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Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, it will not surprise the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle, that I believe that the comprehensive system has been a fundamental part of the achievement of all of our young people—of the generations who have had the benefit of that system. It is important for the noble Lord to understand our approach. With regard to our lack of desire to return to what went before, I repeat what I said earlier: this approach is not about deciding at the age of 11 which children are suitable for high-quality education and which children are suitable for another kind of education. Our approach involves a system in which admissions policies are fair and children in schools have the benefit of a broad and balanced curriculum and of specialisms within that school and other schools in the area. As new technology expands, I foresee real opportunities for children to benefit more widely from other schools and to have the education that helps them to achieve the best that they can. I should not wish to return to a system about which many people felt that at the age of 11 they were denied access to A-levels and university. That system is not appropriate.
I turn to bureaucracy. We recognise that there is an issue about ensuring that our teachers do not feel burdened by bureaucracy but we want to ensure that there is continuous improvement in our school system. We have a vital role to play in that regard.
Lord Dearing: My Lords, I congratulate the Minister and her colleagues on achieving a 1 per cent increase in GDP for education, as advocated in this House. However, perhaps I may mention to her that the cost of crime committed by those released from prisons exceeds that figure. According to the report from No. 10 issued this month by the Social Exclusion Unit, those who have not received education or training in prison are three times more likely to re-engage in crime than those who did receive education and training.
Is the Minister aware that the report indicates that, whereas the money for pure education is ring-fenced, the money for vocational education—an issue that we debated last night—is not? In recent years, the sums spent on such education in the construction industry—
an issue with which we were particularly concerned in our debate last night—have been greatly reduced. Will the Minister undertake to consider very carefully the wisdom of investing in people in prison to make them more fit to engage constructively in life after release? I know that the Minister feels strongly about that matter, but I should be grateful for her reassurance.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I agree totally with the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, which will come as no surprise to him. It is most important that we tackle such issues, especially in relation to young men, who are of particular concern. The percentage of young men who have a criminal conviction by the time they are 30 is very high and that is deeply worrying. I cannot recall the figure off-hand but it is of the order of 25 per cent. In a previous life, I was involved in examining ways of engaging industry in supporting training within prisons. In many cases, remarkable results were achieved, and I believe that that work will continue. The noble Lord made a very valid point, which I shall consider.
The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth: My Lords, the response from these Benches is, "Yes, but". I shall not go into the "yeses" because there is not time, but I want to highlight one or two points. First, over the past few months I have been carrying out a tour of schools in the diocese. In doing so, I have picked up a growing concern about the resourcing of special needs—a point that I raised in a previous debate in your Lordships' House. That also echoes what the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, said.
Perhaps I may push the question theoretically. Is it possible to conceive that a school might fail because it is inadequately resourced in the area of special needs? That may be like asking whether it is possible for an angel to dance on a pinhead. But I put the question sharply because it concerns an issue which is felt increasingly keenly by our schools. I hasten to add that the issue is not one of failing but of the resourcing of special needs. I know that I speak for schools situated not only in my own patch.
The second point that I want to emphasise goes back to what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. There is a need for a strategy for further education. From recent meetings that I have had with principals of colleges of further education, I sense an enormous amount of courage among them. But increasingly I also sense that, while developments are taking place in education on other fronts—in secondary and higher education—those in further education are feeling neglected and squeezed out of the picture. I ask the Minister to urge the Minister for Education to address this very important area. It concerns many of our young people as well as those involved in adult learning.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the right reverend Prelate has raised two very important points. The first concerns special educational needs. In my view, it is not a question of schools failing because they have inadequate resources. Some interesting
discussions could be had about the word "adequate". However, we are clear that the aim of our investment in special educational needs is to support schools in funding the resources that they need. We have worked closely with local education authorities to achieve that.As I am sure the right reverend Prelate would do, I pay tribute to all the schools that do fantastic work with children with special educational needs. Within our settlement, we want to ensure that we support those schools. As was mentioned in the Statement, we talk about inclusion as being an important part of that.
The right reverend Prelate referred to further education. The 1 per cent real terms annual increase is important. We shall obviously look closely at the subject of further education and there will be a great deal more to say on the issues that the right reverend Prelate raised. We want to see better rewards for high-performing staff in FE colleges. We want to ensure that the funding gap between school sixth-forms and colleges is acknowledged and examined, and we shall return to your Lordships' House with more details on that.
Baroness Massey of Darwen: My Lords, clearly education is, or should be, child-centred. That issue has been raised by many other noble Lords today. I want to focus on the issue of child-centredness and ask my noble friend about the educational pathway that the child goes through from pre-school to further education. We all know that there are certain hiatuses where children experience difficulty. They dip and they fail, for example, between primary and secondary school.
This money is clearly welcome. Let us not be mean about that. But how will the extra funding serve to ease the way for young people to move successfully through the system from nursery school to higher education?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, my noble friend has posed a deeply philosophical question. As she said, there are important moments in a child's pathway through education where more must be done. The particular issue highlighted in the Statement is what we call the "transition" between primary and secondary school. That is one of the most important, and often the most memorable, experiences of any person's life, including, I suggest, that of most noble Lords.
We want to ensure that we engage in the links between our children's early years education and the foundation stage through to the end of the reception year. We want them to have a breadth of experience that will enable them better to engage in a formal education, if I may describe it as such, through to key stage 2. There, we must ensure that their basic needs are met so that they can access a secondary curriculum. An increasing number of our young people should feel able to continue in or rejoin further and higher education through to adult skills.
Education presents a long journey from cradle to grave. My noble friend is absolutely right. A key part of what we do must focus on the important issues of
education, maintenance allowances, the transition to secondary school, and foundation to key stage 1, where children need extra support.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest as the president of the Association for Science Education. In that context, I ask the noble Baroness whether her attention has been drawn to a recent report showing a severely deteriorating supply of quality teachers of science in our schools and particularly in the subjects of mathematics and physics.
In yesterday's Statement we were told that the DTI has won a significant increase in money for science and scientific research. But where will the people come from if the schools cannot recruit the necessary qualified teachers to teach young people science and get them into university in that subject? Is it not clear that the Government must be brave and recognise that for many scientific disciplines recruitment is taking place in a market situation? Unless the market rate of pay for such teachers is met by the schools and those schools can offer jobs, they will not be able to obtain the necessary quality of teachers. Is it not clear that there needs to be more joined-up government so that the noble Baroness's department can match the aspirations of the Office of Science and Technology? The noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury of Turville, is in his place. The present situation does not add up. There must be an approach that will give schools far greater flexibility in what they pay to science teachers.
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