Engineering Skills: Design and Technology Education

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey; I think it is the first time I have done so. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) on securing this important debate during British science week. I pay tribute to her for her work on these issues on the Education Committee and elsewhere. I also congratulate her on the powerful and compelling speech that introduced the debate.

Science, technology, engineering and maths are vital subjects in our modern economy. Our manifesto included a commitment to make this country the best place in the world to study maths and STEM subjects in primary, secondary and further education. There is widespread demand for employees with an in-depth knowledge of STEM subjects, and those working in science and technology careers are paid, on average, 19% more than in other professions. Despite those attractive employment prospects, research from organisations such as the Confederation of British Industry shows that companies still have difficulties in recruiting people with technical and professional STEM backgrounds and qualifications.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) referred to the importance of careers advice. The Government have established the Careers & Enterprise Company, and we are also taking steps to improve the quality of careers advice through the development of a new careers strategy that will set out our vision for 2020 and the clear lines of accountability, through Ofsted and the new destination measures, for the quality of careers advice in schools.

We have recognised the importance of STEM subjects to young people’s life chances, and we accept the plea of the hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan) that we promote science and technology subjects at school. Our ambitious programme of reform is addressing the historical underperformance in STEM education. Our reforms to the curriculum and to qualifications mean that standards in public qualifications will match the expectations of the best education systems in the world.

We are also reforming vocational qualifications to introduce a small number of technical and professional routes, which will support students’ progress from school into employment. Those routes will be valued by employers to ensure that more students progress into higher-level technical occupations in areas such as engineering. As the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) said, high-quality teaching is also essential to tackling the skills shortages, which is why the Government support schools to recruit top graduates into teaching.

Last year, the Prime Minister announced an additional package worth £67 million to recruit and train up to 17,500 maths and physics teachers. The Government run scholarships and offer bursaries to encourage high-quality maths and physics graduates to train as teachers. We also support schools and existing STEM teachers to improve the quality of teaching through Government-funded programmes such as maths hubs and the network of science learning partnerships.

More than 22,000 more young people are taking A-levels in STEM subjects this year compared with 2010, and the number of STEM apprenticeships is increasing. The percentage of apprentices starting in STEM-sector-related subject areas has increased by 64% since 2010, to more than 90,000. Over the same period, the number of women starting STEM-related apprenticeships has more than doubled to 8,000, and the number starting apprenticeships in engineering and manufacturing technologies has more than trebled to 5,100.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) emphasised the importance of the apprenticeship programme. We are committed to reaching 3 million apprenticeship starts in England by 2020, an ambition that we are helping to fund to the tune of £2.5 billion with the apprenticeship levy. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood highlighted the example of 12 higher-level apprenticeships at the BAE Systems site in Rochester.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) mentioned schools actively discouraging students from looking into the possibility of becoming an apprentice. The Education Act 2011, introduced by the coalition Government, says that schools should secure independent careers advice, and adds explicitly that that must include information on apprenticeships.

Another issue that the Government are tackling is the gender gap in STEM A-levels and careers. We should celebrate the fact that 12,000 more girls entered mathematics and science at A-level in 2015 than in 2010, but total entries in maths and science were still 36% higher for boys than for girls. The Secretary of State recently announced an ambition to tackle that unjustifiable gender gap by increasing the proportion of girls entering maths and science A-levels by 20% by 2020. My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham referred to the STEMNET programme. There are now 32,000 STEM ambassador volunteers throughout the country who support their local schools with STEM careers advice, and 40% of them are female—a point also made by the hon. Member for Strangford.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham welcomed the reforms made to the design and technology curriculum and associated qualifications. She is right that design and technology is a valuable subject that prepares young people for further technical study, and it remains compulsory in school from key stage 1 to key stage 3—from ages five to 14. The content of the previous design and technology qualifications did not include the knowledge and skills sought by leading engineering employers, so, as my hon. Friend said, we have worked closely with key organisations in the sector—including the Design and Technology Association, the James Dyson Foundation and the Royal Academy of Engineering —to align the qualification with high-tech industry practice. Industry leaders have been very supportive of our reforms.

The hon. Member for Scunthorpe criticised some of our approaches to design and technology. Under the last Labour Government, between 2007-08 and 2010, the numbers entering design and technology GCSE fell from 311,000 to 238,000. I am optimistic that our reforms to the content of the design and technology GCSE and A-level will result in a rise in the number of students who opt to study them. The decline started before we introduced the EBacc or the Progress 8 measure.

We continue to support design and technology teacher recruitment through bursaries of up to £12,000 and marketing campaigns that feature design and technology. Subject knowledge enhancement courses are available for candidates who need to refresh or boost their subject knowledge. We also provide a specific webpage on the “Get Into Teaching” website for potential design and technology trainee teachers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham expressed concerns about the impact of the recently introduced accountability measures—such as the EBacc and the Progress 8 measure—on the take-up of design and technology. I share her concern at the declining numbers that I just highlighted. In my view, that decline reflects the declining quality and status of the previous qualification. As I said, I am optimistic that we will see the numbers rise.

The EBacc combination of core academic GCSEs is an important performance measure and the Government are determined that every child should leave school fully literate and fluent in maths, with an understanding of the history and geography of the world they inhabit, its workings as revealed by the findings of science, and a grasp of a language other than their own. Biology, chemistry, physics, computer science—there is nothing old-fashioned in emphasising the importance of those subjects, which was the criticism levelled at us by the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan).

I have every hope that the combination of the revised design and technology qualifications and our focus on attracting new specialist teachers will restore the subject’s focus. To give my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham time to respond, I shall finish by saying that I am enormously grateful for her support for this agenda. She has raised some important issues, and I hope she is happy with the steps that the Government are taking to address them. Over the course of the Parliament, we will continue to build on the progress we have made on this issue.