Examination of Witnesses (Questions 820
- 839)
WEDNESDAY 21 APRIL 2004
MR DAVID
MILIBAND MP AND
MR IVAN
LEWIS MP
Q820 Mr Gibb: Do you not think that
you ought to know that as Minister for Schools? Could you find
out?
Mr Miliband: What I do know is
that multiplication is a fundamental part of mathematics and it
is a fundamental part of the national numeracy strategy. I do
not know if Ofsted have a separate study on times tables themselves.
Q821 Mr Gibb: Could you find out
before you come to this Committee next time?
Mr Miliband: I will write to you
about it.[2]
Q822 Mr Gibb: Thank you very much.
You spoke about three quarters of children . . . You shake your
head, Minister, but—
Mr Miliband: I shake my head because—
Q823 Mr Gibb: . . . on Monday was
very, very adamant that it was a very important part of developing
mathematical skills in—
Mr Miliband: What I point out
to you is that I know you are a new and inexperienced member of
this Committee but we have a long record of very, very good relations
and you do not have to get on your high horse. I am very happy
to write to you very quickly about it.[3]
Q824 Mr Gibb: Excellent and you have
no need to shake your head either! You mentioned three quarters
of pupils achieving in maths but what about reading? Why have
you stalled at three quarters of children reaching level 4 at
age 11?
Mr Miliband: I have not stalled.
What I would say is that schools around the country have maintained
world-class standards of literacy as well as numeracy over the
last three years and that is now verified by the independent international
study, the PIRLS study,[4]
which showed that English 10-year-olds are the third highest achievers
in reading in the industrialised world and I think that if you
look at the statistics, you will see that world-class standards
have, on average, been maintained although of course, within schools,
the percentage of youngsters reaching level four rise and fall.
The fact that the figure of 75% has been maintained does not mean
that every school has been at the same position. We think that
as we get closer to the 85% target, it is a tougher nut to crack
and, every year, we are seeking to arm teachers and pupils with
the right support to ensure that they reach the level four standard
and beyond actually and it is striking that about one third of
people have reached level five.
Q825 Mr Gibb: You sound a little
complacent about it saying that we are third in the world, so
you are happy with the 75% figure?
Mr Miliband: No, we have an 85%
figure.
Mr Gibb: But why has it stalled at 75%?
What is the reason for that stalling?
Chairman: If I may just interrupt. We
have asked the Ministers to come here for a specific purpose.
It is not their annual review where we ask them questions right
across the piece. This is for a particular inquiry into 14-19
skills. These are interesting questions but I really hope you
will get on with the agenda on 14-19.
Q826 Mr Gibb: These are basic skills
questions and there is a great deal of concern about basic skills
and there does seem to be some inadequacy in dealing with maths
in this country and I do not see much progress beyond the 75%
but, leaving that aside, can I just ask you about the 14-19 age
group. In the manifesto that I believe you wrote in 1997, you
said that we needed more setting. How is that going?
Mr Miliband: As you know, Ofsted
measure setting in different subjects and we have had a long and
rather friendly, I thought, correspondence about how setting is
now fulfilled in different subjects and I have written to you
with the figures on the Ofsted reports in those areas. Perhaps
you might want to rehearse them for the rest of the Committee,
I do not know, but . . .
Q827 Mr Gibb: I just wondered how
it was going. You had a manifesto commitment to increase the amount
of setting and I wondered how it was going.
Mr Miliband: What we said in our
manifesto was that we thought that setting had an important role
to play in secondary education and you will know that the White
Paper in 1998 talked about how it was important that if secondary
school teachers were not using setting, they had to have a good
professional reason for doing so. We did not think it was right
for Central Government to mandate setting in every subject in
every school. We thought it was right that there should be a bias
towards it but that professionals use their own judgment. I think
from the statistics I sent you that the percentage of school setting
is much higher in some subjects in others, there is not much setting
in sport or PE, although some people might think there should
be, but it has risen in some subjects and has not risen in others
but I do not have the figures to hand.
Q828 Mr Gibb: Finally, can I just
ask you about Tomlinson. What was wrong with the GCSE system that
necessitates such a radical change?
Mr Miliband: I am sorry, I do
not understand your question.
Q829 Mr Gibb: I thought that the
GCSE was meant to encompass all abilities, so that there are two
different syllabuses, or three sometimes in maths, and a grade
range from A-G. What was fundamentally wrong with the GCSE that
now requires Tomlinson to replace it with this diploma system?
Mr Miliband: What is wrong with
the 14-19 system is what is driving the Tomlinson inquiry. We
want intermediate level qualifications, if I can use that jargon.
Qualifications that are in general taken at age 15 or 16, but
not only taken at that age, to be a stepping-stone on to further
study. I think that the challenge for Tomlinson is how to build
on the success of GCSE. So, I do not see the fundamental motivator
of Tomlinson being the failure of GCSE. The introduction of GCSE
and the challenge of GCSE has contributed to some of the rising
standards that we have seen but the question is how we can build
on its strengths.
Q830 Mr Gibb: So, there is no problem
with the D-G grades? They are quite a good assessment of the level
one achievements?
Mr Miliband: No, I think there
is a lot of concern with the assessment system, both with the
burden of assessment at GCSE and you rehearsed with previous witnesses
whether or not it was sensible that similar skills were tested
in geography coursework and history coursework or whether in fact
some rationalisation there would be important. There is also an
issue about the recognition of D-G grades at GCSE which is a slightly
separate issue. There is a difficult balance to be struck because
the aspiration for youngsters to achieve high I think is really
important and tackling poverty of expectation is important and
that is why I defend the focus on the A-C grades and I have been
in schools where the focus on A-C has really driven the sort of
engagement with individual student learning that has helped them
to get up from a predicted E or D into A-C, but some people will
get Ds or Es and that is a fact of life, you cannot have an exam
or it is unlikely you can have an exam where everyone gets an
A.
Q831 Mr Gibb: Mr Hull from your Department
implied that there would be fewer examinations at age 16 and more
teacher assessment by the teacher who teaches the subject.
Mr Miliband: That is something
that is being looked into. The Secondary Heads Association are
very keen to develop the idea of a chartered examiner approach
although obviously they are conscious and certainly their teacher
union colleagues are conscious of any workload implications that
might arise from that and we have to balance that carefully. I
think what Mike Tomlinson is looking at is the balance of external
and internal assessment and I think there is a pretty strong case
for saying that numerous external examinations at 15, 16 and 17
or 16, 17 and 18 represents a burden that is not delivering for
the student in the most appropriate way.
Q832 Paul Holmes: In some of the
opening comments, we talked a little about joined-up thinking
and working across different government departments in an area
like this and I just wanted to explore that a little more. There
are several different reports and commissions looking at different
aspects of this and, when you look at the composition of those
groups, it is sometimes a little puzzling. You have the Tomlinson
Working Group which has nobody from the DTI as part of it and
you would think perhaps that, if you are looking at—
Mr Miliband: You could say it
has no one from the DfES in there. It is an independent commission.
Q833 Paul Holmes: Moving on, the
Kingsmill Task Force has nobody from the DfES in it and yet it
is looking at relevant areas. The Cassels Committee has nobody
from the DTI. How can you come up with policies that are supposed
to revamp the whole of particularly vocational training if you
are not including all the players from DfES to DTI to Work and
Pensions and so forth? Surely you are going to get lots of conflicting
reports that are not really looking at the whole picture.
Mr Miliband: I do not want to
seem unduly harsh on my questioners, but it seems utterly asinine
to ask why there are not DTI representatives on the—
Q834 Chairman: It is not permitted
for you to suggest that questions are asinine.
Mr Miliband: It seems to me—
Q835 Chairman: I had that discussion
with Chris Woodhead at one stage; he resigned the next day! I
would prefer you not to use the word asinine.
Mr Miliband: There are no DTI
representatives on the Tomlinson Committee because there are not
representatives from anything. It is an independent committee
of experts. I do not see what that proves at all. It is a report
that was going to be for the benefit of the whole policy community
in Government and outside.
Q836 Paul Holmes: So, you are quite
happy to have in this particular case three separate investigations,
committees, inquiries, whatever you like to call them, which draw
experts from different parts of government in various cases but
they never seem to be looking at the same picture?
Mr Miliband: It would be bizarre
for Government to say that because they have a commission that
is looking at qualifications, curriculum and assessment,
which is what Tomlinson is, that we somehow ban other people from
having inquiries. The Cassels inquiry and I think John Cassels
is here and he might want to—
Q837 Chairman: Minister, you must
stop trying to organise the Committee. You can organise the Government
but you certainly cannot organise the Committee.
Mr Miliband: I would not even
try to do that! The Cassels Committee reported 10 years ago; it
published a further report rather more recently; I am not sure
if it is actually sitting at the moment but I do not see the import
of the question.
Q838 Paul Holmes: Let me ask you
some other detailed aspects of it then. For example, you are looking
at reform in the 14-19 system and I think, both as a Liberal Democrat
and as an ex-teacher, that the Tomlinson report is definitely
the way forward for the future. So, you are talking about reforming
the 14-19 system. What thought have you given at looking at that
at this stage to who calls the shots and controls the money? I
am thinking here of the Learning and Skills Council, the biggest
quango in England, and there was a big argument, which has now
settled, about the LSC taking on the funding of post-16 in schools
in order to join up the thinking with FE and colleges and so forth.
I have asked the LSC several times both in private meetings and
in this committee what the thinking is on the 14-19? Are the LSC
going to take over funding and the policy drives that come from
that for 14-16 in schools just as take it from 16-19?
Mr Miliband: This is much more
productive terrain for me!
Q839 Paul Holmes: I am pleased you
liked the question!
Mr Miliband: It is not a question
of liking the question but I think that you raise a very, very
legitimate and good issue. The first thing I would say is that
my experience is that, at local level, the local LSCs and LEAs
are working very hard to cooperate in an effective way together,
in a way which perhaps would not immediately be obvious if you
looked at the national structure which does suggest that there
are some quite difficult barriers to that sort of work. I think
that the notion of a unified 14-19 stage does not only raise questions
about curriculum and qualification assessment but it does raise
questions about, for example, funding which I think you mentioned
in passing. The answer is that we have made our decisions about
the role of the LSC post-16 and we are encouraged by the role
that has been played locally and we will have to think about the
issues of funding and responsibility in the light of any decisions
we make about Tomlinson. There is no question of turning it upside
down at the moment.
Mr Lewis: As I work closely with
the LSC, it is worth exploring this a little bit as well. What
concerns me is that, in the areas where you have a sensible, professional
collaborative relationship between the LSC and the LEA, there
is not a problem. Where people put organisational barriers to
one side, so we have a common set of objectives, it is working
well, but we still have obviously, in a whole range of public
services, this desire to have a partnership to change this culture
amongst some professionals where you still have turf warfare and
you still have people hiding behind organisational and professional
boundaries. So, we need to work through those issues and you know
as an ex-educationalist that there are people in the system who
behave in that way and the good guys, the more positive people,
the people who put the student at the centre of what you are trying
to achieve will deal with those people in a positive and appropriate
way. I also believe however going to the longer term, once Tomlinson
reports and once we decide where we are going with Tomlinson,
there is a whole range of issues where we have to get our ducks
in a row if we are going to achieve the objectives that we
set out for ourselves: financial responsibility and accountability;
performance measurement; the way we measure the performance of
institutions; and the way we support more collaborative relationships.
By the way, I believe it is completely consistent to say that
individual institutions need a strong sense of self and ethos
whilst also being able to work in collaboration and partnership
with others. Some people say it is contradictory to say that you
want institutions to collaborate whilst at the same time saying
that you want them to have a strong individual ethos. I do not
believe that to be true. I think the best schools and the best
colleges regard as being part of the best the capacity to collaborate
and work in partnership and create a broad offer in every locality
for young people. So, I think that in most areas now there is
a settling down of the relationship between the LEA and the LSC
and a sensible move forward in the interests of the young people
in those communities but certainly post-Tomlinson, it is no good
agreeing to a route map to a new system without tackling all of
the issues that will affect whether the new system is as effective
as we need it to be.
2 Ev 220. Back
3
Ibid. Back
4
Note by witness: PIRLS stands for The Progress in International
Reading Literacy Study, and is conducted by the IEA (the International
Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement). Back
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