Education Bill

Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I join others in welcoming many things in the Bill. In particular, I welcome the broad intention to give much greater autonomy to schools and colleges, and discretion to teachers and school and college leaders to take decisions and be accountable for them. All of us for too long have railed against the micromanagement of education, which has been exacerbated by a regime of constant changes to structures and standards. My noble friend the Minister mentioned the report published not so long ago by the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee of this House on the accumulation of guidance and directions that were headed towards schools, and the very fact that each year some 4,000 pages of guidance and directions were sent to school leaders, which absorbed a disproportionate amount of the time that they should have devoted to running their schools and improving performance in them.

That said, I also worry that in the Bill and in the process of simplification and doing away with quangos—the name of the game—we are giving too many powers to the Secretary of State. Has the Department for Education really got the capacity to absorb all the functions of the GTCE, the QCDA and the other two quangos that we are in the process of abolishing? In Clauses 23 to 25, is it really sensible not to have an arm’s-length body to set up and advise on the national curriculum? The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, spoke of a curriculum changing at the whim of the Secretary of State. There are dangers in the Secretary of State being too close in terms of setting the national curriculum. There are those who are writing about the nationalisation of education in what is happening. Although I know that this is certainly not the intention of this coalition Government, there are dangers that we may be moving in that direction in one or two of the moves that we are taking.

I declare an interest in that I am chairing a commission for the National Institute of Adult and Continuing Education, the AOC, and the 157 Group on the role of colleges in their communities. I have been busy visiting a lot of colleges around the country and I shall be visiting more. One thing that has impressed me is what some of the colleges are achieving in terms of forging partnerships with local organisations, such as employers, PCTs, community groups, churches, football clubs, schools, universities, and Sure Start centres. You name it, and partnerships are being formed. An important element has been partnerships with local authorities. Many of these colleges are now central to the creation of new local enterprise partnerships. I am, in some ways, rather sorry to see in Schedule 12, which is enacted by Clause 48, that the duty on colleges to co-operate and promote the well-being of their local economies and communities is being dropped. I recognise that the AOC has argued that colleges do not need to be told to do this, but it is no bad thing to be reminded that it should be one of their duties.

Similarly, I am sorry to see in Clauses 30 and 31 that the duty on schools and colleges to co-operate is being dropped. Schools and colleges have a prime duty to serve their local communities with co-operation and partnership in the local areas. It is a key aspect. I would argue that local authorities play an important strategic role in this, and that that role should not be ignored.

I should like to say a word about vocational education and pick up the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, and the noble Lord, Lord Layard. There is a real issue, because in Clause 28 we are dropping the duty on local authorities to ensure that they have diploma courses available. I weep no tears at the departure of some of the hybrid diplomas, but I worry about the curriculum we are putting forward for those young people who are not totally academic in nature. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, knows that I very much welcome the development of the university technical colleges. I, too, endorse this notion that the move should be at 14.

As the noble Lord, Lord Layard, said, there has been a shocking neglect in our schools of that group of young people for whom the academic curriculum does not necessarily provide what one is looking for. This really links up with the question of apprenticeships. I do not regret so much that there is no longer a duty on the National Apprenticeship Service to find apprenticeships, but there is a very real problem, as the noble Lord mentioned, in finding apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year-olds. I ask the Minister whether any thought is being given to providing a one-year pre-apprenticeship training in colleges. One of the problems that employers raise is the lack of work readiness on the part of these young people, and they are rather loath to take on 16 year-olds into apprenticeship places.

Finally, I would like to say a word about the Careers Service. Again, as the noble Lord, Lord Layard, mentioned, there is a real problem about young people learning about the range of opportunities open to them. In particular, I regret the dropping of the obligation on schools to provide knowledge for young people about the apprenticeship opportunities open to them. This is very much a retrograde step.

I am also very worried about what has happened to our Careers Service. Just the other day in his evidence before the Select Committee of the other place, Mr Tony Watts, one of our experts on the Careers Service, said:

“We are seeing the collapse of all the help that is available to young people in terms of their career planning”.

I hope the Minister can assure us that with the one-year gap before the new all-age careers service is developed, and the danger of losing all the knowledge there in the Connexions service and the Careers Service, with the laying off of these people by local authorities, that something will be done to make sure that we do not lose that expertise.