Examination of Witnesses (Questions 500-519)
18 JANUARY 2005
DR IAN
COLWILL AND
MR JOHN
WESTAWAY
Q500 Mr Ainsworth: It is a pity, is it
not?
Mr Westaway: Yes.
Q501 Mr Ainsworth: What do you think
the headline indicator should look like?
Mr Westaway: It is easier to say
there should be one than to actually come up with one because
I think any headline indicator that one thinks about that would
encapsulate children's experience of Education for Sustainable
Development in the course of their school lives or even more ambitiously
looking at the outcomes of that process, would be very, very difficult
to measure.
Q502 Mr Ainsworth: How important do you
think it is that the strategy should contain this headline indicator?
Not important enough obviously to have mentioned it to the Government?
Dr Colwill: We have already put
our hair shirt on that one.
Mr Westaway: I am not sure whether
it is a consultation which you are invited to contribute to. As
an individual officer of the QCA I am not sure I can send a submission
into the sustainability development strategy saying, "I,
speaking as QCA, feel this . . ."
Q503 Mr Ainsworth: I do not know whether
either of you are betting people but what do you think are the
chances that such a headline indicator, as you say you favour,
will end up in the strategy?
Mr Westaway: Very low.
Dr Colwill: I think one of the
key issues on headline indicators is the tendency to go for what
you might describe as hard indicators such as five A*s to Cs or
whatever. What you really, I suggest, want to look for in terms
of headline indicators in terms of Education for Sustainable Development
may not be something that reflects necessarily on academic achievement
but what it needs to express is something of the experiences and
the aptitudes that students have developed. The point that John
is making is that it becomes very hard to identify exactly how
you would assess that, but the value of an indicator which identified
certain experiences that all students had an entitlement to as
part of their education in sustainability would be one way forward.
In recent work on the RE framework, for example, one of the things
that we thought it was very important to include was the fact
that there were certain experiences that were part and parcel
of any RE education as opposed to simply knowledge, skills and
understanding. I think there would be an opportunity to put some
emphasis on experiences and attributes and aptitudes as opposed
to simply on the hard indicator, and that may well provide a kind
of target and goal that would focus policies within schools.
Mr Ainsworth: But it will not be in the
strategy? Thank you.
Q504 Chairman: Just going back to Mr
Ainsworth's question—
Mr Westaway: Not again!
Q505 Chairman: —about whether or
not people are invited to comment on consultation and proposals
that are out for consultation. Who within your organisation within
QCA would have the leadership role to say, "We are going
to contribute to this and we are going to make sure it does contain
sustainable development." If it is not you or whoever is
at the head of the organisation who does it, who is it?
Mr Westaway: That is a very good
question.
Dr Colwill: It works two ways.
If a consultation came into QCA addressed to the Chief Executive
it would then be directed down to me as the Director of Curriculum
and I would then work with people in QCA to formulate a response.
That is in a reactive situation.
Q506 Chairman: If it was just on somebody's
web site and you did not happen to pick it up you would not respond,
you would wait to be asked to do it?
Dr Colwill: This is where we talk
about where you are with initiatives if they are only on web sites.
Q507 Chairman: It is a bit like when
I ask my local authority why they have not responded maybe they
have not picked it up on the web site? Let's move on to Tomlinson
then. Did you contribute to Tomlinson?
Dr Colwill: We were very much
involved both in terms of being part of the management group that
was supporting Tomlinson and also through our officers in providing
technical support to the various working parties that Tomlinson
set up. Much of that technical support was about details of assessment,
which you can imagine, on how a diploma might take place and so
on.
Q508 Chairman: So what is QCA's view
on the ESD content in the report?
Dr Colwill: The point has already
been made that there are no specific references there. Our view
was—and we put this in our response—that the opportunity
for developing elements of that would be through the common knowledge,
skills and attributes that need to be developed to create the
core, and I think Brian Stevens talked about the levels of detail
within the report. There is quite clearly a lot of work going
on now as the report is translated into the Government-response
White Paper which is looking at those elements. We have been,
for example, commenting on the common skills-set and trying to
make sure that aspects of social responsibility in terms of national,
local and global responsibility are an element of that.
Q509 Chairman: If I am right, your Chief
Executive gave this a gold star. I think he said, "I congratulate
Mike Tomlinson and the 14-19 Working Group on their thorough and
wide-ranging report." If it was thorough and wide-ranging
should it not have adequately represented ESD in terms of the
final report? It does not seem to be in there.
Dr Colwill: As I say, I think
the potential is there for the negotiation in that sense. There
are quite a number of other things. There is no reference to individual
subjects in there either. The report was setting out a broad framework
for publication and that is what Ken was commenting on, and indeed
we do endorse the report in its entirety. We feel it is important
that the report is dealt with in its entirety because what this
provides is a whole framework for taking forward curriculum development
over the next 10 years. It is a very broad picture report as opposed
to detail.
Q510 Chairman: But how would you respond
to the contributions that we have heard from other witnesses to
our inquiry where we have looked at the comparable situation,
for example in Wales, where what goes on within the Welsh education
system is very much, if you like, informed by the presence of
a duty of sustainable development because that is totally lacking,
is it not, in terms of how we are taking it forward here? I do
not see how we are going to get ESD into whatever the outcome
of the White Paper is.
Dr Colwill: There are other equally
key lobbies, for example RE and citizenship. I was chairing the
RE framework group and they were concerned that there is no explicit
recognition of the statutory nature of RE within that report.
As I say, it is not simply ESD, it is citizenship, whether it
is RE or other issues, that is concerned about that kind of absence
of detail. Those things were raised with the groups. As I say,
I think the thrust of what Tomlinson was aiming to do was to create
the broader framework.
Q511 Chairman: Okay, so we have got the
broader framework, we have got the White Paper coming out imminently.
How likely is it that it is going to say something in the White
Paper?
Dr Colwill: I think you would
have to ask the Department that. As I say, we have been looking
at various developments coming through, one of which has been
looking at a common skills-set which would go down from 14 through
to lower secondary. We have been looking at that with a view to
making sure that various skills that are already embedded in the
National Curriculum are there.
Q512 Chairman: Does that cover sustainable
development?
Dr Colwill: It would certainly
cover social skills in terms of local, national and global responsibility
and pick up on citizenship skills. There would be an opportunity
there for that.
Mr Westaway: My personal view
would be that it is unlikely to be explicitly mentioned as Education
for Sustainable Development. Going back to your comparison with
Wales, although I do not claim to have a complete understanding
of the situation in Wales, it seems to me that there is a much
higher level of commitment to Education for Sustainable Development
lying behind any developments in the curriculum and assessment
than would be true in England. If there were that same degree
of political will lying behind Tomlinson in England then it seems
to me there would be a higher probability of it appearing.
Q513 Chairman: What I am really asking
myself is we know that there is nothing in Tomlinson so it is
a question of what might be in the White Paper and you say that
is a matter for DfES, that is a matter for the political will,
but it seems that you are not showing leadership—not just
you but other organisations as well—and banging the table
and saying ESD must be in there. If there is some kind of a void
and lack of any conceptual thinking that is advising the delivery
mechanisms that we need, is there not a need to have some, I hardly
dare mention it, panel as a way in which we need to have somebody
who is able to provide that input which just seems to be lacking?
Would you agree with that?
Mr Westaway: I personally would
agree.
Q514 Chairman: You would? That is a personal
opinion.
Mr Westaway: I am not sure whether
QCA would agree.
Dr Colwill: Our contributions
to the White Paper are varied and some are accepted and some are
not accepted and how it finally turns out will ultimately depend
on the decisions that ministers make about the text they want
to put in there. We are very conscious of that. We have not yet
seen a first draft of the White Paper.
Q515 Chairman: Can you not see it is
a vicious circle that is going to depend on what comes forward.
If what comes forward is the question of people waiting to be
asked to put it forward and not putting it forward we are individually
and severally not taking the responsibility for getting this agenda
seized.
Mr Westaway: I agree with you
but that is not to say even if we were jumping up and down and
saying these things they would necessarily lead to the outcomes
that we want.
Mr Thomas: The DfES do not listen.
Chairman: We can perhaps ask them tomorrow
and decide the extent to which they are listening. Mr Thomas?
Q516 Mr Thomas: That takes us on to the
curriculum because one of the disappointing aspects of your evidence
to this Committee is the fact that you say there has not been
a discernable improvement since we last reported on those matters.
You say there has been no evidence there of real progress in looking
at Education for Sustainable Development. Why do you think that
is?
Mr Westaway: I think it was in
relation to the embedding of ESD into specific curriculum areas
that we were talking about. I think it is partly as Ian said the
relatively slow pace of change. This is one area where there have
been developments by the Department. They commissioned subject
associations to develop some schemes of work units with a higher
profile for ESD.
Q517 Mr Thomas: Do you know if they are
near to completion? You are involved in those, I presume?
Mr Westaway: We have an involvement
at the end of the process. They will come to us for checking before
adding to the web site and I received in December a scheme of
work units in the four subjects that the Department commissioned
and they are now being copy edited and will be on the web site
within the next month or two.
Q518 Mr Thomas: What are those four subjects?
Mr Westaway: Design and technology,
citizenship, geography and science.
Q519 Mr Thomas: Is there any intention
to carry on from those four or is that where they are going to
get to?
Mr Westaway: The words of the
Action Plan were initially in those four subjects, so again you
might wish to ask the Department whether they plan to widen the
net or not. We have commissioned the Historical Association to
develop some units just this month and we are hoping to do the
same with ICT. That is QCA working within the web site development.
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