Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260
- 278)
WEDNESDAY 31 JANUARY 2007
RT HON
JIM KNIGHT
MP AND MR
JON COLES
Q260 Stephen Williams: So it sounds
as though quite a lot of development work is going on. Who is
going to be delivering these courses? Is it going to be a bidding
process for training providers to provide the content?
Mr Coles: In fact the contract
has already been let for the main piece of Diploma development
work to Nord Anglia who are going to be the contractors delivering
the materials. The Special Schools and Academies Trust will be
providing the network of professional support based on their existing
networks.
Q261 Chairman: They are celebrating
their 20th anniversary at the moment; it seems almost to be a
mini-department. Who calls the shots to them?
Jim Knight: The SSAT?
Q262 Chairman: Yes. Who is the Minister
in charge of that lot?
Jim Knight: Both myself and Andrew
have regular contact with SSAT and I think the Secretary of State
last week was with the SSAT at the Guildhall. So all three of
us have a strong relationship with Cyril, Liz and the team.
Q263 Stephen Williams: When will
the professional staff actually be able to access these courses?
Obviously they are keen to know what the courses are going to
involve and get their teeth into them, so how soon will they be
able to pick up on training?
Jim Knight: Once we have made
the decisions on the Gateway in March then the work begins from
that point, does it not, Jon?
Mr Coles: Yes. So people are starting
work now on the generic teaching materials. We would expect actual
professional development to be delivered from October this year.
Theoretically it will be available from September—September
is not a great month, of course, for schools to be looking at
professional development, so from October onwards. We would expect,
as I say, in general the delivery to be two days of professional
development probably in the period before Christmas and then a
day subsequent to that.
Q264 Stephen Williams: So as soon
as the applicants for the Gateway process know whether they have
got through that stage it will be October and then they can start
accessing the training?
Mr Coles: Yes.
Q265 Stephen Williams: This one day
of the vocational part of it all, the hands-on part of it, is
that really enough? I was thinking about something like health
and social care, and I do not know what the content of the Diploma
is going to be, that is a huge area in itself, covering everything
from doctors' surgeries to district nurses, old peoples' homes
and so on, but is one day at the start really going to give the
teachers enough of a feel for what the real world, if you like,
is like?
Jim Knight: I think it is important
to bear in mind what I have said about building on what is already
there, and that many of those people, the people doing the teaching
and the instructing around skills where it is most important to
have that industrial experience will have that already. Some of
those that are then doing some of the core skills and some of
the specialist elements that perhaps are not as related will benefit
in terms of developing the right culture of teaching and learning
from that day's experience, but we would expect those that go
through the Gateway to have good industrial experience already.
Q266 Stephen Williams: On this point
of building on what is already there, does that rather imply that
the people who are likely to get through the first tranche, through
your Gateway, are going to be the sort of colleges that do very
similar work to this at the moment, so it is not going to be new
providers?
Jim Knight: You must remember
the saying "similar is the same" because I know the
way some people think. Some of the elements within the Diploma
will be very similar to what they are doing at the moment, but
we do want to ensure that we have got this different style of
teaching and learning which is both academic and work-related,
and a lot of what we are trying to do with the CPD is to create
that.
Mr Coles: I think it is fair to
say that in the assessments going through the Gateway process,
because one of the key criteria is about workforce, we do need
to see either that there is an existing workforce, which is getting
close to what is needed to deliver, or there is a very credible
plan for acquiring that workforce quickly. I think in direct answer
to your question, it is likely that a significant proportion of
those coming through the Gateway will be consortia which have
got some kind of quite strong track record in related areas; that
is inevitably going to be the case. There will be some, though,
who have got rather further to travel but have a very strong plan
in that area and, of course, there will be people who have got
such strengths in other areas that we can be confident that they
will deliver in the workforce area as well.
Q267 Stephen Williams: What I was
driving towards was building on what Jeff Ennis was alluding to
earlier. If this is going to succeed, it is going to be something
which needs to be delivered in every community in the country,
is it not? We are now going to have a separation of schools which
teach GCSEs and A levels and other consortia which teach this
Diploma. I am slightly worried when you say we are building on
what is already there that we are not going to have this Diploma
available in every single school, every single college in the
country, and we are going to have this separation of sheep and
goats which has bedevilled British education since 1944.
Jim Knight: That is why we have
got a period of five years for those first Diplomas, and obviously
that reduces slightly as the others come through. It is quite
a significant gap for 2013 for us to work with those partnerships
across the country to ensure that their entitlement is on the
basis of quality when it is fully available in 2013.
Q268 Mr Chaytor: Minister, the introduction
of the Diplomas reflects an unprecedented co-ordination of the
curriculum, but the structures for delivering this reflect an
unprecedented fragmentation through the proliferation of small
sixth forms. My question is what assessment has the Department
made of the economics of more small sixth forms as against an
expansion of colleges? What assessment has the Department made
of the performance of small sixth forms as against larger sixth
forms or colleges?
Jim Knight: In the specific context
of Diploma delivery or in general terms?
Q269 Mr Chaytor: What I am saying
is, what is the evidence the Department has about the educational
performance of very small sixth forms of which you are now promoting
more? What evidence does the Department have about the cost of
educating young people in small sixth forms as against larger
institutions?
Mr Coles: Our position on expansion
of post-16 learning is expansion on the basis of success and quality,
and that is what informs both the presumption for new sixth form
expansion but also the FE presumption which is coming in this
year.
Q270 Mr Chaytor: But merely because
a school is successful at 11-16 does not necessarily mean it can
replicate that success with a very small sixth form and within
a very narrow curriculum which the small sixth form would be providing.
Jim Knight: One of the things
I guess I am hoping to see as a result of this Diploma programme
is a stronger development of collaboration at 14-19. One of the
five criteria they will be assessed as they go through the Gateway
is on the strength of that collaboration so the schools and colleges
can play to their strengths and then small sixth forms can have
a role offering their learners some A levels, but those learners
might go to other institutions. As we have clearly articulated
with the Diplomas, there will be learners going to more than one
institution for their learning and that can apply to all forms
of qualification.
Q271 Mr Chaytor: How do you match
the rhetoric of collaboration when all the financial incentives
are for institutions to hold on to those students? What incentives
are there in the system for collaboration other than ministerial
rhetoric, which is very welcome?
Jim Knight: We have got more and
more use of the Gateway. For example, we are not going to offer
support for the IB unless the institution has successfully been
through the Diploma Gateway. We are using that as a really important
guarantor of quality. The Gateway has collaboration built into
it and that is quite a strong lever. This notion of giving learner
choice by them being able to learn at more than one institution
is quite a strong driver, and obviously the entitlement that we
are saying in all areas we are going to offer from 2013 is completely
dependent on collaboration from 14-19. In the end, I think that
starts to resolve the tension which here you quite rightly are
concerned about around schools competing and, at the same time,
collaborating. We want a range of good schools. We want all schools
and colleges to be good, to be offering their own specialisms,
and then the offer and entitlement to be playing to those various
specialisms and strengths.
Mr Coles: To add to that with
a specific example. You spoke to Peter Hawthorne about Wolverhampton,
and I think it was clear in what he said that he regards the collaborative
model they have got, which is one of the strongest collaborative
models we have got in the country, as based entirely on institutional
self-interest, and institutions which were initially somewhat
sceptical have joined that collaborative grouping precisely because
they can see it is in their interest. It is in their interest
for a number of reasons: one, because it drives up participation;
two, because learners will choose to be part of that sort of collaborative
grouping because of the choice it offers them; and three, because
it does enable them to stop running groups which are not viable
in size. Whereas a single institution acting in isolation as a
small sixth form would often try and retain curriculum breadth
by putting on small groups of a wide variety of subjects, instead
they can focus on what they are good at knowing that just down
the road there is another provider who can provide access to the
thing which they are particularly strong at, and that increases
the economy of the system.
Q272 Mr Chaytor: The Education and
Inspections Bill gives new strategic powers to local authorities,
but what incentives are there for local authorities to follow
the model that Wolverhampton, for example, has developed to increase
this collaboration?
Mr Coles: Ultimately, of course,
the Education and Inspections Bill says it will be a requirement
to deliver all 14 Diploma lines and puts duties on both local
authorities and schools in that regard. There is not a school
in the country which could offer all 14 Diplomas at all three
levels and do it with any degree of quality. In fact, it is not
merely an incentive, it is somewhere close to being a requirement
for them to work in that way.
Q273 Mr Chaytor: Has the ending or
the phasing-out of the increased flexibility funding weakened
your attempts to develop this collaboration?
Jim Knight: I think the Increased
Flexibility Programme has been a real success but the aspiration
and the ambition was that it would be embedded into practice between
schools and colleges. Because it has been a success, I am confident
that it will continue with the delegated non-ring-fenced funding
which we all know has been increasing and been so welcomed by
schools and colleges up and down the country.
Q274 Chairman: Jon Coles, one last
point for you and the Minister. We have been talking about workforce,
what about your workforce? Have you got a good enough team? Is
your team overall up to this job?
Mr Coles: Yes.
Q275 Chairman: I mean do you need
any more resources? You have already got Cap Gemini, you are now
going to bring in Nord Anglia? What worries us sometimes is you
have used so many consultants, do you keep a core of competence
within the Department which can deliver?
Mr Coles: Yes. There are about
120 civil servants who work full-time on 14-19 reform. I have
got an excellent team who I am absolutely confident will deliver
this. Yes, we do need other organisations because as civil servants
we are not the sort of people who are going to be the right people
to go out and train teachers, of course, and we need our partners
to do that for us, but I am confident we have got the team to
do it.
Q276 Chairman: You do not need any
more resources to deliver?
Mr Coles: No, I think we have
got the team we need.
Jim Knight: Chairman, what I would
say is six months ago or so when I was talking to external organisations
about this programme I heard no criticism at all about the capability
and quality of the programme management internally within DfES.
The criticisms which you will have heard as well were around the
extent to which we were able to get all of the external players
all lined up together in a row and co-ordinating them, and that
is what we have sought to address through things like the chief
executive.
Q277 Chairman: There was another
criticism that said, it seemed to outsiders that there was no-one
in the Department, Minister or senior civil servant, who would
lose sleep over this because they would be worried if it was not
going to go off at 100%.
Jim Knight: I can absolutely assure
you that I would lose sleep, Phil Hope would lose sleep, Alan
Johnson, who now has a 14-19 meeting on a fortnightly basis to
progress chase us on the various issues involved, would lose sleep,
and Jon Coles and I both lose hair over this! It may be that some
people would like just one person.
Chairman: No, we are quite happy to have
several people losing sleep!
Q278 Mr Marsden: And hair!
Jim Knight: If you are happy with
several people losing sleep and hair over this then you have got
them!
Chairman: Minister, it has been a very
interesting session, we have learned a lot and, as usual, thank
you very much for your attendance. Thank you also, Jon Coles.
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