Examination of Witnesses (Questions 490-499)
LORD ADONIS
6 NOVEMBER 2006
Q490 Chairman: Can I welcome Lord Adonis
to the proceedings? It is some time since we had you in front
of the Committee. If I remember, it was Education Outside the
Classroom.
Lord Adonis: It seems all too
recently actually, Chairman. Special Education.
Q491 Chairman: I am right in saying
that Education Outside the Classroom has been removed from you
and across to Jim Knight?
Lord Adonis: It has, and I am
sure he would be delighted to appear before you.
Q492 Chairman: Can I welcome you
and say that I do not know what magic ingredient you have, Andrew,
because we have tried Ken Livingstone, all sorts of people, in
front of the Committee in the last couple of weeks to bring in
the national press, and suddenly you are here and they are here.
Sir Trevor Phillips and Ken Livingstone did not do it; you have
done it.
Lord Adonis: I am delighted I
provide such a parliamentary service to the Committee.
Q493 Chairman: You know that this
is an inquiry that we are coming to the end of on citizenship.
In fact, it is a very good day for the Committee because we visited
a Muslim school in Tooting this morning, which you know well,
which was the last visit of the inquiry. We are more or less ready
to write up, but before we can do that, we have an interview with
you. This is a difficult area really, is it not? We have taken
some time getting what I call some shape on this inquiry, and
some of us believe perhaps that is because it is a bit of a shapeless
subject out there. Can I invite you to say a few words before
we start asking our questions?
Lord Adonis: I would be delighted
to, Chairman. Perhaps I can apologise in advance that, although
I have got out of most of the votes in my House this afternoon,
I may be summoned down for the vote on extradition, but I promise
to come back. Thank you, Chairman, for the opportunity to say
a few words and, of course, I have been paying close attention
to the proceedings on this important inquiry. Citizenship education
was only introduced nationally four years ago as a statutory subject,
but it obviously takes time to get a completely new subject for
which there was previously virtually no specialist teachers or
support materials embedded school by school. There has been reasonable
progress. We have introduced initial teacher training and continuing
professional development opportunities for citizenship teachers;
there is an increasingly popular short course GCSE with a full
GCSE and A level to follow; support materials for schools have
been developed; the Association of Citizenship Teaching is now
thriving; and Keith Ajegbo's review is under way and will, we
hope, strengthen the subject further. Of course, there is a good
deal more to do. Ofsted reported in September that the provision
for citizenship education is inadequate in a quarter of schools.
We need to continue strengthening the subject, with more specialist
teachers, more continuing professional development and more support,
and we are seeking to do all these three things. May I also highlight
some of the other Ofsted findings to make three broad points?
First, when citizenship is taken seriously as a subject by schools,
the evidence is that it is being taught well. Of the lessons observed
in Ofsted's 2005-06 sample of schools, seven in every 10 were
judged to be good; less than one in 20 lessons were deemed to
be inadequate. The report does note that poorer lessons reflected
limitations in teachers' subject knowledge, which is precisely
why we need more specialist teachers and more CPD. The Department
is funding a new CPD certificate in citizenship for 1,200 teachers
over the next two years. Secondly, citizenship is a demanding
subject to teach well. It is designed to teach pupils about the
rights and responsibilities of citizens in a participatory democracy.
Its job is to introduce students to a host of challenging debates
which occur locally, nationally and globally, and citizenship
should inform the ethos and value system of every school, for
example, in volunteering, in the work of school councils and other
exercises in direct pupil participation in their own school community.
The Department is giving a good deal of support in particular
to school councils and Professor Geoff Whitty, who is one of your
professional advisers and Director of the Institute of Education,
will shortly be reporting to Alan Johnson on their future development.
Thirdly, can I say a word about Keith Ajegbo's diversity and citizenship
curriculum review? Keith and his team are examining best practice
on how diversity can be promoted in schools throughout the curriculum.
The team is also considering whether modern British history should
be incorporated into the secondary citizenship education curriculum.
We expect to have his report in the New Year and Alan Johnson
will report to Parliament on any proposed curriculum changes before
Easter. In conclusion, I am glad to note from your previous hearings
that there is a broad consensus that citizenship education can
contribute significantly to young people's understanding of the
democratic culture and practice of the United Kingdom and their
willingness to participate more fully in our society. Without
doubt, this is a challenging area, but our schools are to be congratulated
on the good progress they have been making and we need to give
them appropriate encouragement and support to do better still.
Q494 Chairman: Thank you for that.
Can I say to you that you mentioned our specialist adviser, Geoff
Whitty, who we are very pleased and delighted maintains the relationship
with this Committee. As I understand it, you have suggested that
we can have a copy of his report as soon as it is available. Would
you say the same about Keith Ajegbo's report?
Lord Adonis: Absolutely. He is
working hard on it at the moment. We hope to have the report shortly
before Christmas. It may be that we have an interim report sooner
than that, which I will be in a position to send you, or at least,
a summary of what it says. If I can do so, I certainly will.
Q495 Chairman: Any material you give
to us is treated in the correct way, as you know.
Lord Adonis: Indeed.
Q496 Chairman: We were a little disappointed
last week when your comments on our inquiry into the further education
system were put on the Department's press coverage before we were
communicated with. When you have a team meeting, perhaps you could
just say.
Lord Adonis: I will pass on those
comments.
Q497 Chairman: That has never happened
before.
Lord Adonis: I will see that anything
I send you goes straight to you before it goes to anyone else.
Q498 Chairman: Thank you, but you
will mention it at a team meeting?
Lord Adonis: I undertake to do
so.
Q499 Chairman: Can we get started
then? We found it very difficult until quite late on in this inquiry.
Normally when you are taking oral evidence, as we do, and all
the written evidence that comes in, we do visits, quite early
there is some kind of shape, some feeling that you are getting
to some conclusions in an inquiry. This one has been more difficult.
All our colleagues have said, "Yes, it is difficult to get
your hands on this particular subject." We have actually
done better as time has gone on, and especially the visits have
brought to life not only the challenges of the citizenship agenda
but also seeing some good practice in schools like the Blue School
in Wells and a very good school in Nailsea that we visited on
the same day. But when you talk to people at the sharp end in
the schools, on the one hand, they are very enthusiastic about
the subject; on the other, they are worried that this was one
of the Government's fashions of two or three years ago and perhaps
it is waning and the Government has moved on to a new fashion.
Would you understand that feeling out there?
Lord Adonis: I do not think that
is correct. Of course, this followed Bernard Crick's review. It
was introduced as a curriculum subject five years ago and took
effect in schools four years ago, but I think if you look at the
record of my Department, it has been one of consistent support
in terms of the training of teachers, materials provided for teachers
and the emphasis we give to citizenship. Getting a completely
new subject off the ground from scratch in schools is challenging,
particularly when it is one for which there were virtually no
specialist teachers before, and which is multifaceted as a subject.
Reading through the evidence that has been presented to you, there
is a big debate in the citizenship community itself and within
the schools about how far citizenship should be a discrete subject,
taught discretely in citizenship lessons, how far it can be taught
across the curriculum, and what is the overlap with, for example,
geography and modern history, where there is clearly a substantial
overlap. There are those big and vibrant debates within the education
and curriculum communities, and the other big debate which I see
in schools the whole time and you will have picked up from your
visits is how far citizenship should be regarded as an applied
subject, something that schools do in practice. Of course, clearly,
they must do both, but how you relate what they do in an applied
way with how they actually teach the theory of citizenship, the
component parts of political literacy and so on is a debate that
schools are having up and down the country. One of the things
that has most struck me as a minister visiting schools and reflecting
on the change from when I was at school is the huge development
of school councils, which is the reason we have Geoff Whitty looking
at how that area of work can be developed. I should say that on
about half of the school visits I make now, without any prompting
from me, part of the schedule of my visit is a meeting with the
school council. When I was at school they barely existed—my
school never had one, and the idea of democratic participation
in the school would have been regarded by my headmaster as some
kind of indication of forthcoming anarchy—whereas now they
are an established part of schools. They do fantastic work, including
in an increasing number of primary schools. That is just one amongst
many examples of citizenship in action within schools, and it
is the combination of that applied dimension to citizenship in
schools with the theory that I think is one of the challenging
areas that schools have to wrestle with. As I say, the introduction
of citizenship is a multifaceted issue, but I would not say that
it is anything other than central to my Department's objectives
for the curriculum, and we do recognise that we need to make continuing
investment and support available to schools.
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