Examination of Witnesses (Questions 570
- 579)
TUESDAY 6 MARCH 2007
DFES
Q570 Chairman: Minister, we are very
grateful indeed to you for coming to this first half of the last
evidence session we are having into our inquiry on manufacturing
skills. It is one of these cross-over issues and I appreciate
not an issue that you normally scrutinise so we are all the more
grateful to you for coming and bringing with you your colleagues.
Perhaps I could ask you to introduce them?
Mr Down: Tim
Down, deputy director within the Department for Education and
Skills.
Ms Fender: Alyson Fender, part
of the skills group in the Department for Education and Skills.
Q571 Chairman: Can I begin as the
Conservative Chairman of a Labour dominated Committee by seeking
to strike a note of consensus and take you back into the history
of this long and troubled subject? I am told that Parliament and
government have agonised over this issue about the decline in
skills base relative to our major competitors since a select committee
report on scientific instruction in 1867. On average, I am also
told, there has been a major report on this subject we are discussing
this morning from a select committee or government department
at a rate of one every two and a half years since then. What is
going wrong?
Bill Rammell: Firstly, it is a
pleasure to be here. It is an issue that has been around for a
considerable time. I get the sense I could be wrong that there
is a degree of consensus and urgency about this issue that genuinely,
in my experience over the last 10 to 20 years, has not been there.
When we come to look at some of the prospectus that has been set
out in our successive skills White Papers, within the FE White
Paper and particularly within Sandy Leitch's report, there is
an opportunity for consensus and some real action to make progress
on this issue. Certainly the challenge we face is very significant.
Q572 Chairman: Given this long history,
140 years of navel gazing over this subject, I was going to ask
you what makes you confident that the government's new approach
and the Leitch report will deliver the goods. Arguably, that is
the consensus point you just made in answer to my first question.
Bill Rammell: I think it is. What
has been particularly significant about the Leitch report is that
it was a genuine, external challenge to government. My sense is
that there has been almost universal acceptance of its analysis
and prospectus of the way forward. It has linked education and
training to the performance of the economy in a way that previous
reports have not done. Again in a way that previous reports have
not done, it very helpfully sets this within an international
context and sets out the very stark challenge that—I would
say this, wouldn't I?—even with the significant improvements
we have made in the last 10 years, if we simply maintain the current
trajectory, we are going to stand still in terms of our relative
performance. It is very helpfully a long-term report. If you look
at the previous reports that have taken place, they have looked
at a three, four or five year timescale. This is looking forward
to 2020. Very helpfully, the Leitch analysis and report does two
very important things. One, it very firmly endorses the demand-led
approach, that employers have to be in the driving seat in shaping
the kind of delivery that we are taking forward. Secondly, given
the scale of the challenge, it sets out very clearly that, yes,
government has a role to play within that, particularly in terms
of resources, but there has to be a shared responsibility. If
you look, for example, across the further education sector in
the last 10 years, we have increased investment by something like
50% in real terms. Yet, even with that level of increase, without
an additional contribution from the individual and the employer,
we are simply not going to face up.
Q573 Mark Hunter: One of the major
causes of skill shortages which has been identified by witnesses
to this Select Committee's investigation has been the public perception
of manufacturing. Indeed, we have seen a Manufacturing Foundation
report into the attitudes of children and students who found that
they were overwhelmingly negative about the prospects of a career
in manufacturing. These perceptions were reinforced within the
education system, for example, when covering de-industrialisation
in geography or exclusively shop floor, factory visits. Do you
agree that there is a problem with the perception of manufacturing
and how can the perception of manufacturing as "dirty and
in decline" best be countered in schools and colleges?
Bill Rammell: That is a serious
challenge. It affects not just manufacturing but science and technology
subjects more broadly. There is a lot that I think government
can do. Partly, this is about processes that take place within
society, particularly the world of the media and the way that
science, technology and manufacturing are presented and depicted.
Certainly we do need to ensure that there is really decent careers
advice to young people and adults. One of the things that we need
to get across and this is certainly true for science and technologies
is that the earnings premium through undertaking a qualification
in that subject is substantially higher than it is for non-science
and technology subjects. At the end of the day, money has an influence
on the choices that people make. We need to involve the industry
which crucially has to take responsibility, going out, engaging
with schools, colleges, careers advice exhibitions. An example
of that is that, at the moment, as part of enhancing the careers
advice to young people, we are funding—with the Sector Skills
Council involved in manufacturing—an initiative to improve
quality comprehensively and accessibility of information about
manufacturing. Ensuring that the employer voice through the Sector
Skills Council in shaping the kind of educational provision that
we put forward is crucial. Additionally, initiatives that Sandy
Leitch set out of a new universal adult career service, pulling
together the different elements at the moment, initiatives like
a skills health check for every adult where you can analyse what
your gaps are and what you can do about them can help as well.
At the higher skills levels, I very firmly believe that Foundation
Degrees which I think are proving a significant success story,
where you very much shape the qualification alongside and with
the employer particularly in this kind of area can really help.
Q574 Mark Hunter: If we share the
analysis that the perception of manufacturing is a real issue,
are there any specific initiatives that you can bring to our attention
today that your Department is responsible for, which are addressing
those concerns in particular?
Bill Rammell: In terms of the
perception, certainly within science and technology more broadly,
we are doing a hell of a lot to stimulate the interest of young
people. For example, piloting 250 science after school clubs to
enthuse and engage young people with science subjects, the measures
to guarantee the availability by 2008 of an opportunity for a
triple science GCSE option, the initiatives we are undertaking
with the Institutes, with the higher education sector, to promote
the additional graduate earnings premium for science and technology
based subjects. There is the kind of initiative I was referring
to earlier where we are working with the manufacturing SSC to
improve the availability of information about manufacturing. There
is a whole range of initiatives that we are engaged with. This
is a bit repetitive but government cannot do this on its own.
The industry has to work with us, not only by directly communicating
with young people and adults about the opportunities that exist,
but also trying to change hearts and minds in the wider society
world, to get across the importance of these areas.
Q575 Mark Hunter: Can I move to careers
advice in schools and colleges? A concern that we have heard repeatedly
from witnesses to the Committee is that careers advice is often
very poor when it comes to opportunities in manufacturing, particularly
tending to reinforce gender stereotypes about sectors such as
engineering, electronics and textiles. Could you tell us a little
bit more about steps that the government is taking to give better,
more balanced advice to children and students and particularly
to female students about career opportunities in this area?
Bill Rammell: It is a very important
area. Look, for example, at the differential pay levels for women
as opposed to men in the area of apprenticeships. It is almost
exclusively driven by the occupational areas that they gravitate
towards. Therefore, in conjunction with the Equalities Commission,
we have been pursuing programmes to raise awareness about the
increased earnings potential in particular apprenticeship programmes.
We are reviewing the careers advice that is available to young
people through the school system. We need to do much more to get
the industry to come out and engage with that Careers Advisory
Service directly with young people. It is about getting a young
person to go into a manufacturing environment and see that this
is quite interesting and exciting and there are some real opportunities
that exist here. Moving forward, it is also looking towards the
adult workforce, the universal adult Careers Advisory Service,
pulling the different strands together so that we begin to ensure,
either within a job centre or elsewhere within the college system,
there is an accessible level of advice that is available to the
potential student.
Q576 Mark Hunter: Did you say as
part of that answer that you are currently reviewing the activities
of the Careers Advisory Service and the information that they
have?
Bill Rammell: Yes.
Q577 Mark Hunter: Is that by way
of a formal review or just one of these ongoing things?
Bill Rammell: It is not explicitly
my area of responsibility but within the school service we are
looking at the relationship between the Connexions Service and
the local authority responsibility for that, seeking to ensure
that the advice and guidance are as accurate as possible and that
it is also up to date. One of the challenges within this is that
the people who directly give the advice sometimes have their own
experiences rooted 10 or 20 years in the past. We have to bring
that up to date.
Q578 Mark Hunter: When that review
is completed, will the conclusions be available to us to look
at?
Bill Rammell: Most certainly.
Chairman: The careers sector and the
HE sector too could probably do with some shaking up as well,
but that is a wider issue.
Q579 Mr Hoyle: Do you think there
is too much emphasis by universities and colleges to put portfolios
together and show the trendy part, so that people want to enter
television and media studies? The problem is they are attracted
to that and it is very hard to make it attractive to go into engineering.
Do you think there is some failure there?
Bill Rammell: Are you talking
specifically within the higher education system?
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