Examination of Witnesses (Questions 840
- 859)
WEDNESDAY 21 APRIL 2004
MR DAVID
MILIBAND MP AND
MR IVAN
LEWIS MP
Q840 Paul Holmes: Well, I think that
was a constructive answer! The question of funding is more than
just the technical issue of funding because funding drives policy.
I met with the head of the LSC in Derbyshire last Friday, for
example, and we were talking about this and obviously if you have
a particular policy objective, it only works if the money follows
it or the money is there to make it work. So, it is a fairly serious
question. Looking at a slightly different aspect of this what
many people out there would see as a lack of joined-up thinking
and working by Government, the Department of Work and Pensions
is, I think, the biggest single commissioner of adult training
through its various New Deal and Jobcentre Plus and so forth programmes.
Their stated intention when working with unemployed people is
to get them to work as soon as possible because they work on the
principle that the more weeks somebody is out of work, the less
likely they are to get back to work. So, the whole emphasis is
on a job, any job, in order to get the work skills rather than
focusing on what training shortfalls there might be and that are
needed. People who work in that sort of area say this is a big
example of the lack of joined-up thinking between DfES objectives
on the one hand and what the DWP are doing on the other hand.
How are you overcoming that when you are looking at these reports?
Chairman: Can we have a slightly shorter
answer than the question.
Mr Lewis: But he said he liked
the answer! I will try my best, Chairman. You are absolutely right
with the identification of the problem but again, give us credit
for the solution. The National Employment Panel was asked to do
a piece of work on this very issue. It has produced its report.
The Chancellor announced in the Budget the New Deal for Skills
and the New Deal for Skills is basically bringing together the
role of the LSC and Jobcentre Plus making sure that we make sure
that the funding of training and education courses is related
to the needs of the labour market but also ensuring that Jobcentre
Plus has a focus on sustainable employability, not just any employability,
and, as a consequence of the National Employment Panel report,
and the New Deal for Skills, what will happen is that there will
be an alignment of the work that the LSC on the ground and Jobcentre
Plus are doing in these areas. So, we have accepted the problem
and we have identified the need to act. Of course, the challenge
is getting the delivery right but we are now at least moving on
to accept that the problem was there and to putting it right.
Q841 Paul Holmes: Moving on to a
different area, the whole thrust of Tomlinson is to try and get
far more easy access into vocational education from 14 onwards
and to try and create more of a parity between the two. There
are lots of technical difficulties in that and I am just interested
in how you are going to square the circle. For example, when I
was still teaching, we had a very good City and Guilds course
with GCSE equivalent level but the school had to scrap it because
it did not register on the league tables, so we lost a really
good vocational course because it would undermine league table
positions. On Monday, we were talking about the Ofsted report
on advanced vocational certificates of education saying that some
of them were too academic and not vocational at all and that others
were too vocational and not academic enough. I know from friends
who teach advanced GNVQ that, over the last few years, the drive
to make them more academic has lost, so my colleagues for the
last couple of years say, all the vocational element that used
to be there. How do you square the circle between academic rigour
and the vocational point of these qualifications in the first
place?
Mr Miliband: I think the key is
to ensure that the assessment system is fit for the purpose and
it is often the assessment system that drives the so-called over-academicisation
of some vocational courses. I know this is something that QCA
are giving a great deal of attention to. I think it is also incumbent
on us to ensure that equivalence and recognition is shown in our
performance data. If you have a look at the draft guidance on
this year's performance data, you will see how we are proposing
to recognise vocational qualifications at 16 and beyond in that
and I hope that recognises your point.
Mr Lewis: With the Qualification
and Curriculum Authority, and I think you met with Ken Boston
and Mary Curnock-Cook last week, I think there is a real shift
there in the priority and the commitment and the understanding
that is now being given within that organisation getting the design
of vocational qualifications right and I think that will make
a real difference. As you probably know, they are engaged in a
shake up of vocational qualifications in terms of creating more
unitisation and credit transfer and therefore I believe that the
accusation that sometimes vocational qualifications have been
designed too much a" la academic qualifications is a fair
one but I do believe that there is a real shift in trying to make
that right. I also think that sometimes the analysis is not totally
fair. For example, GCSEs in vocational subjects. Many people have
made that accusation about those qualifications. If you actually
closely look at whether it is fair in terms of the content of
GCSEs in vocational studies, there is no evidence at all to say
that they are more academic in their design than their predecessors.
In fact, it is probably untrue.
Q842 Valerie Davey: Just to come
back to the specific in relation to the local professional collaboration
between the LSC and the LEAs, which I think is important, it is
very good, but funding means that the LEAs stop at 16 and LSCs
come in at 16. If you are trying to do that collaboration 14-19
change in an area and you are out to consultation, both these
bodies are organising the consultation. Would you agree that we
have a lot of work to do in the public for parents and communities
to understand and potentially a democratic deficit in whom, if
they disagree with the LSC, they actually refer to.
Mr Miliband: The short answer
to that is "yes".
Q843 Valerie Davey: What are we going
to do about it then, Minister?
Mr Miliband: I think the first
thing to say is that the LSCs are relatively new organisations
and it is important to remember why they were created. The LEAs
were funding school sixth forms, the college-based education post-16
was being funded by another route. So, we have not moved from
a situation of singularity to plurality, we have moved from a
situation with one set of problems and we now have to take care
of any consequences. My own impression is that the idea of having
a unity across institutions post-16 in their funding matters is
sensible. Hopefully, LEAs and LSCs are organising joint consultations,
I hope there is not doubling up of consultative machinery. I may
want to say a word about strategic area reviews if that is a particular
issue.
Mr Lewis: Very quickly, I think
Ms Davey is absolutely right. I also think though we have to recognise
the LSC is, as David says, a new organisation, with a new leadership,
which again is proving to be, on the whole, extremely positively
received by the partners out there, the new leadership, coupled
with the fact that now there is a lead regional executive director
in every region, and part of that person's responsibility is getting
the partnership culture and partnership ethos right, and also,
by the way, the political awareness. We have been talking about
the democratic deficit, and one of the things I have been very
keen on is that if you are talking about Strategic Area Reviews,
it is absolutely essential that both locally elected members and
Members of Parliament are totally engaged in those local Strategic
Area Reviews from day one, because if they are not, what is absolutely
certain is if the recommendations are controversial, but right,
for example, and you do not have buy-in from elected representatives,
you will have all sorts of difficulties in terms of implementing
the changes that may well be necessary in any locality. So there
is a need to raise political awareness. I believe the new leadership
of the LSC has really got off to an excellent start, but I also
believe the new structure that has been created, where we have
a lead executive director in each region who is responsible for
some of these partnership working issues, some of this political
awareness and accountabilities, will make a big difference.
Q844 Chairman: Has a memo gone out
from your Department to every regional director along the lines
of what you have just said about engagement at a democratic level?
Mr Lewis: A memo? Absolutely repeatedly
in meetings with both national representatives of the Learning
and Skills Council, the chairman and the chief executive, and
also when I do have meetings on occasions with people at a more
local level, it is a point I emphasize every time. In one or two
cases where that has not happened, we have got off to a bad start
and I am determined that should not happen in the future.
Chairman: I want to move on. I would
like to stipulate that I do not want members of my Committee or
Ministers evaluating the quality of each other's questions or
answers. Put that to one side.
Q845 Jonathan Shaw: Ofsted have said
that the Advanced Vocational Certificate of Education, which is
not a qualification, is not well designed. It says that it is
not seriously vocational nor consistently advanced. QCA boss,
Ken Boston, said that Ofsted misunderstood. What does the Department
say?
Mr Miliband: I have spoken both
to Ken Boston and to David Bell about this and I have asked them
to meet each other and come to a common view and then write to
me.
Q846 Chairman: They will both be
on the terrace at one o'clock.
Mr Miliband: Indeed. It may be
that they will have other things on their minds.
Q847 Jonathan Shaw: So you do not
know. You said earlier about ensuring that vocational qualifications
were fit for purpose, perhaps meeting the needs of SMEs, large
businesses in the public sector. What are the deficiencies?
Mr Miliband: I think all assessments
should be fit for purpose, Jonathan, and by that I mean that if
you are testing capacity to master A-level physics, it has to
be fit for the purpose; if you are testing capacity in dance,
it has to be fit for that purpose; and if you are testing for
other more occupation-specific skills, it has to be fit for that
purpose as well.
Q848 Jonathan Shaw: Within the present
structure, what are your concerns? What do you see as the deficiencies
and what are you going to do about it?
Mr Miliband: One concern Paul
Holmes referred to, which is our assessment systems for what are
called vocational subjects, but this morning I have tried not
to fall into that jargon because I have seen that in previous
sessions you have discouraged the reinforcement of that divide
between academic and vocational. I think it is a problem with
some of these so-called vocational subjects that the assessment
systems have been imported from traditionally academic subjects
and getting that right is a big challenge. The experience of NVQs
is at the other end of the spectrum and has not been wholly satisfactory
either. It is in the vocational area that we have our biggest
challenge.
Q849 Jonathan Shaw: Ivan Lewis, what
do people say to you about the structures when you travel round
the country? What do colleges say to you?
Mr Lewis: That there is a need
to get the design, the content and the assessment of vocational
qualifications fit for purpose, that in some cases we have been
able to do that, in others that we have not, that we need to look
at David's point about assessment, and we also need to look at
key skills, which are a constant challenge. Employers do talk
about basic skills, and I would make the point to members of the
Committee that the employers of today have not yet recruited the
kids that have benefited from the literacy and numeracy strategy
post-1997. I think we should make that point very clearly. But
employers also do not just complain about literacy and numeracy.
This is very important. The agenda is moving. Employers are also
talking—and I have a lot of sympathy for this—about
poor communications skills, poor inter-personal skills, no team
work, a lack of leadership, all things that are absolutely essential
in a modern labour market, and I personally think one of the challenges
for Tomlinson and us post-Tomlinson is not just vocational qualifications,
but if those young people achieving high-level qualifications,
vocational or academic or both, in our system do not come out
with those skills, ie the high-grade students, then there is something
going wrong in our education system.
Q850 Jonathan Shaw: It is not only
Tomlinson who has made us aware of those sorts of deficiencies
and those sorts of concerns. Colleges will be aware of that. Do
they ever say to you "If only you would allow us to do this,
if only you would allow us to do that"? Do they ever say
that, and what is your response?
Mr Lewis: What colleges I suppose
want is a more flexible system that enables them to build a curriculum,
build a learning experience, build a qualification route around
the needs and the strengths of individual young people, the personalisation
of education at the heart of where I believe this Government is
taking our education system. But if we are going to do that, we
have got to also maintain certain bottom-line standards and some
rigour. We cannot have a free-for-all. So for example, when employers
say, as they sometimes do, "We want employer fit-for-purpose
qualifications" I say, "Absolutely, and we have not
achieved that", but they have got to also understand that
in a modern world we have to give young people generic skills
as well. We cannot just train them in a very narrow way to do
a very specific job; they have also got to be willing to see us,
particularly if it is going to be publicly funded, support generic
skills. I think what we have got to improve on, if I can say so,
is that specialists in the field of vocational and employers have
to have a far greater input into the content design of vocational
qualifications than is the case.
Q851 Jonathan Shaw: Why do people
worry about saying vocational qualifications? It is politically
correct not to say it. Is it not the case really that people do
not want to start worrying about language? It is because of the
deficiencies within the system. It is not what they are called;
it is actually, more importantly, what is delivered to young people.
On the issue about involving employers, involving SMEs, I am sure
predecessors sitting in this chair going back 20 years have been
hearing the same thing. In terms of involving employers, young
people meeting the needs of employers, this is not something new,
is it? How confident are you that this time you can make that
difference?
Mr Lewis: I am more confident
in terms of the vision that we have established for the role of
the Sector Skills Councils, and before the Chairman lambasts me
by saying that there is none of them up and running yet, we have
made significant progress since the last time I gave evidence
on the development of Sector Skills Councils, and one of the clear
briefs that we have given those organisations is that they have
to be clear in articulating what they mean by meeting the needs
of their sectors, because also there is a problem with employers,
frankly, giving out very mixed messages in this area, being very
unclear about what they actually want from the education and training
system. Charles Clarke is probably the first Secretary of State
in living memory who has stressed that point. He has said he wants
to break down the barriers, one of his central objectives is to
break down the barriers between the world of education and training
and the needs of the labour market and the needs of employers.
So the Sector Skills Councils I believe will be extremely important
in terms of working with the QCA to get the design of these qualifications
more fit for purpose than they have been in the past.
Q852 Jonathan Shaw: What are the
mixed messages coming from employers?
Mr Lewis: That we do not have
an education and training system that meets our needs. Then, when
the Government says, "Absolutely right. We accept we need
a more demand-led system. Come on a journey with us to make that
happen" many employers start to flounder in terms of what
they really want and what they really mean by that, and also,
many employers, frankly, are not so sure that they want to commit
to their responsibilities and duties in this area, to work in
partnership with Government to raise the skills performance of
the nation. Many employers are excellent, but we need a far greater
buy-in from employers if we are going to create the education
and training system that really does meet the needs of the labour
market. I would say, very much in support of what David said on
Tomlinson, that the other point that is very important here is
that we have to design a system that is fit for purpose in terms
of labour market requirements over the next 20-30 years, not fit
for purpose in terms of the labour market today or what was needed
10 years ago.
Q853 Jonathan Shaw: One final question.
There is a lot of concern about the snobbishness—Ivan Lewis,
this is what you referred to in your opening statement—in
terms of vocational and academic qualifications, but clearly,
would it not send out a very clear message that vocational qualifications
were taken account of in terms of performance tables if it were
not, as at the moment, only GCSE? Would that not be the biggest
signal that the Government could give to young people that we
value all the qualifications if they were included in school performance
tables?
Mr Miliband: We do recognise GNVQ
beyond 16, and as I said, the latest publication or consultation
that we have on this year's tables talks quite extensively about
how we can give recognition and equivalence for vocational qualifications,
and I think there is a real shared agenda. We want to see that
done.
Mr Lewis: As an example, last
year when we were talking about the improvements in terms of GCSE
performance, what did the media say? What was the focus? The improvements
that have come have come via the improvements that have been achieved
in vocational qualifications, not in the more traditional academic
route, and therefore somehow that is less significant in terms
of the improvements in performance at 16. That was the media focus
on the results that we announced last summer. Those same media
people will say "What we need is a better vocational education
system. The Government should be doing more on apprenticeships."
It is a contradictory way that we look at education culturally.
So they are included. The debate is whether a wider range of qualifications
should in the future be included in the performance tables? The
implication, clearly, of Tomlinson is that that is something we
would be aiming to achieve.
Q854 Mr Jackson: Just tagging on
to this, a very important feature of the Government's higher education
policy is that there should be a big expansion of vocational higher
education amongst the anticipated 50% participation. I wonder
if Ministers could say something about how they see the developments
that we are talking of in the 14-19 group preparing for this,
and encouraging people to go down that route. At the moment it
is, I think, clearly the case that the vocational element in higher
education is requiring expansion and needs to be fed in order
to expand.
Mr Miliband: I am very excited
about the prospects for joining strengthened vocational options
at 14-19 with the expansion of foundation degrees in higher education,
because the insight that drove the decision to aim for a 50% target
was that in countries like the United States, the two-year community
college was filling an absolutely critical role at the middle,
technical area of further education, an area in which in this
country we have historically been very weak. To deliver the supply
routes into those foundation degrees we need to ensure that we
have a 14-19 system that has the participation and the progression
both in general skills and in more occupation-specific or vocation-specific
areas that will supply those routes. I think the development of
the eight vocational GCSEs, the exciting developments post-16
as well, and above all, the really striking take-up rates of young
people of these subjects suggests that we can create the participation
and progression up to 18 or 19 that will supply into higher education.
A final coda: a lot of people who go to do not just foundation
degrees but any degree at all will not be coming in at 18 or 19;
they will be coming in some time before they are 30, and we have
to make sure that the system is sufficiently open to allow that
sort of flexibility.
Q855 Chairman: I want to move on
in a moment to the Working Group on 14-19, but before we leave
that, both of you mentioned in answer to something Jonathan Shaw
said early on about the delivery of a vocational qualification,
not just in terms of the curriculum, the qualification, but who
delivers it, and I think you were hinting, David Miliband, at
the fact that some of the shortcomings are that the way of delivering,
the teaching, in a school situation of a vocational is difficult
because here we have a cadre of teachers used to delivering an
academic qualification, and they are finding it more difficult.
There is some research—and we are getting this from our
witnesses—that the college sector is very much better at
delivering this kind of unified educational delivery and qualification
and in a sense, is there not a problem here, which I touched on
when we opened these proceedings, that there is going to have
to be a very marked change in the way in which teachers teach
to cope with that problem?
Mr Miliband: I want to say quite
strongly that I do not see as stark a divide as you do between
college good, schools bad.
Q856 Chairman: I was not making a
stark divide, Minister. I was saying there are some problems.
Mr Miliband: I think that there
are challenges in both sectors. I think the way many schools have
embraced some of the new subjects actually suggests that there
is a willingness and a hunger to deliver. Where I am 100% with
you is that for increasing numbers of students, while their home
base will be in a sixth form or in a sixth-form college or in
an FE college or in a workplace, there will be increasing demand
for them to take other aspects of their study, spend other parts
of their week in other institutions. That is one of the things
that may be emerging, as you were referring to, and is certainly
strongly coming through to me in my discussions with people and
my visits around the country. That is the challenge that we have
to get right. It is not school or college or work; it is probably
going to be, for an increasing number of youngsters, especially
those who are currently dropping out, a mix of the two or three.
Q857 Helen Jones: You rightly said
earlier on, Minister, that to move to a unified system requires
a lot of detailed work, and I want to explore two aspects of that
with you. First of all, you did not mention in your opening statement
the work which perhaps needs to be done with parents in order
to explain to them the system we are moving to so they can assist
their youngsters to make choices. I would like you to say a little
about what the Department's thinking is on that. Secondly, does
it not also entail, if we are going to move to this system, quite
significant changes in the way that both schools and colleges
are set up and in their staffing so that we ensure that young
people have the facilities to take the kinds of courses that they
want to take? Have you looked at that at all as a Department,
and what is the Department doing to prepare for a move to that
system?
Mr Miliband: To take the two points,
we have increasing evidence from not just the programmes that
we are running, the increased flexibility programme or the Pathfinder
programme, but actually from schools and colleges which are not
part of those programmes but want to deliver a wider offer, of
how young people can be motivated to take these courses, stay
on in education, go further in their studies, and parents do have
an important role in that. I think it is premature to start selling
to parents the choices that might be available in five, six or
seven years' time. When Tomlinson reports, I anticipate there
will be some short-run, some medium-run and some long-term changes
that he proposes, and certainly at each and every one of those
stages the explanation to parents above all, but also to pupils
and the wider public, will be important. In relation to the staffing,
I think we have talked before about how important it is for schools—this
has been in the context of my responsibilities in relation to
workplace reform—to expand the range of staff that work
within schools. But I think, as I was implying in my answer to
the previous question, it is not just a matter of ensuring that
every institution can deliver every course; that is a holy grail
that is not going to be deliverable. We have got to develop the
systems that allow a college that has a particularly strong offer
in a particular area for that to be available to youngsters for
whom three-fifths or even four-fifths of the week is spent in
school.
Mr Lewis: Parents I feel quite
strongly about, in terms of not so much how we explain to them
the system, which is very important because it is not easy. The
current system is never easy to explain to people, and the new
system will be equally difficult. I think the whole issue of parental
involvement in the achievement of educational objectives is something
that we should have a greater focus on. I think low aspirations,
whether they be community aspirations or family or parent, are
a significant factor in terms of raising schools' standards and
raising educational attainment. We need to look at, in the context
of Every Child Matters, the Green Paper, the Children's Bill,
not only the way that we positively support parents but also the
way that we engage parents in the importance of education for
the life chances of their children and families. I am also very
strongly starting to speak about the relationship of what I do
on the adult skills side of the Department and the contribution
that bringing adults back into learning in their 30s, 40s and
50s, as parents and grandparents, can make to getting them to
understand that education is for them, not for somebody else,
to feel confident and to have their self-esteem improved in terms
of supporting their own kids' and grandchildren's education and
generally raising aspirations. David himself has been doing some
specific work in the North-East, where I think it is regarded
as a cultural issue that low aspirations permeate too many communities
and, working with the Regional Development Agency and then the
LSC, they are actually focusing in on the question of aspirations
and I think, if the Chairman will forgive me, it is something
that we all collectively need to look at in a far more significant
way. On Ms Jones's question about vocation, I think that what
has happened is that the vocational part of our education system
was largely ripped out, torn to pieces, and we need to rebuild
it, and part of rebuilding it is the work force; part of rebuilding
it is the quality of the infrastructure. I think specialist status
in many cases will help in that process. Further education, particularly
in relation to courses that further education are particularly
positive at putting on but also the centres of vocational excellence,
of which we now have several hundred around the country, can play
a major part. I also believe very strongly that we have to have
a more dynamic relationship between employers and educational
institutions. Employers have to offer more placements, but also
what is starting to really make a difference is employers promoting
mentoring from employees into local schools and colleges, supporting
individual young people and making the link. It is really important
that young people see the link between what they are doing in
that classroom, whatever they are doing, and their future life
chances. What we have been very poor at in the past is becoming
increasingly clear in terms of surveying young people. Around
this room we think education is a good thing. There are far too
many young people out there who have not even got to base one
in believing that education is a part of the solution to the things
that they want for themselves in their lives, and a very important
way of doing that is to make the link between what they are doing
while they are 14, 15 or 16 or 17 and what kind of earning potential,
what kind of quality of life they can have in the future if they
have a higher level of education. All the evidence is now suggesting
a growing number of young people believe the root to success is
through Pop Idol or, dare I say it, through the Beckham route,
which can be read in a few different ways at the moment. Many
young people do not necessarily assume, as we do, that education
is for them and is the route to the standard of living, the quality
of life, the earning potential that is a massive motivator to
today's generation of largely sophisticated young people. We need
to actually make the case to them—not all of them—but
particularly where parental aspiration does not exist, why education
is exceptionally important.
Q858 Helen Jones: Two things follow
from that. Do you accept that if we are going to have an offer
to young people which exists throughout an area so that they can
move between institutions, there is an inevitable tension between
that and developing things like specialist schools and city academics—not
that they do not have advantages but you could end up in an area
with, say, a couple of language schools and no school specialising
in engineering or in IT, for instance. How do you resolve that
question? The other question is that staffing has to go wider
in terms of what you said about mentoring. Ken Boston, when he
was giving evidence to us earlier in the week, talked about young
people having a training and vocational education that was of
industrial standards. Surely, if we are going to achieve that,
there is going to have to be more movement of staffing between
industry and education as well as mentoring. What thought has
the Department given to how you achieve those two things: a proper
offer throughout a district and the right standard of training
with the required staff to do it, which requires employers to
cooperate in that as well as the education system?
Mr Miliband: I would say that
in relation to the first question, the way in which a spread of
specialisms is being developed, to take that as an example, is
through dialogue. Schools that are now applying for specialist
status are looking around them and if they see a language college
next door they are actually thinking it would make more sense
for them to go into science or another area, and I think you are
also seeing local education authorities taking a strategic role.
Sheffield is in my mind because they wrote to me last week. They
have a plan for 28 secondary schools in Sheffield, each of them
to have a specialism, and they are working with the schools to
get the sort of spread. It is more of a challenge in rural areas
because you might not have the nine schools to cover the nine
specialisms. So I think it is dialogue that achieves that spread,
and I think it is very important to say that every school or every
college having a real sense of its own identity and its own contribution
to the local system is the prerequisite for the sort of collaborative
structures that we need. It is strong institutions that partner
rather than weak ones.
Q859 Helen Jones: Should not the
funding system also encourage a spread of different specialisms?
Mr Miliband: We have thought about
that, but I think that would have to be a funding system from
the centre, whereas actually you have such diversity in different
areas, it would be very hard to tune a specialist school funding
regime either on the capital side or the current side, and we
think the benefit of simplicity, of saying it is £126 per
pupil per specialist school, has greater clarity to it. We do
make a particular effort in areas of sport and languages, and
now in engineering as well, where if we have a job to do to make
sure there is a proper national spread because they provide a
national infrastructure, for example, of school sports co-ordinators.
So that is the way we have done it rather than through the financial
route, and actually the school sports co-ordinator model and the
specialist sport college route suggests that we are getting a
national infrastructure that I think you want. In relation to
your second point about staffing, I think it is a very big step
forward to say that the TTA is taking a wider range of responsibilities,
and essentially becoming a sort of human resources directorate
for the education system, and the evidence that we now have of
career changers coming into teaching speaks directly to your point
about getting the benefits of people from industry into education
mid-career. It was reported in one of the papers last week that
from being the 100th choice of job changers 10 years ago, education
is now one of the top five choices for a career change, or even
the top one, I think, according to some studies. That certainly
is matched by the evidence we are seeing on the number of people
coming into teacher training, either through conventional routes
or through some of the newer graduate teacher programme routes.
I think schemes like the graduate teacher programme will help
deliver the sort of staffing that you want.
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