| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
7 Mar 2006 : Column 1427W—continued
Educational Attainment
Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what proportion of (a) children in receipt of free school meals, (b) pupils with special educational needs and (c) all children aged 15 years at the end of the 2004–05 academic year achieved (i) five or more A*-C grades at GCSE and equivalent including mathematics and English and (ii) no A*-C grades at GCSE and equivalent, broken down by type of school, excluding grammar school. [55070]
Jacqui Smith: The information requested can be found in the following table.
(49) Age at the start of the academic year
(50) Including city technology colleges and academies
(51) Including community and foundation special schools
(52) Including statemented and non-statemented SEN pupils
(53) Includes pupils who have not completed the Pupil Level Annual School Census (as in national figures)
Educational Needs
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will make a statement on the proposed pathfinder project to assist the identification of children whose needs could be met by appropriate boarding provision. [53583]
Maria Eagle:
We made a commitment in the White Paper, Higher Standards, Better Schools for All", to work with a sample of local authorities and boarding schools to develop tools for identifying and assessing those children whose needs could best be met by appropriate boarding provision. These tools would then be embedded within the needs assessment and commissioning systems of the participating local authorities, who would apply to place children in
7 Mar 2006 : Column 1428W
vulnerable circumstances in one of the participating boarding schools, where a careful assessment of a child's individual needs indicated that this would be beneficial.
The Department for Education and Skills hosted a conference on 20 January with some boarding schools and local authorities that has helped to highlight some of the issues that need to be addressed. The conference confirmed that there is certainly enough interest and support amongst schools and local authorities to continue to develop the policy. The Department is currently working up more detailed proposals for consultation with those boarding schools and authorities who are interested.
Efficiency Savings
Mrs. Villiers: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what baseline figures she is using for assessing progress on her Department's targets to (a) enable frontline professionals in schools, colleges and higher education institutions to use their time more productively through (i) workforce reform, (ii) investment in ICT and (iii) reducing administrative burdens, (b) improve procurement of goods, services and new buildings, (c) streamline the delivery system through improvements in policy, funding and regulation, (d) free up resources from the cost of (A) her Department, (B) her Department's non-departmental public bodies and (C) the Office for Standards in Education by reducing overlaps, simplifying systems, better procurement and rationalisation of back office functions and (e) pursue additional efficiency gains, including improvements in school-level financial management; what progress has been made towards these targets to date; and what the total efficiency savings achieved to date are for these targets. [52920]
Ruth Kelly: The information requested has been placed in the House Libraries.
e-Government
Margaret Moran: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will list the internet access points funded by Government Departments; and what the (a) location and (b) postcode is of each. [55697]
Phil Hope: The information is as follows.
To date there are over 6,000 UK online centres, including around 3,000 non-library centres. Colleagues in the Communications and Media Team at Ufi have created a detailed spreadsheet, giving full contact details for each of these centres, including e-mail and website addresses.
This spreadsheet includes centres across three groupings, including:
Public library—As these are based in public libraries they are therefore open to the general public; and the access points in the libraries were funded through government money from the Capital Modernisation Fund (CMF) via the People's Network project.
Funded non library centres—These centres were funded through public money via the CMF, the vast majority of these are open to the public but some are restricted to specific user groups. The spreadsheet indicates whether they are open to the public or not.
Non funded—These centres did not receive government money. They were approved to use the UK online brand through one of three sponsor organisations, (Becta, Niace or e-skills), but received no public money. Most of these are open to the public, but some are not. Again the spreadsheet identifies these.
Those centres not open to the public are likely to be for use for people in specific workplaces, residential care or community specific organisations.
The data on funding provided is not necessarily comprehensive, but are based on the information gathered since Ufi took on the management responsibility of UK online centres.
All address details can be found on the Ufi website at www.ufi.co.uk/ukol/.
Enterprise Advisor Service
Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills whether the Enterprise Advisor Service will continue to be funded after July 2006; and if she will make a statement. [55667]
Phil Hope: The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) is currently evaluating the impact, effectiveness and efficiency of the Service. The Department will consider jointly with the LSC how best to continue to promote and support enterprise in schools in the light of that evaluation.
Ethnic Pupils
Mr. Khan: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what research she has conducted into under-achievement in schools by ethnic minority pupils. [56442]
Jacqui Smith: The Department has an active research and analysis programme on the attainment of pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds. In addition to our annual publication on the attainment of pupils by ethnicity across the Key Stages we have published a series of topic papers on minority ethnic pupils and education, the most recent of which was published in January 2005. These include statistics and research on the attainment of under-achieving minority ethnic groups. current and recently completed research projects include an evaluation of the Aiming High: Raising the Achievement of African-Caribbean Pupils" project and an analysis of the attainment of minority ethnic pupils in Excellence in Cities areas. All of the Department's research on minority ethnic pupils can be accessed from www.dfes.gov.uk/research
Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps the Government are taking to monitor the collective achievement and progress of pupils with (a) Turkish and (b) other ethnic backgrounds that are not Census ethnic group categories; and if she will make a statement. [56021]
Jacqui Smith:
Data from the Annual Schools Census, linked to the national pupil data base, allows the Department to collect and analyse on an annual basis on the achievement of pupils by ethnic group. Data on pupils' ethnicity is currently collected using the codes
7 Mar 2006 : Column 1430W
from the national population Census. The any other white background" category includes Turkish pupils. However, Turkish as a separate ethnic code is included in an extended list which contains 70 additional categories which can be used by schools and local authorities to meet their local data collection needs.
From 2007 schools and authorities will be able to collect information on pupils' languages by selecting from an extensive list. This will help with the planning of inclusion and equality strategies, at both national and local level. Turkish will be one of the languages that will be available to record from 2007.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |