and as recognised by our society as progressing
and achieving through more traditional and conventional academic
routes. I do not believe that there are policy statements or ministerial
edicts that can create parity of esteem for vocational education.
I think there is a series of building blocks that will attack
over time that cultural snobbery, but I do believe that we are
making significant progress in that respect and, as David says,
for those who would say that young people do not choose vocational
education because it is seen as second rate and second class,
I would put it to you that over 250,000 young people making a
positive choice, a record number, to undertake modern apprenticeships
this year is one of the best-kept secrets of the English education
system and demonstrates quite the contrary, that in fact many
young people do now see the tangible benefits and relevance of
doing an apprenticeship. The final point I would make is that
I think we have been greatly damaged by the debate that some have
attempted to sponsor, which suggests that we make a choice between
higher education and vocational education in this country. If
we encourage that debate, if we sponsor that debate, then what
we do is what we have always done, we divide young people into
sheep and goats, we make it clear that vocational is somehow seen
as second rate and we make false distinctions. We know a lot of
our ambitions, for example, for the future development of higher
education are actually via vocational education routes and we
also know the long-term success of modern apprenticeship will
be about saying to many young people, "You can do a modern
apprenticeship and then, if it is right for you and if you want
to, you can go on to higher education." So, let us try and
put to bed, if we can, this false, bogus debate between higher
and vocational education. We should be seeking to develop a range
of routes that young people can go through to end up in skilled
employment. Whether that is via higher education, whether it is
via apprenticeship or whether it is via a combination of the two,
that is what our economy and our society needs.
Q808 Chairman: Thank you very much
for those introductory remarks. Can I push you a little because
the evidence we have taken both from officials in your Department
and from other major contributors to the education world suggest
to us already that either a decision has already been made in
the Department or is about to be made that is going to fundamentally
change the nature of 14-19 education, fundamentally change education
from what we have been used to in the past, and a decision as
important as Dearing reports and the cross-party agreement on
Dearing prior to the 1970 election because, it seems to us from
the evidence we have had, that what the Government are moving
to is a unified system of secondary education, so that you do
hold in the system both the vocational and the academic rights
right through. That is what 14-19 is about. The experts to whom
we have been speaking wonder whether you, in the Department, have
really thought through the fundamental, some people have used
the word "revolutionary", change that this actually
will bring about and also the necessity for a great deal of expenditure
and a great deal of change in attitude to the whole education
and training world. This is what the experts are telling us. We,
in a sense, as a committee hear the resonances of that debate
going on. Are our experts right in saying that first of all you
are making a decision of this importance and are you aware what
the consequences are for the educational system over the coming
years?
Mr Miliband: Of course your experts
are right to say that the Department is giving clear leadership
on 14-19 issues and I am gratified to hear that that has come
through so strongly. What they have not said in my reading of
the evidence sessions is that any "decision" has been
made. We have conducted a very, very open process for the reform
of curriculum qualifications and assessment at 14-19 and it has
been conducted through the Tomlinson Committee. When I launched
the Tomlinson Committee in January 2003, I said that we were unlocking
the door to a unified system of education and training at 14-19
and that the conclusions of the Tomlinson Committee and the debate
about that would then decide whether or not, as a country, we
walk through that door. When the Tomlinson interim report came
out last month, what Tomlinson himself said and what we agreed
was that there were compelling arguments to believe that there
were big advantages from moving through this door but that there
was a significant amount of detailed work that needed to go on
before any decision was made. At every stage of this process,
we have—and I think this is true at ministerial and official
level—emphasised that it is a coalition for change and the
establishment of a coalition for change that is almost as important
as the substantive issues in deciding whether or not we go forward.
We need a blueprint that is right but we also need a blueprint
that commands the confidence of the education world, of the higher
education world and of the employment world, and I think it is
very significant that, at the time of the publication of the interim
report, the coalition stretching from the admissions office of
Oxford University to the heads of private schools to leading employers
should have been so strong in its favour. I would like to say
one other thing about this coalition and that is that I have encouraged
Mike Tomlinson to meet and engage with people of all parties and
none and I think, if I may say in a spirit which I hope does not
condemn the spirit of cooperation that I am about to applaud,
it speaks well for the spokesman of the Liberal and Conservative
Parties that, when the Tomlinson report came out, they did not
reach for the nearest fusillade but in fact engaged with it in
a serious way and I think it should be encouraging for all of
us that we can actually build a genuine coalition to take this
forward.
Q809 Chairman: I do take on board
the point that a number of people out there outside of the education
centre do not realise what a revolutionary change this will be
if we go to this unified system.
Mr Lewis: I think a number of
people outside the education system certainly do not realise the
consequences of what we are seeking to do. I worked on the original
Green Paper on 14-19 with Stephen Timms and I think Mr Timms will
have given evidence to this Committee.
Q810 Chairman: You are something
of a survivor in the Department.
Mr Lewis: I am of three years
now and am still the youngest but the grey hairs are more than
his, so it might show that the three years have been long, difficult
and a hard three years! Those people who concentrate on vocational
rather than academic have it tougher that tends to be the nature
of the establishment! Anyway, the serious point is that when the
Green Paper was published, we said it was a genuine consultation
and we said that we needed to engage maximum consensus and that
we needed the support of higher education and the employers if
we were going to go forward. It was clear that many of the proposals
in that Green Paper have been taken on board by Tomlinson but
not all and it was one of the reasons why we felt at the stage
that the response came back to the Green Paper that it would not
have been appropriate for the Government to plough on and implement
radical change because we were not ready, we had not worked through
many of the issues, and that is why we decided to establish the
Tomlinson group. I think there is an inherent tension here. There
are those in the system who argue that you need to make sure that
you get this right and that you need to implement it over a long
period of time—I think Mike Tomlinson himself has given
a timescale of approximately 10 years—and there are others
in the system who are at the moment involved in the flexibility
programme, in the building a curriculum around the needs of individual
young people who are saying, "We want accelerated progress".
I think what we are trying to do is to get that balance right.
We have started a process of freeing up the curriculum and of
giving people on the ground more opportunity to be innovative
and flexible whilst at the same time as saying that if we are
going to introduce a radical new system, it is appropriate that
an external group looks at this objectively, that it is not an
in-house job where the DfES tries to make it happen without actually
consulting with a much wider range of respected people, but that
when Tomlinson reaches his final conclusions, there are four fundamental
tests and I think this is important because it has not been widely
promoted. There are four important tests that the Government will
apply to whether we feel that Tomlinson's recommendations have
got it right and those four tests are that the system must stretch
the most able in a way that we feel is appropriate; it must identify
a high-status, high-quality credible vocational route; and it
has to tackle the problem of disengagement. Those people who argue,
"why change the system? If it ain't broke, don't fix it",
forget the fact that we have far too many young people disengaging
from the system at a very early age. So, it must tackle the question
of disengagement and, as David said earlier, it must also ensure
that there is an appropriate balance in terms of assessment, both
external assessment and more teacher-based assessment. So, there
is this tension, which I think is absolutely right, between short-term
gradual evolutionary change which we put in place in partnership
with, I believe, the professionals, more so in this agenda than
maybe other parts of the educational agenda, in a much more significant
attempt to build consensus and look at innovation bottom-up whilst
making absolutely sure when we agree on the direction of travel
for what I think the Chairman has rightly identified as a revolutionary
radical transformation of our education system. We have to make
sure that we have that absolutely right before we decide on the
final shape of that system. I do not think that is a contradiction.
Q811 Chairman: Minister, if I can
push you on the answers you have given so far. When I said outside
the educational world, what we of course realise as we embark
on this skills inquiry is that so many departments are involved
in skills training and what one wonders sometimes is, are you
imparting to the other departments that are going to have to be
key players in the delivery of a unified structure? Are you alerting
them early enough about what is going to happen to the way in
which we deliver education, skills and training? We increasingly
find that we are going to have to call the Department of Work
and Pensions because of JobcentrePlus and all their training budget,
the DTI have a great deal of interest in this whole policy and
its delivery through employers, let alone the Ministry of Defence
and other departments that have a keen interest in this. Are the
profile and the leadership strong enough—and this is something
that we picked up from the officials, we are not plucking this
out of the air, from your officials—in terms of saying
across departments, "This is the direction and it is going
to mean fundamental change in the way in which we do things"?
Mr Lewis: Quite frankly, I would
argue that joined-up government in this area was not as positive
as it should have been before we set about the process of developing
the Skills Strategy. I believe that since we began the process
of developing that White Paper, we worked through the White Paper
together across Government and we are now in the process of an
early stage of implementation. There has never been a closer synergy
than there is now between ourselves particularly, the DTI, the
DWP and the Treasury. There is a more arms length relationship
with departments like the Ministry of Defence and the Department
of Health. Even in those relationships, there is a much closer
relationship than there was and I will give you an example of
where we are really trying to change culture. If we are saying
to the private sector in the context of the skills debate, "You
have responsibilities to invest in skills, to play your part,
to make your contribution", we, as Government, have to set
an example in those areas and that is why, both in our capacity
as an employer and also an organisation that contracts with numerous
private sector organisations to provide a range of services, as
a procurer, if you like, of goods and services, we are now, for
the first time, looking at our responsibilities to, if you like,
set an example in the way that we invest in the skills of the
people that we employ, the organisations that we contract with
in terms of contracted-in staff and also the procurement decisions
that we make. How do we use those procurement decisions to stimulate
good practice in terms of investment in skills?
Q812 Chairman: That is very refreshing.
The survey published in the Financial Times yesterday does
not give us much hope because it shows a decline in the public-sector
budget in training compared to the private sector. You must have
been disappointed to see that survey.
Mr Lewis: I would have to know
more about it; I have not seen the details of the survey and I
would have to know more about the specifics, but I am quite cynical
in that sometimes these isolated surveys come out and they apparently
demonstrate empirical evidence that does not always prove to be
the case. I did say, Chairman, and I will say this robustly: we
did not do very well in joining up these agendas historically,
I really believe that, but I can say from my own personal experience
of meetings with colleagues in different forums now that the view
that the skills agenda is the responsibility of Government and
not just the responsibility of the Department for Education and
Skills is far stronger than it has ever been, but we are only
at a very early stage of that new dynamic and therefore it will
take time for people like yourselves to see. Can I give one tangible
example. We will publish in the next few months what we have done
across Government in terms of the basic skills agenda, the adult
basic skills agenda for the first time, what we as Government
have done within our own Department as a message to the outside
world, this is what we have done, this is what we would like you
to do. Also, we will go one stage further because, in a year's
time, we will publish what we are doing across Government on the
entire skills agenda not just on the basic skills agenda, so it
will be transparent for the first time across Whitehall and Westminster,
what the Government are doing in terms of where they have immediate
control to drive the skills agenda forward.
Q813 Chairman: That is very good
to hear, Minister, but what we also hear from the evidence that
we have had is a sort of voice that is coming partly out of Tomlinson
saying, 14-19, we are going to change this, we are going for a
unified system and it is going to be all right in 2014. Ken Boston
said 2014 on Monday. There are an awful lot of young people in
this country who are going to miss out if we wait to get this
sorted by 2014. The fact of the matter is, whether you brag about
the 250,000 . . . Perhaps that is a little unkind, both of you
have boasted about 250,000 young people being on modern apprenticeships,
but this Committee has already had evidence of how many people
drop out of modern apprenticeships and the fact that a modern
apprenticeship is not a qualification and, if someone does not
finish it, they have nothing. That seems to us, seven years into
a new Government, a new administration that is supposed to be
doing something about this, not good enough. If you take that
with the fact that we still have children in this country leaving
school at 16 who are allowed to go into employment with no training
and no education, that also seems to some members of this Committee
a disgrace and we cannot wait for another 10 years to put that
right. So, what are you doing to put it right?
Mr Lewis: First of all, Chairman,
I would agree with that. I think what has to happen is that Mike
Tomlinson's group will report in the autumn, the Government will
respond afterwards and I think one of the things that will be
integral to the government response is, if you will excuse the
"in" term, a route map or a road map to full implementation
with a number of stages along the way. How long that is is a matter
we will have to consider. On the question of what we are doing
in the meantime, I think that is a very important point. For a
start, you cannot divorce the 14-19 agenda from what we are doing
from SureStart, into primary, into the Key Stage 3 strategy and
into the whole specialist status arena, the school standards agenda;
and you cannot divorce it from the development of the Connexions
Service, the flexibility programme for 14-16-year-olds, the Success
For All process in terms of raising standards and quality within
further education, Educational Maintenance Allowances, which I
am very sad that sections of the media and of the political world
have rubbished in the last 48 hours. I think it is a nonsense
to describe it as a bribe, but Educational Maintenance Allowances
as well and, absolutely right, Chairman, of course I am proud
of the fact and will use every opportunity to tell the world that
255,000 young people this year are doing modern apprenticeships.
Do I believe that there are major issues that we have to tackle
in terms of non-completion and other issues to do with modern
apprenticeships? Absolutely. That is why, in the next few weeks
rather than months, we will making some significant announcements
on our plans to not only raise the status and the number of young
people and the number of employers engaged in apprenticeships
but also to improve the quality of the product and I would say
to you, Chairman, that we believe there are a whole variety of
reasons why non-completion has taken place. First of all, there
has been a significant improvement in those completing but there
are still far too many young people who do not complete their
apprenticeships for a variety of reasons. One is that young people
are sometimes not choosing the right apprenticeship to go on.
Sometimes the quality of the support that is provided by the training
provider is not as it should be. On other occasions, employers
and young people say, "Actually, this is going really well.
You are employed by me. You are doing really well. We might as
well regularise this arrangement. You do not really need to continue
going through these hoops in finishing your apprenticeship."
In other words, not all young people who do not complete dropout
in terms of the labour market. That is very, very important. In
my view, we need to get to the bottom in a more scientific way
of the relative factors that cause non-completion. The final point
is—and I think this is one of the issues that we will seek
to address in the announcements we make in the next few weeks—that,
if young people change employer for example or change job or change
sector, the current apprenticeship system is not a particularly
mobile or portable system. So, all of those issues are being addressed
at the moment as part of a reform programme. So, we are not sat
here complacently and happily saying that we have it absolutely
right. What we are saying is that the story on apprenticeship
is a far more positive and healthier story than either the education
world often shouts about or certainly the world outside of education
even begins to understand. When I speak to business people and
when I speak to reasonably well-informed journalists and educationalists,
the starting point is often, why do we not have an apprenticeship
system in this country and the first point that we need to get
across is that we do, that it is a flourishing and vibrant one
and that many young people are choosing to opt for it. However,
there are a number of things that we need to improve about it in
the same way as we need to improve schools, early years provision,
colleges and the quality improvement programme must apply across
the education sector.
Chairman: Shall we now move into a different
mode and can I ask members to ask short, sharp questions and that
we have shorter, sharper answers than we are getting. We have
a great deal of territory to cover. We will continue with some
of the background issues.
Q814 Mr Gibb: Could you explain the
current concern about the numbers of people with lower education
attainment. Is it caused solely by the structural issues we have
been talking about, the exam structure, or is it something more
fundamental in the education system? Are there other failures
that we need to address in the education system?
Mr Miliband: Of course it is not
correct that there is one reason for either high dropout, if that
is what you are referring to—
Q815 Mr Gibb: No, attainment generally.
Mr Miliband: Attainment generally
is rising which I am sure we will all be pleased about. 55% of
youngsters now get five A-C grades at GCSE with rising achievements
in A-level and vocational equivalents.[1]
For those who are not fulfilling their potential, I think there
is a range of reasons: curricular partly; foundational in the
sense that the weaknesses that existed certainly until three or
four years ago at Key Stage 3 meant that we had cohorts of people
coming through to GCSE and beyond who were not armed for further
study; I think that there are motivational issues to do with the
balance of general and specialist courses; and I think there are
also for certain young people particular challenges that they
have in their own lives whether they be caring for other members
of their family or a whole range of other issues that explain
under performance or the failure to fulfil a potential. So, there
is certainly not a singular explanation for it.
Q816 Mr Gibb: Adrian Smith was very
critical about maths teaching on Monday and a number of the witnesses
we have had on the skills inquiry complain about basic skills
shortages in this country: maths, English and science. Adrian
Smith was very critical about maths teaching in this country on
Monday. What are you doing to address that?
Mr Miliband: Adrian Smith just
reported a month ago and made 116 recommendations which we are
going through in some detail. I think he paints a picture of serious
difficulty in key aspects of maths teaching, although he also
points to the striking rise in recruitment of maths specialist
teachers into teacher training and a much, much healthier position
as a result of the introduction of some of the bursaries that
have gone in. So, he paints a picture of serious difficulty but
some encouraging trends, and our responsibility is to take seriously
all of the recommendations that Adrian Smith has made and then
respond in due course. I think the fact that, until seven years
ago, we had half of our people leaving primary school without
the skills to compute well was a real, real foundational problem.
The fact that now three quarters of young people leave primary
school with high levels in maths is a significant step forward
for which the teaching profession to which you obliquely referred
deserve a lot of credit.
Q817 Mr Gibb: Do you think that children
in primary school should learn their tables?
Mr Miliband: Of course.
Q818 Mr Gibb: By what age?
Mr Miliband: I always struggled
with my times tables, so I have to be careful to say that if you
do not do it by a certain age . . . I am afraid that one's personal
experiences can come back to haunt one. Seven times seven is okay,
it is nine times eights and nine times six that I always get into
trouble with. I do not think there is a fixed age by which one
should learn their times tables although what I would point out
is that when one of my predecessors got his time tables wrong,
one of our national newspapers, who I do not think is represented
here today, printed the correct way of doing the seven times tables
on its front page saying that one times seven is seven and it
went through it but foolishly added in nought times seven which
it also said was seven in the midst of an article that was poking
quite a lot of fun at my predecessor's expense.
Q819 Mr Gibb: What proportion of
schools do you think do teach tables in primary schools?
Mr Miliband: I do not have that
figure to hand.
1 Note by witness: GCSE/GNVQ attainment by
15-year-old pupils in all schools, 2003, showed 52.9% of students
achieving 5 or more A*-C grades. Back
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