Our
inquiry
1. On 10 March 2006, we announced an inquiry into
the education of the children of Service personnel.[1]
Our intention was to examine Service schools overseas and the
performance of the Ministry of Defence's agency, Service Children's
Education (SCE), which is responsible for providing these schools.
We also intended to examine issues affecting Service children
in UK state-maintained and independent sector day and boarding
schools. The motive for our inquiry was an awareness that the
education of their children was a matter of major importance to
Service personnel, with implications for retention and even operational
effectiveness.
2. As part of our inquiry, on 22-23 March 2006, we
visited two SCE schools in Germany: Bishopspark Primary School,
Paderborn and King's School, a Comprehensive Secondary School
in Gütersloh. During this visit we met students, parents,
teachers, military personnel, and SCE officials and discussed
the issues facing SCE schools and Service children overseas and
at home.
3. On 24 April 2006, we visited two state-maintained
schools in Colchester, Essex, both of which have a significant
number of pupils who are the children of Service personnel. During
our visit to Montgomery Junior School and Alderman Blaxill School
we met teachers, Service families and Service children and discussed
their experiences of educating Service children.
4. During our visit to Alderman Blaxill School we
held a formal evidence session with students who are the children
of Service personnel, Service families and teachers.[2]
We would like to thank the students and staff of the schools we
visited and particularly those at Alderman Blaxill School for
hosting our evidence session and for providing such valuable evidence
for our inquiry.
5. On 2 May 2006, we took oral evidence at Westminster
from the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence,
Mr Don Touhig MP and MoD and SCE officials. Don Touhig left the
Government on 5 May 2006 and was replaced as Parliamentary Under-Secretary
for Defence by Mr Tom Watson MP. We are grateful to Mr Don Touhig
for giving oral evidence.
6. At our third and final evidence session on 13
June 2006, we took oral evidence from the Minister for Schools,
Jim Knight MP and a DfES official.
7. We received written evidence from a wide range
of organisations, including organisations involved in educating
Service children, and from Service parents. We are grateful to
everyone who provided oral and written evidence to our inquiry
and for helping arrange our visits. We are also grateful to our
Specialist Adviser, Brigadier Austin Thorp, who assisted us during
this inquiry.
Web forum
- Alongside the formal written
evidence and oral evidence sessions, we hosted an interactive
web forum on educating Service children between 18 April and 26
May.[3] A summary of the
themes raised in the forum is included in the Annex to this report.
We draw on the contributions to illustrate particular issues that
were raised with us in our inquiry. We are grateful to all those
who contributed and to the Hansard Society and the Committee Office
Scrutiny Unit for their help in establishing the forum.
| Web forum statistics
|
5,000 page hits
115 postings of which:
- 12 from young people
- 61 from Service families page
- 17 from teachers page
- 25 from schools page
|
9. At the mid-point of our web forum we heard informally that
SCE teachers had been told not to take part in the forum. We wrote
to the MoD seeking assurances that this was not the case.[4]
In response, the new Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Defence,
Mr Tom Watson MP, stated that "there is every encouragement
for such engagement and I am sorry if the impression has been
created that this is not the case".[5]
The Minister also stated that in line with long-standing principles,
MoD-employed teachers should only comment on personal experiences
and not matters of policy. In light of the Minister's positive
response to our concerns we decided to extend our web forum for
a further two weeks. Activity in the teachers' section of our
forum picked up slightly, but remained disappointingly low overall.
10. The web
forum provided an opportunity for us to hear the views of, and
communicate with, a broad range of people, including those based
overseas. We regret that SCE staff and schools were not actively
encouraged to participate from the beginning but welcome the MoD's
acceptance that there is no reason why MoD employees should not
contribute to fora of this kind if their purpose is to relay personal
experience rather than comment on Government policy. We consider
the forum to have been a valuable experience and we intend to
build on this experience in future inquiries.
1 www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/defence_committee/def060310___no__26.cfm Back
2
For a full list of witnesses see p 57 Back
3
www.tellparliament.net/defcom Back
4
Ev 76 Back
5
Ev 77 Back
