Young People (Employment and Training)

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Sheerman]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was talking about that rather obscure way of describing it—a well formulated dual education system. It is right to say that, too often, our education system is predicated on the expectation that children will go to school, go through the primary and junior years, go into secondary education at 11, take their GCSEs at 16 and be successful, and go through to the sixth form and get the qualifications to go into higher education. That does not apply to the majority of young people in our country yet. The majority of our young people do not actually do that, yet if people listened to most of the chattering classes, they would expect that that was the case.

The rest of the young people in our country have a much less certain future, only because we—all parties and all Governments—have tinkered with and changed the alternative. We have not changed the route through to higher education that dramatically, although there has been some change in nuance and there are some changes going through now. However, the fact is that we have been frantically trying to find ways in which to engage young people in meaningful further education, whether that be in colleges, by which I mean FE colleges, or whether it be through young people going into apprenticeships, going directly into employment—employment with training or, sadly, without training—or, of course, going into the hands of private trainers. There has been a range of opportunities.

The private training sector is very underestimated. I know the private training world very well. Unlike most parts of the education system, there are brilliant private sector educators and trainers, and there are some average ones and some not quite so good, but the market in private training is such that if someone does not perform, they are more likely to go out of business or see their business shrink quite dramatically than if they are running a college. That is the truth of the matter.

There is a cold wind coming through the education system and particularly in relation to the area that we are talking about today—the employability of young people and their getting the right skills for employability. That suggests that increasingly we must have greater transparency in the outcomes of the alternatives and accountability for what is delivered, whether it is the private sector through the Work programme, Jobcentre Plus and anything that it contributes, or what colleges do.

We all have to be very conscious of the last annual report of the chief inspector of schools. I was surprised that there was such a critical evaluation of the quality of FE in our country, which I felt, as a former Chairman of the Select Committee, was a slumbering giant. I was recently on the Skills Commission, looking at specialism in further education. Where further education is good, it is really good. We need only look at Newham and Hackney. We need only look at the brilliant experience in Cornwall. A fantastic-quality education is being delivered off six sites. People there know absolutely what the labour market is like and are engaging absolutely with small and medium-sized enterprises, not just the easy big ones, and delivering relevant skills training.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for the incredible work that he has always done in wanting to improve the life chances of our young people. Does he agree that there has been a tendency in recent years for the FE sector almost to compete for the low-hanging fruit, rather than seeking ways in which it can engage those who are not in education, employment or training by offering innovative and inspiring courses?

[Mr Sheerman]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. There is no doubt that the blemish on the record of our country, under several Governments, has been the inability to deliver high-quality education and training to about 25%—it is sometimes as high as 30%—of the population. They are a lost generation in many ways.

How do we have a system that allows so many children to underperform in primary school? We can predict by the time they are 10 that a significant percentage will never get the GCSEs to take them into a fulfilling career. By then, all the odds are stacked against them. What have we done wrong in primary school education? It is the new frontier. More people will look at the quality of primary education outcomes over the next few years, especially given the enormous pressure on places due to the boom in population growth. There will be a crisis in primary education. I am looking at the Minister, because he must know that.

We are not talking about primary education today, but when one goes into schools, and I still go into many schools over the year, every head says that they can predict NEETdom—the likelihood of a child becoming not in education, employment or training—very early, as the child emerges out of pre-school and into the early years of primary education. That is how challenging the problem is.

I am not sure, Sir Roger, how much time we have left for the debate.