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Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene. I wonder whether I might just correct him. I have the exact script of what I said. I said:
- "People do not want some vast, bewildering range of choice".
Lord Skidelsky: I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving me the exact quotation. In other words, people might accept a small amount of choice, the kind of choice that a Labour controlled local education authority is willing to give them; but if the choice is extended in any way, they would find that bewildering, entirely unacceptable and would reject it. I assume that is what he means. I believe that my original quotation gives the gist of the attitude that he expressed.
6.13 p.m.
Lord Rix: My Lords, I declare my long-standing interest as chairman of Mencap and wish to speak briefly on an issue of great concern to people with learning disabilities and their families: namely, further education. Although the issue to which I shall refer is not yet covered in the Education Bill, my noble friend Lady Darcy (de Knayth) will move an appropriate amendment in Committee unless the Government feel able to deal with the matter themselves. Ignoring Charles I's dictum of 1636:
- "Never make a defence or apology before you be accused"--
unfortunately, he did not take his own advice--I should like to apologise for the fact that I shall not be able to be present at Committee stage owing to a commitment overseas. I should also apologise to the Minister and your Lordships if I have to make a slightly early exit from this Second Reading to attend a long-standing
charitable occasion of the Lords Taverners this evening. I have given the Minister notice of my intention to move on from what the Bill does contain to what it should contain under the umbrella of the Long Title.Further education colleges already provide courses for substantial and increasing numbers of people with learning disabilities, many of whom 25 years ago would have been deemed ineducable. Further education is often a vital part of the development of a person with a learning disability; it helps greatly in enabling them to lead more enriched lives. The full titles hardly trip off the tongue, so I beg your Lordships' indulgence for simplifying them and saying that the 1992 FE Act, Schedule 2, gives the funding council the criteria for funding courses of further education. Paragraph (j) of Schedule 2 states that the council shall fund:
- "a course to teach independent living and communication skills to persons having learning difficulties which prepares them for entry to another course falling within paragraphs (d) to (h) above".
In plain English that means that one does not get money for a basic lifeskills course unless there is a strong possibility of moving on to a more advanced course. In practice, it is a limiting clause and stops some people with severe learning disabilities getting the further education they want and need because of lack of certainty about what they will be able to cope with later on.
I give your Lordships a practical and recent real life example. Robert Parkinson is 20 years old. He is severely mentally and physically disabled. He wished to continue his education after his statement of special educational needs had expired at the age of 19. His former school confirmed that his intellectual capacity was still expanding but could not predict its eventual level. He was offered a place by Pengwern College, a residential college run by Mencap, which felt that Robert would benefit from further education. The funding council was approached to fund his place but refused the application because, given the level of his disability, it was uncertain that he would be able to progress beyond a basic lifeskills course. His family appealed against the decision but lost because of the restriction in the Act. His local education authority, which has a residual responsibility in this area, also felt that it could not fund him. His family finally decided that the only way to resolve the matter was to seek a judicial review. The court ruled that, as the law currently stands, the funding council could not fund Robert. Meanwhile, Robert attends a day centre and his mother says, "Robert was making progress at school but now his only option is the day centre. He has already slipped back."
Many of your Lordships are resplendent with academic distinction. But, for some, a law which did not allow them to take their O-levels unless there was a good prospect of getting an honours degree later on would have been rather inhibiting. So is Schedule 2(j). Robert is being discriminated against because he is severely disabled. If his disability were milder, the funding council would have had to pay for his further education.
If we are to embrace the principle of lifelong learning, it must cover everyone in our society. Severely disabled people must not be disenfranchised. I hope that, through an amendment to the Bill which embraces further education as well as schools, this matter can be rectified. I believe that the value of further education for people with severe learning disabilities, in terms of greater independent living skills and enhanced ability to communicate, should not be diminished. People with learning disabilities and their families should not be tossed between the local education authority, the funding council and the social services department to seek funding for essential courses--which will greatly enrich their lives and will only apply to a minimal number of individuals anyway--only to find that no one will fund and therefore a vital opportunity is lost, perhaps for ever.
If education means giving the mind the chance to grow and giving the person the chance to use their mind, can we legitimately deny that to people with learning disabilities? I cannot believe that the Minister, or indeed any Member of your Lordships' House, would be party to such a denial.
6.19 p.m.
Lord Butterfield: My Lords, I must offer a deep apology to your Lordships' House but the Chancellor of my university will be in Cambridge and I should be in his presence in the not very distant future. Therefore, I ask your Lordships to excuse me if I withdraw when I have made my remarks.
My contribution might well start with appreciation of those comments made by such as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and other noble Lords who have drawn attention to the non-technical side of education. I strongly believe that we must never forget the spiritual as well as the general education of the young people in our country.
I want to spend a few moments directing your Lordships' attention to Part VII of the Bill concerning the supervision of the curriculum for schools and external qualifications. I shall be speaking particularly about the new body which is to be called the Qualifications and National Curriculum Authority.
Others have given their reasons for feeling that they can come today to this debate and speak. In my case, I am conscious that many Members of this House will have 30 year-old relatives who took their O-levels and A-levels while I was vice-chancellor at Cambridge. They will find a facsimile of my signature on the no doubt framed and much treasured certificates for which they qualified. While I was at Cambridge involved with teaching and the affairs of Downing College, I entertained examiners from the local examination board who came during the summer months to re-mark their efforts and equilibrate the standards that they were demanding of the examinees.
I want to make the point that, altogether, 30,000 school teachers are involved in the process of examining for the various boards, 2,000 of them being involved in the actual affairs of the board. I regard those people as
the most dedicated of all our teachers. Not many people are prepared to go to meetings and have their marking criticised as being too tough or too weak; yet they do that in the summer months and equilibrate the marks.I should perhaps advise your Lordships that around a decade ago we had 40 examining boards in this country; now we are down to only four for the school examinations and three for vocational qualifications. They are based in Manchester, the Midlands, Cambridge, Guildford and London. I am speaking to your Lordships today to try to make your Lordships aware of the anxieties felt about the new body, the Qualifications and National Curriculum Authority.
Around 750,000 young people sit qualification exams each year. As I said, around 30,000 people are involved in the marking of those papers. Your Lordships will be aware that in that activity the examiners are divided into many and various committees. They all now fall under the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority or the National Council for Vocational Qualifications. In the past few days Ofsted has stated that it is not now so displeased with the results of the A-level examinations. If that is so, the people in the universities are asking whether this is the best time to disturb the ongoing arrangements. They are also concerned because they hear from the Department for Education that there will be a restructuring of the boards; that a consultation paper is to be published in that regard, but only after the restructuring has been defined. Being academics, they want to know whether or not there will be consultation before the restructuring proceeds--and I agree with them.
Specific anxieties centre on how widely the new regulations will extend and whether the rules being developed will be in conflict or otherwise with the regulations. Is it appropriate that the new body should have powers to cap the fees that boards are expected to raise without reference to the boards or to the Government? What appeal facilities will there be when difficulties arise between the boards and the new over-arching organisation, the Qualifications and National Curriculum Authority?
Schedule 6 is concerned with the establishment of committees by the new authority. My colleagues are concerned that it has not yet been made clear what kind of committees they will be, with what kind of responsibilities. All that may sound pernickety to Members of this House. But I am anxious not to antagonise that large group of dedicated teachers who are concerned with checking the end point of the academic processes and the qualifications for vocations. We rely on them to tell us how we are doing compared with the French and the Germans. Therefore, when my colleagues say that they are concerned that the board's membership will be so small that it cannot cover the whole range of interests in the examining field, I am sympathetic to their anxieties.
Perhaps the Government could consider organising a self-regulatory system involving the existing bodies and the new authority could then monitor the situation. Your Lordships will be aware that academic people always
hope to be able to show their support and interest for systems by self-regulation. That is certainly how doctors behave.I want to conclude by reminding myself in your Lordships' presence of the wonderful guidance given to me when I went to Nottingham University by its first vice-chancellor, Bertrand Hallward, who, in his nineties, is still alive. He said to me that the universities would be making decisions at their peril if they did not take great interest in the training of the people who leave the schools to enter university and those who will teach them. It is of course from that group that examiners are recruited.
Perhaps I may put down a marker on this occasion that I shall be tabling amendments for the consideration of the Committee in relation to the structure and functions of the newly established authority, the Qualifications and National Curriculum Authority. But that is for another day. I am grateful today for your Lordships' attention.
6.28 p.m.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, for the past 20 years around 90 per cent. of the children in this country have been educated in the comprehensive system. So far as I am aware, I am the only person taking part in this debate who himself attended a comprehensive school. I suspect that says more about the make-up of this House than it does about me.
I too wish to restrict my comments to selection and the issues surrounding the introduction of greater selection. Mantras were mentioned earlier this afternoon, but it is indeed a mantra that selection itself will drive up standards. The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, said that competition is a lever for standards for children of all abilities. That is an assertion which I believe to be quite untrue.
Last autumn I attended an education conference where I spent a long time talking to the head teacher of a girls' independent school. The school is in an area where there is a long-established tradition of grammar schools. They have their natural partners in a number of secondary modern schools going under other names. The head teacher explained to me that one of the reasons her school was so successful was that a large proportion of the intake was of girls who had failed the examination for the local grammar schools. She went on to explain that her school achieved examination results that were at least on a par with and in some years even exceeded the results of the grammar schools. Naturally, she was proud of the results of her school, and quite rightly so. I went on to ask her what she thought that said about the 11-plus or selection at 11. She said that to her the attitude of the girls' parents was far more important to their likely achievement at the age of 16 and 18 than any examination at 11 years old. I noticed that she was careful to talk about the parents' attitude to education rather than their social class or income. But I suspect that she was probably being duly sensitive to her audience.
Is that really a system we want to return to, where a minority of bright children are well educated by the state and those who fail the exams with parents who can
afford it opt out of the state system, while those who cannot are labelled as failures and go to institutions which are perceived as second best? I do not accept the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, about schools selecting fractions of pupils. My experience in the London Borough of Wandsworth is that parents know very well which are the truly selective schools and which schools are just using magnetism and selecting fractions of pupils as a smokescreen for the sink schools. Parents know when a school is truly selective.The Bill has a number of methods by which it seeks to impose greater selection and it is doing that without any of the normal consultation procedures. I shall go through seven such paths that I have identified. Clauses 2 and 7 require the governing body annually to consider selection. Here we have the thought police in action again and they will probably be just as successful here as they have been in encouraging more schools to go grant-maintained. Nevertheless, the governing bodies will have to think about it every year. Under Clause 3(6), grant-maintained schools, both primary and secondary, can select up to 50 per cent. of their intake. It is a bizarre proposal that primary schools will be able to select pupils. I read the Hansard report of the Committee stage in another place, where the Minister assured the Committee that she was thinking of music schools and things like that. However, even selecting on the basis of the musical ability of five year-olds is a lottery in the best of circumstances.
Under Clause 13 the FAS is given power to create new schools. That will overturn the thresholds laid down in the 1993 Act and gives the FAS unrestricted powers. If anything, that is an admission of the failure of the take-off of grant-maintained schools that the Government had anticipated. In Paragraph 2 of Schedule 1, county and voluntary aided schools are able to expand their selection up to 20 per cent. In Paragraph 3 of Schedule 1, county and voluntary sixth forms can discount age for the purposes of their overall percentage of selected pupils, which will effectively increase the number of selected pupils. Paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 gives the Secretary of State power to direct LEAs to implement increased selection for specialist schools. Finally, Paragraph 5 of Schedule 1 gives county secondary school governors power to request LEAs to publish proposals for a school to go selective. If the LEA does not do it, the school can go ahead and do it anyway. Today we heard from the Minister that the Government will bring back the old Clause 3 from the Bill in another place to enable grant-maintained schools to expand their size by up to 50 per cent. every four years, which will increase the total number of selected pupils.
It says something about the problem the Government anticipate with introducing greater selection that they have to use all these methods of requiring schools to consider selection. They know they have a fight on their hands. They are using every mechanism they can to try to force this on to the education agenda.
I wish to close by talking again about Wandsworth. I know a 14 year-old boy who, I suppose one could say, is a friend of mine. The boy is well behaved and is keen to learn. He is probably of below average ability. He is
probably what we would call a band 3 child. When he was 11 his mother and teacher assumed that he would be unable to pass the exam for the local selective schools that were in place in Wandsworth at the time so he went straight to the local non-selective comprehensive school, which is sometimes called a sink school. The school is a rough school where the teachers do well even to keep the class quiet let alone teach the children anything. The boy was bullied and he took a lot of time off school. He fell behind in his lessons and after two years he was moved to another non-selective school in the borough. Over the past year he has done better. He has settled down but he is still behind in his lessons. It has now been diagnosed that he has a sight defect which has led to his problems with reading. The boy is nearly 15 and it has only just now been diagnosed that he has this sight defect. He is someone with what we might call non-statemented special educational needs. It is a tragedy that the boy has reached this stage in his education and only now has the problem been diagnosed.I would ask the Minister this question. What will the rhetoric and mantra of choice, diversity and selection do for children like that? I am not talking about someone who is stupid. I am talking about someone who is slightly below average and whom the system has failed. All the rhetoric we have heard today has done nothing for this child in his educational life. I reached 20, where I lost count of the number of times the Minister used the word "choice" in his speech. I heard the word "choice" numerous times when I was a councillor in Wandsworth. I have given the House a specific example of where "choice" has failed a boy.
The challenge for the Government and for my party is to find a mechanism which rewards success and is intolerant of failure. I look forward to a Bill which is specifically targeted at enhancing diversity and choice for children of below average ability.
6.38 p.m.
Earl Baldwin of Bewdley: My Lords, a few years have gone by since I was an LEA officer responsible for a number of comprehensive and special schools, and even more years since I taught modern languages in the maintained sector and before that in a good old-fashioned boys' public school. I must admit that my feelings on being confronted with the Bill that we are looking at this afternoon include relief that I am no longer on the receiving end of yet another piece of educational legislation--the 21st, on my reckoning, since the present Government came to power. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who I see is not in her place, I have taken part in discussion of a good few recent education Bills. In fact I seem to recall one of the points that she raised earlier coming up in the middle of that memorable night in 1988 when we all sat until a quarter to nine in the morning.
I do not look back to any golden era in education. But I do believe that, among improvements that have undoubtedly been made in recent years, much that is valuable has been thrown away. This Bill, it seems to me, continues that trend. If I pass rather speedily over
the sections of this many-faceted measure which deserve a welcome, this is chiefly to save time in the face of a longish speakers' list, and to leave room for a hard look at the more contentious areas.From Part IV of the Bill onward, as many speakers have pointed out, there is a lot of good, practical sense. Disciplinary arrangements needed attention. Baseline assessment, performance targets, inspection of LEAs, emphasis on careers education and regulation of supply teachers are all uncontentious in principle, even if there is some devil in the detail which will emerge doubtless in Committee. On the whole there has been wide consultation and preparation here, for which the Government can take much credit.
Just over four years ago John Patten, then Secretary of State, introduced the White Paper Choice and Diversity which foreshadowed the major 1993 Act with the comment--the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, has stolen my point here--that it was the last piece in the educational jigsaw and that no more legislation could be expected during this Government's lifetime. Plus ca change, my Lords. In terms of good management practice there is a limit to the amount of reform any institution can be expected to absorb. I was by no means the only one of your Lordships who maintained several years ago that that limit had been reached and that what the education service now needed was a period of stability in which the reforms could bed down. Constant change is not good for morale, and low morale attracts poor performance.
The changes have often been piecemeal, and sometimes self-contradictory, giving an impression of amateurishness in an area which cries out for clear, strategic thinking. The 1988 Act saw the introduction of the NCC, the National Curriculum Council; by 1993 we had SCAA; now it is to be QNCA. The ground is always changing, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Morris, pointed out, it is mostly structural organisational change unrelated to the classroom.
The most significant changes in the present Bill, as we have seen, relate to selection, which is to be encouraged by a variety of means. It is hard to see what this is going to achieve. There is no good evidence that selection of this kind raises standards, particularly in the areas where they most need to be raised. There is good evidence that most people do not want it. If the worry is that we do not educate to the level of our industrial competitors, then we need to note that few if any of them select by ability. Is it about choice? But, as we have heard, the Government want to give parents the choice of school, not schools the choice of pupil, which is what selection by ability produces. These proposals will indeed reduce the choice that already exists. I cannot agree with the analogy used by the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, of university entry where students do at least end up in some selective institution. The situation with local schools is quite different. Is selection about diversity? Well, yes, but that is hardly an end in itself in the absence of positive benefit. I am not against selection in every form, but I cannot see why the Government should want to pursue what is in no
sense a winning formula unless it is simply to satisfy the Prime Minister's wish to see secondary moderns in every town.I can, however, see some of the harm that will come about. Selection is possible under present arrangements, but there are checks and balances, at local as well as central level, and there is accountability. From now on, if Parts I and II of the Bill go through, there will be minimal opportunity for comment and objection on the part of those in the neighbourhood who are affected by a school's decision to select unilaterally. LEAs are not perfect, and in some areas schools may have found their influence stultifying, but many people are grateful for the democratic accountability that has meant that no one part of the community can affect the operations of another just like that, without the fullest consultation. If there were to be more selection--and selection by one school, just as opening a sixth form or a nursery, has a knock-on effect throughout the entire community--let it be introduced by a body such as the local authority with an overview of the situation on the ground. Individual choice is admirable, but in a civilised society it needs to be balanced against the needs of the community as a whole. A reserve power under Clause 11 for Whitehall to intervene does not adequately meet the case.
For what this Bill does is increase the fragmentation--in the word of the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock--in the education service which previous Acts have started, and to which some of us in past debates have tried to draw attention. The more freedom an individual school has to go its own way unchecked, in terms of size and nature of intake, the greater the incoherence in the system as a whole--indeed the less there will be a system at all. This makes inevitably for inefficiency, and for the near impossibility of sensible planning by the agency--the LEA--which still has the statutory duty of seeing that there are the right schools at the right time in the right places, and that pupils can get to them without too much difficulty and public expense. I do not believe (and nor, as it happens, does the Audit Commission) that the Government have ever satisfactorily resolved this tension between choice of schools and the need to manage resources such as school places efficiently. In parenthesis, when I worked in Oxfordshire we achieved a success rate of around 97 per cent. in parental choice of schools before legislation on the matter was even a gleam in the Government's eye. At the same time I am glad I am not a parent who will have to face the confusion of entrance exams and criteria which the new arrangements may bring about. As ever, those who are already least advantaged will find it hardest to cope.
All this raises the fundamental question whether the Government still see education as a public service. They have gone far towards abandoning the concept of a community of schools, and of local partnership, and this is sad. Once again we have an Education Bill which erodes local democracy, nowhere more so than in Part II which empowers an unelected body to set up grant-maintained schools in any local authority's area and send it the bill, a total change from the provisions
of the 1993 Act. Partnership is out, and we are moving towards a free-for-all in education which I do not believe is in the best long-term interests of our children.Leaving aside for a moment the matter of pace and frequency of recent reform, another bout of change might be acceptable if it were well targeted, or if the service were in acute crisis which, contrary to what The Times would have us believe, the objective evidence shows it is not. Let me end by pointing to what the Bill does not do. Other noble Lords have done the same.
It does not do anything for the lowest 40 per cent. of the ability range, as others have said. It is here, as the noble Lord, Lord Morris, pointed out, that this country falls down, and has so for years: the achievements at the top end are not the problem. It does not do anything for resources: not the factor, certainly, but a significant factor which continually crops up in surveys of schools, and one which the inefficiencies of a free-for-all are bound to make worse. If you want to see what resources can do for the educational league tables, look at the major public schools.
Above all, and this includes my two previous points, except for a couple of commendable clauses on discipline it does not touch the classroom. Surely, this is where it begins and ends. Since 1980 we have been so concerned with structures and systems and administrative bodies that too little attention has been paid to the actual teacher, and his or her skills, training, morale and status--I was glad to hear the General Teaching Council mentioned--conditions and professional pride. I am not saying we should legislate directly for what goes on in the classroom, nor am I saying that there have not been worthwhile initiatives directed to the quality of teaching and learning, because there have. My point is that this has been overshadowed by an avalanche of structural changes, the majority of which do not, I believe, make the slightest difference to how our children perform in the classroom. Instead they have siphoned energy and resources from where they should properly have been directed, the point of interaction between teacher and pupil. Given the things of value that we have lost on the way, I think I would willingly trade all the administrative reforms of the past 17 years, apart from special needs, against that one consideration.
So while there will be much of a practical nature to support, I cannot welcome the provisions of the early parts of the Bill which I feel will be profoundly unhelpful to what goes on in schools. I regret that I shall probably have to miss some of the later stages, but I hope that changes can be made to soften some of the more unfortunate effects of this latest measure in a seemingly endless sequence of legislation.
6.50 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, at my age I tend to be autobiographical when this subject comes up. I vaguely remember being taught about evolution as a small boy. The teacher told me about dinosaurs and said that they were extinct. Had that teacher been alive and present in the Gallery tonight he would have had to withdraw that statement because the noble Lords, Lord Morris of
Castle Morris and Lord Tope, are the best examples of living dinosaurs that I have come across for some time. They still repeat the opinions of left-wing educationalists of 30 or 40 years ago when the damage was done to our education system, which all of the Bills in the last three Parliaments have still not been able to correct.On the other hand, I am always grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, for his extreme honesty. He gives us a picture of what is in the minds of the party he represents. It is important to know what is in its mind, not merely what is contained in the press releases or statements that are made on behalf of the leader of that party. No one listening to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, can deny that he hates the very notion of a grammar school or any kind of selective school. Therefore, when people are told that the existing grammar schools will be safe in the hands of the Labour Party they must be very gullible to believe it. They would have to be like those in Albania who have lost all their savings on pyramid investments. Luckily, there are not many Albanians in the Wirral.
The more important point is that which has been referred to obliquely by the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, and, in a rather different way, by the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin of Bewdley; namely, that what matters in the end is not structure but what goes on in the classroom. It is that which has been affected by the progressive educational philosophy that it has been the lot of trainee teachers to receive for a whole generation or more. That is at the root of the problem rather than any form of structure. No doubt there were some comprehensive schools in which teachers took no notice of the kind of nonsense that came from, say, the London University Institute of Education when the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, was there. They would still teach subjects and would not be child centred. They would insist on children learning by rote, which is a very good thing for children to do. That could happen in a comprehensive school, although it is perhaps unlikely that that would happen in such a school in a Labour-controlled authority. I believe the Government agree that we find ourselves in a rather unfortunate position in which we experiment with various structural changes in order at least to create some centres of excellence from which we can derive the kind of people that we need at all levels of the economy and society.
I thought that in the speeches of some noble Lords and noble Baronesses there was far too much about what was popular with children or parents. What matters is the national interest in having a state system of education at all. Surely, what matters is the selection of quality wherever it is and whatever the level of ability of particular pupils. In a sense we are skirting round the issues. I do not share the belief of some of my noble friends that parental choice is all important. I doubt that some parents are good at making choices. But there are parents who feel that their children are not being taught very well. I have read that in the borough of Islington almost one-third of parents try to find places for their children in schools in neighbouring boroughs because they have a better reputation. Lenin would have said that
they were voting with their feet, but since mostly they belong to the champagne tendency of the Labour Party they may be described as voting with their Volvos. These are expedients adopted by individuals.That leads me to one of the matters on which, autobiographically, I can assent to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant. I believe that there should be a general teaching council. I say "autobiographically", because the Conservative Party committee which advised the Government before the 1983 election made that particular suggestion. It was turned down by the late lamented Lord Joseph, who was then Secretary of State for Education, because he believed that such a body would be captured by the teaching trade unions. I agree that if we had a general teaching council that was run by the likes of Mr. de Gruchy or Mr. Doug McAvoy it would not be of much use. But I believe that Lord Joseph's fears were unfounded. As the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, has said, we need a general teaching council to root out bad practice and make sure that teachers in the classroom are acquainted with good practice. I hope that in the end my noble friend will accept that.
My other autobiographical point relates to discipline. I remember telling your Lordships when the measure was brought in to abolish corporal punishment, at the behest of that foolish court in Strasbourg, that the people who would pay for the excesses of those continental jurists would be the teachers in the classroom. I was right. I do not say that corporal punishment should now necessarily be restored. It may be that that is no longer possible. But certainly it has produced a problem of discipline which is relatively new. The degree of violence and assaults on teachers, which the trade unions quite rightly are concerned about, is a matter that must be tackled. Whether the measures in the latter part of this Bill, which appear to have general approval, will do the trick I do not know.
There is, however, another possibility that we have not examined in this country but which is followed in certain continental countries, notably France. In that case discipline in schools is the responsibility not of the classroom teacher but a person specially designated for that purpose. It is a pity that any classroom teacher should have to bother with discipline. It is difficult enough for the teacher to keep up at all in these days of expanding information, information technology and matters of that kind, let alone to be distracted by wondering whether he or she can intervene to stop one little boy from hammering another. There are matters that we can think about and learn from.
I was surprised to hear the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, assert that the comprehensive model was one adopted by our major European neighbours. France and even more so Germany have highly differentiated school systems. They have never gone in for the comprehensive model. We are told--and the noble Lord, Lord Annan, frequently reminds us--that their results are better. I do not say that that cannot be done. I agree with streaming and setting which, as the noble Lord, Lord Annan, said, is the solution so long as one keeps the comprehensive system. However, I would point out that mixed ability teaching was part of the
doctrine with which teachers were imbued in institutes of teacher training for very many years. One still sometimes hears from the Campaign for State Education, and such bodies, objections to anything but mixed ability teaching. There are many things that we could do and many things that I hope we will do. Meanwhile, for what it is worth, as another step forward in the right direction, I commend the Bill to your Lordships.7 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, because I cannot help enjoying his speeches. But there is a great deal of what he said that I should like to challenge. If I went into it in detail, there would be a great deal to go into and my speech would be even longer than it is going to be, and I do not think that that would be popular with your Lordships. I may find a few remarks to make as I go through.
First, I must apologise to the Minister for missing his opening speech. I really do apologise for that. It was very bad manners indeed. I shall explain privately later why I missed it. I missed also a little bit of my noble friend's speech.
I intend to speak on Part VII of the Bill which has not been much discussed, but to spend most of my time on Parts IV and V--the parts dealing with discipline, exclusions and admissions. There has been agreement on a number of clauses and disagreement on others. In some cases, the ideas behind the proposals may be accepted, but better ways of achieving their aims can be found which would be more likely to work better for school, parent and pupil.
Those clauses were not sufficiently discussed in another place. And the anxieties of a large number of children's organisations, which make up the Children's Consortium, were not given enough attention. The Children's Consortium is made up of 14 bodies: the NSPCC, the National Children's Bureau, Barnardos and the Children's Society, to name but four of them.
I would like to make my position clear. It is essential that there is good discipline in schools. Schools have very real problems, and there must be sanctions when classes are disrupted, where there is bullying and serious behavioural problems.
This part of the Bill is largely amending the 1996 Education Act, passed only last year. Indeed, it was still 1996 when this Bill was introduced. Clause 19 would require all schools to publish a discipline policy. In this Bill, it is for the governing body, rather than the head teacher, to draw up a statement of general principles to which the head teacher must have regard in performing his duty to promote good behaviour and discipline. The head teacher must publicise the measures he is proposing in order to bring them to the attention of pupils, parents and schools.
What we would like to see is for the governing body, when drawing up the statement, to take into account the views of staff, parents and pupils. This would reflect advice in the current government circular 8/94 and the recommendations of the Elton Report. A behaviour code
will obviously work better and be respected if it has been produced with the involvement of the whole school community. The rules should promote self-discipline and respect for others, ensure that necessary action is taken to prevent bullying and meet the needs of all children involved in incidents of bullying.Clause 21, which gives members of staff in independent schools as well as in maintained schools power to restrain pupils, is unfortunately needed and will reassure teachers who could in this litigious climate become victims of assault charges. I am sure that that part of the Bill will please the noble Lord, Lord Beloff.
I am very glad that corporal punishment of any type will remain unlawful in maintained schools. The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, said that that was following the European Court. A good many of us here feel ourselves fairly responsible for getting corporal punishment banned in maintained schools in this country. I said that corporal punishment is banned in maintained schools. Of course I think that it should be the case in all schools, independent as well. I sincerely hope that no misguided person in this House will produce an amendment to bring back beating. That happened in another place and it was soundly and satisfactorily defeated.
I am not happy with Clause 23 which gives the head the power to detain a pupil after school without the parent's consent. This does seem an erosion of parents' rights. One can see complications, even though travel home is mentioned in the Bill. There could be great difficulty in rural areas for staff as well as pupils.
We then come to exclusions. Of course exclusion must be available as a sanction. Disruptive pupils can be a menace to the whole class, to the teacher and indeed to the pupil himself. Only last Friday the father of a primary school teacher who had a class of over 30 told me how she had one very disruptive pupil--this was a class of eight year-olds--who disturbed the whole class, although there was an assistant in the mornings to help look after him. Not only did he disrupt the class; he would follow her to the staff room, kick her and try to bite her. This teacher managed for the whole of last term and part of this before that child was removed. She felt sorry for the child because he had been rejected by his family and now she said that he had been rejected by the school. It is not a happy situation.
One day that child crawled under the computer table, clutched a radiator and would not come out. No one in the school could move him. The foster father was sent for. He could not get him out. The foster mother came. She said, "Come on, Jamie, time to go home". He came out. I think that they were excellent foster parents. But it is not something that teachers can hope to cope with. What we must have are plenty of special units for this type of child. No one can cope.
We must bear in mind--and this applies to detention too--that a great many of those who are likely to be excluded may be children with special needs--not the 2 per cent. of children with statements but the children who make up 18 per cent. of the school population, who have very definite learning disabilities or who have emotional or behavioural problems. Are they to be treated in the same way as children without those special needs?
We need also to take account of the Chief Inspector of Schools when he said that some schools are "trigger happy" on exclusions. We know that Afro-Caribbean children are more likely than white children to be excluded for the same offence. The Commission for Racial Equality conducted research on this, and that is its finding.
I believe that the Secretary of State should make regulations to secure that head teachers take appropriate steps during any period of fixed term exclusion to return the child to school as quickly as possible, including assessing special needs, and meet parents, pupil and staff. I am aware that this costs money.
I am not happy with the extension of the 15 days' exclusion in any one term to 45 days in a school year. This could happen in one term. That means nine weeks out of school. There must be proper education during these periods, not just a few hours a week, as can happen now.
The LEA is at the moment under a duty to provide:
- "suitable full-term or part-term education at school, or otherwise than at school".
This is surely unsatisfactory. It contradicts the duty of parents under the 1944 Act to ensure that children have sufficient full-time education suitable to:
- "age, ability and aptitude ... and any special educational need".
Excluded children are arguably more in need of full-time education than any other group of children, not least because recent Home Office research identified exclusion as one of the main factors leading to juvenile offending. My noble friend Lady Ramsay referred to that also. I very much dislike the term "disqualified person". These children should not be labelled. My noble friend Lady Ramsay and the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, both referred to that. I understand that it is the parliamentary draftsman who wanted the phrase used. It must be deleted, and most certainly it should not refer to primary schoolchildren.
In relation to the whole of Part IV, I agree with the Local Government Association's summing up. It states:
- "These are piecemeal actions. We need a national focus on the importance of school discipline, which should be considered in the context of the overall strategic planning for pupils with difficulties. There is much current good practice from which we could learn".
Finally, I turn to Part V, admissions and home-school contracts. As with school statements of policy in Clause 19, the home-school contract--the concept of which I agree with, if not the name--would be much better and more likely to be effective if it was drawn up in consultation with the head, the staff, the parents and the pupils. Research has shown that schools successful in both academic achievement and behaviour have a common feature; that is, good home-school relations. What I totally dislike and disapprove of is Clause 30, which would prevent a pupil being admitted to a school if the parent refused to sign the document. That is selection by the back-door and I hope that we can delete the clause. Admission dependent on signing could conflict with the duty of LEAs and the FAS to secure
places for all children. An alternative could be to set out in the Bill a framework for our expectations of all parents' roles in relation to their children's schools.I have two special worries about these two parts of the Bill and I wish to emphasise them. How will the Bill affect those 18 per cent. of children who have special educational needs but who have no statement? And who is to act in the important role of parent to those children in care who make up a large proportion of children excluded from school and in difficulty with the courts?
I turn to Part VII. Most public discussion on the Bill has focused on education at school level and for young people, but Part VII has wide implications for the education and training of adults and also for higher education. Part VII proposes the merger of SCAA and the National Council for Vocational Qualifications. The merger was recommended by Sir Ronald Dearing and has been generally welcomed in that context.
However, the Bill goes way beyond qualifications for 14 to 19 year-olds and gives to the new body very wide powers over all vocational qualifications, including higher level NVQs, an area which is bound to overlap with universities. The House will recall that Dearing's review of higher education is still in process. Seventy per cent. of further education students, most studying vocational courses, are adults and there are some 20,000 different qualifications. What is more, even before the Bill has been passed, the appointment of Dr. Nicholas Tate, currently head of SCAA, has been announced as its new chief. This smacks of unseemly haste and appears to imply increasing political control of the content of the vocational education system.
There is now widespread agreement on the importance of lifelong learning and the achievement of the national training and education targets for adults as well as for the young. But there has been little discussion about the implications of the proposed changes for adult learners, for further education providers, for awarding bodies or for higher education. And the Bill proposes to give the new body the power to impose payments for the accreditation of qualifications; the phrase, a levy on any "vocational qualification", is used without any definition of vocational qualifications. Unlike young students, many adults pay their own fees and do not use public funds.
Lastly, there is concern about the small size of the board and its composition. The right reverend Prelate commented on that and made a suggestion which I totally support. It needs to be representative of a wide range of interested parties, including FE, HE, professional bodies, employers and adult learners. A number of those questions must be addressed seriously in Committee.
7.14 p.m.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, all of us who are concerned with education are delighted that it has become a major factor in the policies of all the main political parties. However, today's debate shows how sad it is that progress and improvement in English education are restricted--dare I say bedevilled?--
by arguments that belong to history. Nowhere is this more true than when that frightening, devil-like word "selection" is discussed.There can be no doubt that in the past--and it is sad that most of the debate has related to the past--selection meant entry to the grammar school without any satisfactory alternative for those who were not suited for that type of education. I point out to your Lordships that that was realised as early as 1938. In 1938 the Spens Report, on which the Butler Act was based, stated that secondary education had come to mean grammar school education, with little being done for children who could not benefit from that style of education. Spens stated:
- "the establishment of parity between different"--
I underline the word "different"--
- "types of secondary schools is of fundamental importance".
We never achieved that parity and, as has been mentioned many times in the debate, unlike the whole of continental Europe, apart from one state of former west Germany, we decided that the answer to these difficulties was the area comprehensive school. It is an interesting historical fact, an interesting tale of what might have been, that, while some of our neighbours--notably the Netherlands and Germany--refined, developed and improved the tripartite system of the Butler Act, we abandoned it entirely. I am honest when I say that my own party bears a large measure of blame, since it did little to refine or improve the tripartite system when it held power in the 1950s. I suggest that many of our problems spring from that decision.
I was a headmaster for 17 years and a school teacher for more years than I care to remember. I can say from my experience that it is difficult in one school to provide highly specialised courses in advanced mathematics as well as to teach a variety of modern languages unless there are sufficient pupils of the ability and interest to benefit from such courses. We are not all capable of learning Russian, French and German. If a set is to be viable there must be enough people in that set to make it worth while to employ a teacher to teach German, Greek, Latin or whatever.
Equally, it is hard to run demanding and expensive vocational and technical courses unless one has a concentration of pupils of the ability and interest to benefit from such courses. Let us imagine a situation in which one is trying to sustain in one institution--as we ought if we are to compare ourselves with our continental neighbours--courses in Russian, French, Spanish and Italian and also to provide courses in technical and vocational subjects which are of the same quality as those on tap in Germany and Holland. The point I am making is that at present in English education the butter is spread too thinly. All education suffers and talk of improving skills becomes mere rhetoric.
As a headmaster I was responsible for specialist subjects as well as the manner of setting and streaming. I can assure your Lordships that, even in a school where the pupils are of broadly similar ability, that is a nightmare task. Imagine trying to do that when one has to cover the whole gambit of education. Of course, the problem is further compounded if schools are required
to take all their pupils from one geographical area. Inevitably, the school merely reflects the problems or virtues of the area; Richmond is better than Hackney.I support the Bill. It is not my ideal Bill--if I were the Minister, I could improve on it in many ways. Vanity makes me say that. But I support it because it sets out to break the rigid structures of the past. My hope is that, by allowing schools more flexibility in their choice of pupils, we shall secure a situation in which especially, and most especially at post-16 level, schools will be able to specialise in different styles of courses. Some may specialise specifically in technical and vocational courses while others specialise in more narrow academic courses such as modern languages and so on. I emphasise what other noble Lords have said: such is the norm in the whole of eastern and western Europe.
I make three points about that. First, apart from that one state which the noble Lord, Lord Annan, mentioned, the whole of Europe has a system of selection and choice. Secondly, it is agreed generally by noble Lords opposite as well as by my noble friends that in many ways, the education system, particularly in Holland and Germany, is better than ours. Thirdly, I assure your Lordships that our continental neighbours, left and right, would be utterly amazed at the way we have argued about these matters. We are uttering the cries of the past when 21 miles across the Channel, people who hold much more radical views than noble Lords opposite are quite happy with a system of selection and choice. Therefore, it is reasonable for those of us on these Benches to ask why noble Lords opposite are so much against that when the French, German and Dutch socialist parties all welcome a system such as this Bill offers us.
We are not talking about the old style of selection. We are not--and I repeat not--talking about grammar schools and nothing else. The idea of sheep and goats has gone. We are thinking of a humane style of analysis so that each person can find an institution and course appropriate to his needs. That is crucial to our society and we should all work to secure that. We should not allow the political nostrums of the past to govern our thinking. We accept that for music and sport; why not for everything else?
My belief is that one school or college cannot cater for all needs. That has been shown to be an illusion. And yet in some eyes that has become more than a mantra. It has become an article of faith which is not open to discussion. At times when I talk to some noble Lords opposite, I feel like Galileo. "Behold it moves", I say, "and yet they will not listen". They have the dogmatism almost of the Holy Father.
The results are obvious to all. When we praise our comprehensive system--and I had sympathy with it when it started--how do we explain that our vocational and technical courses are not as good as those of our neighbours? How do we explain that schools are restricted in their choice of subjects? A school which I govern in Somerset cannot provide more than two modern languages and yet in the modern Europe, we should be teaching our pupils three or four languages.
That is particularly true of languages. Your Lordships will notice how Latin and Greek have almost vanished from the curriculum.I suggest to your Lordships that this Bill offers hopes of a change and I suggest that it will be a change for the better. I urge your Lordships to support it.
7.23 p.m.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, in this Bill the Government have offered us diversity. I hope sincerely that they will offer us also an element of choice on some issues. I can only pick and choose the matters which I think are important in the Bill within the time available to me. First, I should like to ask the Minister a number of questions, simply for the purpose of clarification.
What do we mean by a selective school and by selection for ability and aptitude. Ability for what? Aptitude for what? Are we talking only about doing well in the league tables, because that is what will make schools popular and that is what will make parents choose those schools? That is the only information parents have; that the children who go to those schools do well in GCSEs. Is "success" measured by that limited criterion of success in purely academic subjects? If so, are the Government convinced that that will really prepare children for life and work in the 21st century?
I draw your Lordships' attention to the Government's own White Paper, Learning to Compete. In that there are identified six different characteristics which will give children and young people the ability to compete in the world of tomorrow's business: the ability to communicate, applied number, information technology, working with others, problem solving and self-motivated learning and relearning. I have set those down on the left-hand side of a piece of paper. On the right-hand side I have set down the core curriculum subjects for GCSE. They are English, maths, science, one modern language and design and technology. I identify a mis-match.
I am not saying that good teachers with intelligent pupils cannot use the core curriculum subjects to teach the skills and knowledge which young people will need. But I wonder whether parents who are making the choice about which schools are successful should not be given access to more information. Should they not have information, based on Ofsted inspections, on how well each school is doing not only in relation to academic exams but in relation to preparing its pupils for the portable skills and flexibility which they will need if they are to take up the responsibilities of adult life and be suited to employment in the 21st century?
I should like to ask the noble Lord what the Government mean by a "selective school". I am not entirely sure whether that is the same as a specialist school as defined in Schedule 1 to the Bill. In the Bill, a selective school is defined as what the Secretary of State says or will say a selective school is. The Secretary of State is very coy. Until we have given her authority to implement the decision, she will not tell us what it is to be. It seems to me rather insulting to Parliament that
Parliament should not have the opportunity to know what the Secretary of State has in mind until legal authority is given to her to implement the legislation.I gave notice to the noble Lord that I should be asking about four subjects, and I use them only by way of an example. Can a selective or specialist school be a school which is selective for children with ability in the arts or in music? Can it be for children who are good at football? Can it be for children who are good at engineering? Finally, can it be for children who have an aptitude and a desire to learn the whole range of academic subjects in the context of the Christian tradition? That last question is important.
I turn now to my concerns about the issue of selective admissions. My concern--and in this I join with many noble Lords--regards what will happen to those children who are not selected. My concern is pragmatic, non-political and non-doctrinaire. I want an assurance that the Government will guarantee that enough non-selected places will be available within a reasonable travelling distance for every child who is not selected for a selective school.
My second worry is that the Government are focusing too much on the top 30 per cent. and ignoring the bottom 30 per cent. In that context I take the liberty of quoting from a letter which I received from the director of education of Business in the Community. He says that,
- "this nation can no longer afford an education system which is world class for the top 30 per cent. reaching higher education, [but] leaves nearly 30 per cent. functionally illiterate and almost unemployable in the 21st Century. This so called 'tail' of underachievement undermines the UK skills-base for investment, creates a costly dependent group living in relative poverty and threatens social cohesion".
My own experience of working with very deprived children from Tower Hamlets each summer is that when we ask them whether they want to write a postcard home to Mum a significant number have to dictate what to write on the postcard to one of the voluntary helpers. I am talking of 14 and 15 year-old children; in other words, young people. They cannot read or write. I believe that those children have been betrayed by the schools and by the local education authorities. I believe that it could be described as a form of child abuse not to teach those children the basic skills that they will need to survive in our society today and tomorrow.
If some schools have selected pupils, other schools will have a concentration of less able pupils. Can the Minister give the House an undertaking that non-selective schools will get the resources they need to cope with that concentration of less able children? Those children, too, are entitled to an education which will give them a reasonable chance in life.
I turn next to behaviour and discipline. The good behaviour and discipline statement is an admirable idea, though it is in need of one or two improvements. In my view, it is absolutely essential that pupils and staff--pupils in particular--must participate in the formulation of that policy. The report of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, to which I believe the noble Lord referred, strongly recommended such participation. It is important because young people then have the feeling of ownership of the
policy and it addresses their real needs. There is need for a clear statement of objectives in the policy statement and it must include the legitimate interests of children as well as adults; for example, protection from bullying.I move on now to sanctions for unacceptable behaviour. In that context I should like to try to distinguish between the two categories of pupils to whom sanctions are particularly applicable. There are those pupils who misbehave, and do so probably regularly, because they have emotional difficulties or because they have an unidentified learning difficulty. Indeed we heard this evening--and I have seen the figure before--that that could amount to as much as 18 per cent. of those who regularly misbehave in school. The other category covers pupils who misbehave simply because they are naughty. They do not have any particular problems but they are tempted; they are naughty; or they are "trying it on". Those two categories of young people need different responses.
Some experts on the sentimental end of the spectrum said in a meeting which I attended recently about this Bill that there was no need for punishment and no need for any kind of sanctions. That is nonsense. All children and, indeed, all of us sometimes overstep the boundaries of socially acceptable behaviour. In that context, I am going to stick my neck out. I will stand any noble Lord a drink in the Bishops' Bar after tonight's debate if he can honestly stand up and say to me that, if there were no penalties for doing so, he would never leave his car on a parking meter over and above the time paid for.
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