Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
CARMEL GALLAGHER,
DAVID ROBB
AND COLIN
WILLMAN
11 JUNE 2008
Q160 Mr Chaytor: So, it is almost
inevitable that your best students are likely to come from overseas,
regardless of the curriculum that they have been taught.
David Robb: There are two parts
to it. There is the demand from Singapore and Malaysia, and I
get about 180 students applying to read mechanical engineering
every year from those countries. There is a tremendous pressure
because of the international reputation. The point that I was
really stressing is not so much about those from Singapore, but
about the quality of the traditional, proper style of A-level
teaching done by professional teachers who really understand their
subject, which means that they are totally competent with it.
As you are probably aware, the Institute of Physics has looked
at the quality of physics teaching in schools and is really concerned
at the drop in numbers. That is the point that I was really trying
to get across, trying to answer a question that you came up with
last week about where our new science and engineering teachers
will come from. I do not know, because the Singaporean students
will go back to Singapore.
Q161 Mr Chaytor: But is the issue
the quality of science teachers in schools?
David Robb: Absolutely.
Q162 Mr Chaytor: Of course, within
the past 20 years other things have changed. There are more opportunities
for bright young science graduates in the outside world, other
than those just in teaching.
David Robb: Absolutely, and with
regard to the financial prospects. To follow on from the point
that I made about AS-levels in combined science, less than 10%
of students in schools now do single science at GCSE, as 90% do
the combined science. When it was first introduced there were
strong comments from various headmasters and headmistresses that
that would turn people off science.
Q163 Chairman: I thought that Sir
Richard Sykes was a great champion of it.
David Robb: I will pass on that.
This was 20 years ago, when they first started introducing combined
science.
Q164 Chairman: But Sir Richard was
enthusiastic about the new curriculum.
David Robb: Well, I do not like
to comment on that.[13]
Q165 Mr Chaytor: My next point is a pr2
question. I understand how you could see this as a criticism of
the schools system, but if you have 15 undergraduates taking their
finals who suddenly cannot remember pr2, I would ask what Imperial
College had been doing for the past three years. Is that a comment
on how the elite universities teach their students?
David Robb: That was an exam at
the end of the first year.
Mr Chaytor: You still have nine months
to identify that.
David Robb: Yes, and we had assumed
that they had learned it properly at school. You can say that
it was exam stress and so on, but the point that I was really
trying to make is that engineers have to get things right. You
cannot just say that something looks about right. You have to
do calculations and believe in them. More seriously, you have
to remember what the underlying science is and which are the relevant
calculations. That is what we are looking for in science, not
just that this is a nice thing to do. Bluntly, people's lives
are at stake—if they get the calculations wrong, engineers
can kill.
Q166 Mr Chaytor: On the standard
offer, is not the solution to the problem of inadequate differentiation
at grade A the introduction of an A* grade or the publication
of the percentage score? Why do you have to go to the effort of
introducing your own?
David Robb: Despite the statement
made by our Rector last week, we are still discussing the idea
of entrance tests. It is not a foregone conclusion. Discussion
was triggered by the large number of people who got A grades this
year. In fact, civil engineering has 30% more students than expected,
so the question whether the A-level ranking is fit for purpose
has come up. The A grade is 80%, and as I said in my document,
44% of people doing A-level maths got an A grade. It is a very
distorted distribution, and what we want is to be able to rank
the applicants in order and say, "These are the top 20, or
the top 70." Rather than going to an A grade offer, I would
love to be able to make it, say, 75%. If there were too many in
the next year, I would raise it to 83%. Your new A* will be 90%.
Q167 Mr Chaytor: Can you not get
that information now?
David Robb: It is too late. I
need to be able to make it as an offer. On the day that the A-level
results come out, we can get the data, but if, as happened this
year, 162 of my students get three A grades, I cannot reject them
because they only got 81% rather than 90%.
Mr Chaytor: That is a powerful argument
for moving to a different system of qualification.
David Robb: Well, the other argument,
and what I would love, is to make offers on a percentage, so that
we could look at the matter each year. To come back to your A*
question, that requires 90% at A2. When is the A** going to come
in? If you look at the trend in A grades, it is going up every
year. It comes from the difference from what A-levels were originally
designed for, which was entry to university. They have now been
distorted into a general education qualification.
Mr Chaytor: Which in itself is not a
bad thing.
David Robb: No, but it is a big
change.
Mr Chaytor: It causes problems for the
elite universities, but in terms of wider social policy, it is
not—
David Robb: I am not criticising,
but the knock-on effect is that people have failed to realise
that we also need it as a ranking mechanism. These last two years,
we have run into trouble on that.
Q168 Mr Chaytor: Colin, earlier and
in your submission you said that what employers in small businesses
want is young people who can turn up on time, take instructions,
communicate civilly and have adequate literacy and numeracy skills.
How is that different from what David would want as an admissions
tutor for a university, or what any family would want from their
young people for them to survive in normal social life?
Colin Willman: It is not, and
it is disappointing that so many come to our door who have not
got those skills. I disagree with the statement that you just
made to David that it is better to have A-levels going up and
changing the social element. We should actually be changing to
something else that will help people get into work and further
education, and use entrance exams as entrance exams. That does
not preclude people; it gives them another interest. It is appropriate
for some individuals, and hopefully makes David's life easier.
Q169 Mr Chaytor: Can I pick up on
a comment that you made in your submission about Diplomas? It
states: "We welcome this new system on the understanding
that young people will be given the option at 14 whether to go
down the vocational path, academic route or a combination of both."
What else is there? Other than those three, there are no options.
It is the vocational route, the academic route or a combination
of both, surely.
Colin Willman: It had been said—at
the time that that was written, different noises were being made
in the House—that the system would take over from the AS
level. We were saying, "No, it should be the vocational idea,
with AS-levels and A-levels still going through."
Q170 Mr Chaytor: I am still not clear
what your official line is. Here, you say that there ought to
be a vocational route, an academic route or a combined route,
but earlier you said that you were very much in favour of a clear
distinction between academic and vocational. In your submission,
you also say that you support a system of streaming at an even
younger age than 14. How do you reconcile further streaming with
rigid division between academic and vocational?
Colin Willman: I also said, "No
wrong route." Somebody can transfer from one to the other,
taking the learning that they have already had. The combination
of the two is for somebody indecisive, who does not know which
way to go and needs to look at both to carry on tasting.
Q171 Mr Chaytor: But it could also
be for someone extremely decisive, who understands the benefits
of combining the two, could it not?
Colin Willman: It could be, but
they have not made a decision to go one way or the other. They
are not sure.
Q172 Mr Chaytor: If someone wanted
to go into the travel industry and set up their own travel agency,
it might be a good idea to do an academic languages course with
a vocational business course. You see my point. Combining the
two might have value.
Colin Willman: Quite. Yes.
David Robb: Could I chip in on
the Diploma? There has been a lot of pressure and discussion about
what the engineering Diploma is going to be like. A year ago,
it was launched as a fill-in between the standard vocational courses
and A-levels. We basically said that we were not interested at
that time, because there would not be enough pure maths and science
in it. I was at a meeting in April where it seemed that it was
being changed very slightly, but we have looked at this quite
seriously and I made the point earlier that the amount of maths
in the engineering Diploma is not sufficient to enable us to say
with confidence that we would accept those students. The words
we are using are "may consider", but there has been
a diversion from the original, as I understood it, targets. It
is trying to be a catch-all, and I do not think it will succeed
on that basis.
Q173 Mr Chaytor: Would you be more
sympathetic if the Diploma were developed along the original Tomlinson
report lines, as a baccalaureate, so that it provided the framework
in which it was possible to continue to do maths and further maths?
David Robb: I am very happy with
the concept of the Diploma. I am just saying, from Imperial College's
point of view, that we are much more at the academic end and we
would not consider that as a reasonable route into our courses.
There is a tremendous need at the technician level and others
for the Diploma. I am fully supportive of the basic idea of it,
but it will not be an entry route to our courses.
Q174 Mr Chaytor: You seem to want
to turn the clock back 25 years, when there was a smaller group
of students coming through, all of whom were intensively taught
according to a very traditional mathematics curriculum. Do you
not see an advantage to a broader-based curriculum, in which the
question of problem solving and innovation, creativity and work
experience before going to university develop the whole student?
David Robb: We welcome that, but
for our courses we are looking at some core skills. A third of
our students are international students, because of our reputation
for high quality. There was a danger eight years ago that all
our students would be international—non-UK. We have turned
that round, through a lot of school liaison work, but the students
still have to be competent to pass our exams. We cannot just say,
"I'm sorry. I didn't do the calculation right and the wing
fell off that aeroplane." We cannot afford for that to happen;
we have to be confident. It is a narrow field, admittedly. There
are other areas, but the point I was really trying to make was
that the Diploma is not a standard entry route for our courses.
Q175 Mr Chaytor: May I ask Colin
one other question, picking up on what Paul was saying about the
shifting nature of the labour market over a generation? A generation
ago, the youngsters at the bottom of the pile would have automatically
gone into unskilled work with large employers. Is not the main
factor the decline of large-scale manufacturing, which would have
mopped up a lot of these youngsters, who are now coming your way?
The skills that you are looking for are perhaps a little different
from the skills that would have been looked for in labouring work
in large-scale manufacturing industries.
Colin Willman: To some extent,
yes, I agree with that. There are more small businesses these
days and the engineering businesses are small, but they look for
a lot more. The really unskilled labour market is in McDonald's
and other such companies. I have a debate going on with their
people man at the moment. He believes that you have to make decisions
for people, and I say no, we should provide them with the ability
to be self-managing and make decisions for themselves. That is
not what is coming out of the education system.
Q176 Mr Chaytor: In terms of the
sector of youngsters who are more likely to look to going into
small businesses from school, that is where your problem lies,
but I am curious about why you are so resistant to the number
of young people who can go to university. The 50% target is almost
irrelevant—
Colin Willman: I am not trying
to limit anybody. Some of the targets in the education system
at present are rigid, and teachers work to them. I hear teachers
saying that they have to achieve those levels. The headmasters
are trying. They feel a failure if they do not. It is pressures
from the local authority—
Q177 Mr Chaytor: Parents want their
kids to do better than they did.
Colin Willman: We all want our
children to do better than we did. The press does not help, always
talking about watered-down qualifications and so on. We need to
make sure that people have the ability to lead a fulfilled adult
life and go into professions that are right for them. We have
changed over 50 years. The education system did not really work
in the 1960s and 1970s. If you do surveys, you can see basic skills
and self-management decreasing at that time. Prior to that, people
knew what they were going to do. There was one major employer
or they went into their parents' business. Now, that has changed.
They have choice, but we are not actually providing them with
any ability to make that choice. That is what we are primarily—
Q178 Mr Chaytor: I do not understand
how limiting the number of youngsters who will get the right qualifications
at 16—which gives them a chance to get the right qualifications
at 18 and go on to university—will help your sector's problem,
which is really about boosting the skills, values and employability
of youngsters who have not got those conceptual skills.
Colin Willman: It appears that
the people who are not going on to university disengage from the
system. They do not pick up as much. They may go to the class
but they do not carry on learning and absorbing information. Some
drop out of the system.
Q179 Mr Chaytor: But is that a consequence
of increasing numbers going to university?
Colin Willman: It comes down to
trying to channel as many people as possible from school into
university. If there is diversity and vocational qualifications,
people can see the relevance. I have a great deal of sympathy
with schools at the moment as the new Diplomas are coming in.
Schools need the involvement of businesses to help deliver those
Diplomas, but there is only a short time scale in which to engage
them, and that will be a problem.
Carmel Gallagher: It is about
not valuing a wider range of talents. The problem is that schools
sometimes overvalue the academic university path and undervalue
the carpenters, plumbers and mechanics, which is where the money
is to be made these days and where there is a great deal of satisfaction.
13 Note by witness: One test of its success
would be an increased number of pupils going into A-level sciences,
and we are certainly not seeing that in Physics. Back
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