Education: GCSE Music
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, the vacancy rate for music teachers in schools is currently 0.6%, so I do not believe that there is a crisis. I am glad that the noble Lord raised music education hubs, which are supporting more than 650,000 children learning to play an instrument. More than 340,000 pupils took part regularly in area-based ensembles and choirs, of which more than 8% were eligible for pupil premium. Music is an important part of our system and the Government are supporting it.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, despite what the Minister is saying and the replies he is giving, it is now very clear from a huge amount of evidence that the EBacc is harming not just music but all the arts, and design as well. Do the Government not think it time, if we are to retain some form of baccalaureate, to look at other models such as the Edge Foundation to enable the rounded and forward-looking education the Government say they believe in?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, the EBacc was designed to get a good general education to as large a part of the population as possible, in particular those from disadvantaged areas. We all know that the cultural capital from those areas is much less than in people coming from the backgrounds of most in this Chamber. That is why we did it. There is room in the key stage 4 curriculum to add music if that is what schools decide to do. The average number of EBacc exams is seven—eight if you go to triple maths, but seven would be standard—and that leaves one slot for music if that is what a child decides to do.
Schools: Music
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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The Earl of Clancarty
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will take steps to improve opportunities for the study of music in schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, the Government believe that all pupils should have access to an excellent, well-rounded education. Music is an integral part of a pupil’s education and a compulsory subject in the national curriculum at key stages 1 to 3. Between 2016 and 2020, we will provide £300 million of funding for music education hubs to ensure that all pupils have the opportunity to learn an instrument, sing and perform regularly and have access to clear routes of progression.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, the Minister will know that, in the last year alone, take-up of GCSE music in England fell by 8%. Is he aware that the University of Sussex survey of 6,500 schools found that teachers, who should certainly know, held the EBacc primarily responsible for this decline—a view supported by a recent Education Policy Institute report? Will the Minister agree to meet to discuss these concerns with myself, other interested Peers and Bacc for the Future, whose members include many organisations who are worried about the increasing marginalisation of music in our schools?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
To reassure the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, I will be happy to meet with him and colleagues from this Chamber to discuss the matter further. However, there is no evidence that arts subjects have declined as a result of the introduction of the EBacc. Indeed, the proportion of time spent studying music has remained broadly stable since 2010. Since the EBacc was announced, the proportion of pupils in state-funded schools taking at least one arts subject has also remained stable. I have a very strong personal commitment to music. My own father was cured of a debilitating stammer through learning to sing and so breathe properly. I am doing everything I can to encourage music in the system.
Teacher Education: Arts, Crafts and Design
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Earl of Clancarty
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve initial teacher education in order to ensure a high standard of teaching of art, craft and design subjects in schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, at their most recent Ofsted inspection, 100% of initial teacher training providers were judged to be either good or outstanding. We have worked with a sector-led group chaired by Stephen Munday to develop a new framework of core initial teacher training content which was published last year. It is enabling providers as well as trainees to have a better understanding of the essential elements of good ITT content, including in the arts.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that high-quality teaching of art and design subjects in schools is essential, not least for driving future innovation, an ambition of the industrial strategy? Has he looked at the recent Oxford Brookes University research, which bears out the increasing concern that for these subjects the PGCE route, which is contracting, is significantly preferable to School Direct, not just because of the subject-specific training but for the wider context of networking and access to community-based practice? Will the Government address these concerns?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I agree with the noble Earl that a broad and balanced curriculum is an essential part of a child’s education. I am afraid that I have not seen the Oxford Brookes report but I reassure him that many schools buy-in the PGCE qualification to run alongside their own School Direct programme to enable students to benefit from this in addition to the practical emphasis of the school-based approach.
English Baccalaureate: Creative and Technical Subjects
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott has secured this debate. By her laying down an alternative point of view, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, has also done, one of the things this debate provokes—perhaps even more than is usual in education debates—is the fundamental question of what is and is not a good education for our children; and, furthermore, is that not the education they are currently receiving?
I want to try to answer these questions myself by using as a starting point a couple of things that School Standards Minister Nick Gibb has said this year. The first, which is in the excellent Library briefing, is from the Written Statement of 19 July of this year repeated in this House. It stated that the EBacc subjects,
“are the core of a rounded and well balanced education that should be the entitlement of the vast majority of pupils”.
The noble Lord, Lord Nash, has repeated on a number of occasions that he thinks that what is being offered is a rounded education.
The other is from comments made by Nick Gibb at Chobham Academy in east London and reported last week in the Times Educational Supplement. He said:
“If you keep the Ebacc small enough … and don’t give in to the temptation to add more and more subjects to that core, you … enable pupils to also take a vocational subject … to take arts to GCSE, and that’s really what lies behind the whole Ebacc policy”.
I too believe passionately in a rounded education—I will say why in a moment—but the first and most obvious thing to say is that by including sciences but not the arts within the core subjects then, by definition, you are not facilitating a rounded or well-balanced education because you are elevating the one thing above the other. This seems to me so obvious that it is difficult to understand why the Government are doing what they are doing.
However, in his other comments, Nick Gibb makes a distinction between core and vocational subjects—which is a distinction that people make. Not everyone who studies the arts goes on to become a professional artist or a professional musician, just as not everyone who studies the sciences or mathematics becomes, in the most specialised sense, a scientist or a mathematician. Indeed, in all these cases they are in the minority. The underlying assumption is of course that, as subjects to study and understand, the so-called “vocational subjects”—a term I would dispute—are not worthy of study to the same extent, the prejudice, as we know, being towards the inherent form of the knowledge imparted.
However, education is not just learning towards a specialisation or even a practice—although the Minister would do well to take on board many of the noble Baroness’s arguments in this respect. It also means that through studying subjects you will become part of the audience for them. This, in my view, is the meaning of education for its own sake, a phrase we do not hear often enough these days. This is the process of literacy which enriches society as a whole—meaning also, in the case of the arts, it should not just be a minority of privileged students who can afford, for example, music lessons through private schooling or private tuition, but all students.
I would say that, without even considering yet evidence that the EBacc is harming creative subjects, the Government’s set of core subjects which represents a very particular vision of education—supposedly the right requirement for entry into a certain group of universities—is simply wrong from the outset. Wrong because it is restricted and restrictive—perhaps any set of core subjects is—and curiously standing in contrast to other courses around the world which prepare students for university and other colleges, such as the International Baccalaureate, which assumes that creative subjects will be studied up to pre-university level.
At some stage students want to specialise. We might argue when that should be but they should not be forced into a box—which is what the EBacc is—but able to make their own choices, and to do so from the more powerful position of an already wide-ranging education.
The EBacc may be a performance measure and entered by less than 40% of pupils in state schools, but it is the culture that the EBacc represents that is being instilled in and felt by schools, with creative subjects being squeezed out of the teaching day. To answer my second question: yes, of course the EBacc is now having a huge effect and schoolchildren are not getting the education that even the Government say they should be getting. For example, a new Norwich University of the Arts study on Norfolk schools finds that since 2010 there has been a decrease of 40% in staffing in art and design and/or design and technology. Design and technology has 25% fewer teachers with 23% fewer teaching hours. A similar story is being revealed by a growing number of studies. The National Society for Education in Art and Design’s survey of teachers last year,
“told us that the implementation of the EBacc has reduced opportunities for young people of all abilities to select art and design at GCSE”.
A study by the University of Sussex of more than 700 schools in England shows a decline in music in the curriculum. Across the country there are significant falls in the number of hours taught, a decline in specialist teachers, in teachers overall, and in resources.
There are also knock-on effects within the system. The City of London Corporation briefing notes, which we probably all received, talk about the Guildhall School of Music and Drama’s concern at the decline in good students from state schools. And of course we are seeing dramatic falls in the take-up of creative subjects at GCSE, the figures for which were quoted by the noble Baroness. Evidence of the decline of creative subjects in our schools is becoming a torrent. How will Ofsted reflect the Government’s EBacc policy in its inspection procedures, as it has promised to do? How will non-EBacc subjects not then start to be neglected?
In the interests of a rounded education, as the Norwich University of the Arts paper recommends, what is urgently required is parity of esteem between creative and STEM subjects. This will be achieved only through radically reforming, or better still scrapping, the EBacc.
Education: English Baccalaureate
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(6 years, 12 months ago)
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The Earl of Clancarty
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will respond to the public consultation Implementing the English Baccalaureate which closed on 29 January 2016.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, the results of the consultation on implementing the English baccalaureate and the Government’s response will be published in due course—I hope soon.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, is this long delay because the overwhelming public response voices the concern that the EBacc excludes art and design subjects? I ask the Minister not to continue to justify the EBacc with the New Schools Network stats on the percentage of pupils taking one arts GCSE, which represented a shift away from other qualifications, but instead to look at the latest Ofqual figures revealing—two years in a row—a hugely alarming 8% decline in the take-up of arts GCSEs. The EBacc must be scrapped.
Lord Nash
I can tell the noble Earl that it is not a result of the points he has made. We have been considering carefully a great many responses, and there have been a few political issues in the meantime. I am certainly encouraged to see that we have been improving the quality of these subjects with help from the Royal Academy of Engineering and the James Dyson Foundation. The decline in the subjects to which the noble Earl refers has been more than made up for in the substantial increase in the number of pupils taking IT and the now almost 70,000 pupils taking computing.
Education: Design Subjects
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
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The Earl of Clancarty
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they intend to take to encourage the study of design subjects in schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash)
My Lords, the Government believe that all pupils should have access to an excellent and well-rounded education. Art and design and design and technology are essential to that, and they are compulsory subjects in the national curriculum at key stages 1 to 3. We have reformed the D&T and art and design GCSEs and A-levels in response to feedback from experts such as the Royal Academy of Engineering and the James Dyson Foundation to make them more rigorous, contemporary and of greater appeal to students.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that skilled design is essential for our technical trades and creative industries? As the Government are correctly putting an emphasis on technical education, are they not concerned about the significant fall in take-up of GCSE and A-level design subjects, with a recent Association of School and College Leaders survey showing a drop of 44% over the past year alone in the number of schools offering GCSE design and technology? Will the Government address these concerns, and if so, how?
Lord Nash
My Lords, the figures for pupil number decline in D&T GCSE have fallen less in the past six academic years than in the four previous academic years up until 2010, so we have arrested the decline. We have introduced computer science for the first time. The number interested in that subject last year along with a substantial increase in IT entries considerably more than make up for the decline in D&T. Of course, as the noble Earl has mentioned, I do not think that anyone can doubt our commitment to technical education given the passing in your Lordships’ House yesterday of the Technical and Further Education Bill. New courses will be based on groups of occupations within the 15 framework routes, which will include creative and design.
Secondary Schools: Funding
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(7 years, 4 months ago)
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The Earl of Clancarty
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effect of proposed levels of funding allocated to secondary schools on the quality of education including the teaching of non-English-Baccalaureate subjects.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, through our careful management of the economy we have protected the core schools budget in real terms. This means that in 2017-18 schools will have more funding than ever before for children’s education, totalling more than £40 billion. We are also committed to ensuring that all pupils receive a broad and balanced curriculum that includes both an academic core and additional subjects that reflect their individual interests, strengths and characteristics, including arts subjects.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, is not the Minister alarmed by the recent comments of the head teacher of a school in Cheshire, who said that if further cuts—and they are cuts according to the National Audit Office—go ahead then all non-EBacc subjects could be removed from the curriculum, meaning no art, music, drama or design and technology? Arts departments across the country are already bearing the brunt of the current cuts, such as to specialist teachers, provision of materials and ICT. Will the Minister accept that there is simply not enough of a funding cake to go round?
Lord Nash
I am alarmed by the comments because it is quite clear that those schools that perform well in arts subjects also perform particularly well in the EBacc. As the NAO has said, by comparing efficient schools with others, there is plenty of money in the system and we have a number of tools in the department to enable schools to run themselves more efficiently, and those that do have sufficient resources, particularly for the classroom and for their curriculum.
Education: A-levels in Creative Subjects
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
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The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for her excellent introduction to this debate. Following the announcements of the discontinuation of history of art and archaeology A-levels on 12 October—three weeks and one day ago—there was an immediate outcry, which has not died down. Yet so far we have had no satisfactory response from the Government, so today I will listen to the Minister’s answer with great interest. This outcry is all the more remarkable—tens of thousands have signed petitions and hundreds have written to the AQA—considering that relatively few students presently study either of these courses. I will argue that many more could, yet it is clear that the value of these subjects to the country as a whole is the more significant consideration.
For instance, Mike Heyworth, director of the Council for British Archaeology, has said that the decision to discontinue archaeology is “disastrous”, telling the Times that this is,
“just at a time when we were looking to expand our support for the revised A-Level and its link with apprenticeships”.
The Royal Academy, the Courtauld Institute and many schools are among those who criticised the art history decision. Deborah Swallow, director of the Courtauld, has said:
“History of art is a rigorous interdisciplinary subject that gives students the critical skills to deal with a world that is increasingly saturated with images”.
Simon Schama tweeted,
“this government determined to impoverish the next generation”.
It is difficult, if not impossible, not to see such developments except within the wider context of the more general downgrading of the arts within the school educational system. Last year, for example, we also lost creative writing as an A-level. We also have a GCSE system, the EBacc, referred to by the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Nye, which excludes arts subjects from the core subjects. This year that has already led to a drop of 5% in take-up in art and design subjects, and it is having a detrimental influence on the teaching and perception of arts subjects at every key stage. On the subject of the EBacc, can the Government give further news of when they will respond to the consultation, since it will be one year this Wednesday since it opened?
One of the reasons given for the discontinuation of art history is the number of students studying it, yet teachers are repeatedly saying that the course is so popular that they have to cap the numbers. The BBC reports Godalming College, a state sixth form, as saying this, and Rose Aidin, who runs the A-level course at the Wallace Collection, says that there is a waiting list for this course which includes state school students. This again raises the issue of what subjects are encouraged to be studied in our state schools as a whole and whether the demands from students are being properly met.
A criticism of art history that has been made, notably by the art critic Jonathan Jones, is that it is a so-called posh subject. It is true that around 75% of students come from private schools, but this still leaves a quarter of students from state schools. If the course is cut, state school children will be barred for ever. Private schools will still run art history courses, and they will be right to do so to maintain the balance between arts, humanities and sciences which is increasingly denied within the state school system. Private schools will then own the subject, and their students will have the advantage in continuing on to degree level despite what AQA has said to the contrary. Again, this will be part of pushing the arts further into the hands of the better-off, which is already happening with music and drama.
Indeed there is nothing that says that art history or indeed any art subject is inherently posh. In 2013, in a talk on global citizenship Sir Nicholas Serota said:
“Art is a fundamental part of the public realm. In their work, artists express ideas, attitudes and beliefs. Often, these are central to politics, society and economics”.
This is true of all ages, and visual literacy should, in the 21st century, be a central aspect of our education.
One irony about the history of art A-level is that the new syllabus is intended to appeal to a wider range of students and to cover a wide range of cultures, as it is concerned with art on a global scale rather than concentrating on the history of western art. Learning about the arts is inherently about reaching out to other cultures, the importance of which, in our current more insular climate, we are at risk of dangerously underestimating.
The provision of creative subjects in primary schools and at key stages 3 to 4 lays the foundations of a rounded education which will give children the most informed basis for making a more specialised choice, a choice which should be as wide as possible if students’ needs and capabilities are to be fulfilled. Yet, in recent years, we have been cutting down on that choice. Justine Greening said last week that girls need to be encouraged into STEM subjects. A lot of them are studying arts subjects and would like to continue to do so. We could just as easily turn this question around and ask where are the boys in arts subjects. STEM needs to be expanded to STEAM.
AQA has also cited as a prime reason a lack of competence in marking art history and,
“the complex and specialist nature of the exams”.
I do not believe for one moment that there is not the expertise in this country to address this. Will the Government intercede on this matter in particular? In the end, it is not AQA which should be held responsible. The Government are responsible for our education, and they need to be held to account.
I do not know what the Minister is going to say about the future of the threatened A-levels. I hope he will not hide behind the reasons given by AQA and that he will supply us with good news about the continuation of these subjects that will at least make one or two of our arguments redundant.
Education (Pupil Information) (England) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2016
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, it is important that schools know how many of their pupils have English as an additional language. I hope that means that extra resources and support can be provided for those pupils. Indeed, schools and local authorities have been doing this for decades. However, the requirement for every school in England—by the way, we are not talking about Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales—to collect information en masse about every child’s country of birth is, frankly, unbelievable.
These regulations were made on 20 July and laid before Parliament on 27 July, after Parliament had risen for the Summer Recess. They were rushed through Parliament in the six-week summer holiday with no debate, no proper scrutiny or, indeed, public consultation. You might have thought that the DfE would have wanted to consult, take soundings and take the views of a range of organisations before embarking on this requirement. However, that was not the case. The regulations were rushed through Parliament and that was it.
Against a backdrop of a massive increase in anti-immigration rhetoric, as witnessed by big increases in hate crime, and at one stage the Government considering asking firms to report on the number of foreign staff they employed, there is real concern among members of different ethnic groups about victimisation and being targeted. I am afraid that this proposal has all the hallmarks of racism, particularly as language codes are already recorded for pupils with English as an additional language, as are codes on their ethnic background. We have already seen the effects of this new requirement. It became a duty for schools to collect this information this September. Some schools have asked pupils to bring in their passports. Can noble Lords imagine pupils having to bring in their passports? In investigating the school census, Schools Week found classroom discrimination whereby only non-white children were being asked to bring in their passports to school. The Independent reported that where parents do not provide information, teachers will be asked to guess the ethnicity of pupils. Is it any wonder that children and young people have felt discriminated against and embarrassed in front of their peers? The Government may say that the guidelines state such and such, but that is a very different matter from practice in schools.
What is the purpose of collecting the information? The Minister says in his letter to me that the information will help us to understand the impact of migration on schools—for example, what extra support we may need to provide. However, there is no extra budget financing. He goes on to say that it will help us plan how we ensure there are enough good places for every child. However, knowing where a child was born has nothing to do with school place provision. The DfE says that the information will not be accessible to the Home Office, but already on 18 separate occasions since 2012 the National Pupil Database data have been handed over to the Home Office, while information has been granted to the police 31 times.
The actions of the Government and statements from them on nationality and country of birth have also raised real concerns about the confidentiality of the school census as a whole and the child’s personal data given by parents in good faith when their child enrols at school. If information from the school census can be shared with other agencies, for example the Home Office and police, without any oversight at all or consent, what does that say about the confidentiality of such information? By acknowledging that the nationality and country of birth data are too sensitive to be kept on the National Pupil Database with other data, are the Government suggesting that that database is not a secure place for a child’s data to be stored? How does this rest with our child safeguarding responsibilities?
I am very grateful to the Minister for his letter of 26 October, in which he made a number of key points. I hope that when he responds to the debate he will deal with some of them. He says that the new data on nationality and country of birth will be provided to schools by parents only if they choose to do so. It will be entirely optional. What is the point of all this if, at the end of the day, it will be entirely optional? How will that affect the need for extra resources or school placements?
On the question of passing information to the Home Office, the Minister says that it is solely for internal Department for Education use. How can we have a 100% cast-iron guarantee that this information will not be passed on to other agencies? He also talks about how we currently give information to private organisations and for research purposes. Is there to be carte blanche? What checks and balances are currently in place when people ask to see this information, and how do we ensure that if we agree that information goes to a private organisation, we are happy that it will be treated correctly and properly?
Finally, to go back to the point I made at the beginning, the Minister talks in his letter about extra support. Are we to understand that there are plans to provide extra financial support for schools which have children from different ethnic backgrounds?
Children are children, and to use their personal information for immigration enforcement is disingenuous, irresponsible, and not the hallmark of a tolerant, open and caring society.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for introducing this Motion and I agree with his concerns.
There are two aspects to this. One is concern over whether school census data might be passed to the Home Office for immigration purposes, and the other is whether the gathering of these data oversteps the bounds of privacy, whether or not there is any usefulness for education. I have to say that but for the perseverance of campaign groups such as Against Borders for Children and Jen Persson of defenddigitalme, we would be none the wiser about the sharing for immigration purposes of the National Pupil Database between the Department for Education and the Home Office that has already gone on.
It has taken two freedom of information requests by Pippa King as well as Parliamentary Written Questions from Caroline Lucas to uncover, for instance, that in the last 15 months alone, requests to a total of 2,462 pupils have been made by the Home Office. I therefore feel that it is already very difficult to trust any reassurances that the Government now might make for the future. These revelations also contradict the statement that the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, made in this Chamber on October 12 when he said,
“I reassure the House that the information is kept within the Department for Education and is not passed on to the Home Office”.—[Official Report, 12/10/16; col. 1890.]
This is clearly untrue, and I hope that this statement will be retracted. So far, the Government have said nothing about these disclosures.
We learned at the weekend from the report in Schools Week that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, has said that the nationality and place of birth data would be kept in a separate database. This raises a number of questions, not least whether this is a tacit admission that the NPD is not a secure place already in terms of data sharing—and of course we know now that it is not. But I would like to know what would be so special about this separate database. What is the precise wording that will ensure that these data will not be shared with the Home Office? Will this be a legally binding agreement? That these data would be on a different database seems to me to be meaningless in itself. What, then, of the NPD? Can the Minister assure us that those data, aside from nationality and birthplace, will not be shared in the future with the Home Office? What is the wording of any agreement which will ensure that?
Parents are upset, not just about how this information might be used but because these questions are asked at all. They are fundamentally intrusive in the same way that the listing of foreign workers would be. We also know that the same questions are also being asked of school governors. If it is unclear how pupils’ data can be used for the improvement of their education, it seems that the same information on school governors does not have anything at all to do with either a good education or good governance.
One of the things that ought to be emphasised is that these questions are in one important sense mandatory. You cannot leave them blank and, despite what it says in the guidance, parents have been asked for their passports for the simple reason that when the department asks a school to do something, they will naturally try to do so as effectively as they can. It is true that you can currently put “Refuse” as an answer, which parents are quite rightly doing out of protest at being asked these questions, but for many parents this will appear a provocative response. Can the Minister say whether there would be a straightforward opportunity for parents who are unhappy about having already given the information to have it retracted? Having “Refuse” as an option is a telling recognition that this is a sensitive area and, if these regulations continue, it will not surprise me at all if in a year or two that option is removed.
As everyone in education knows, it is a hard job to get pupils who may be excluded from mainstream education by circumstance into education. We need to get all our children into school, not frighten them away. In a sense, the Minister let the cat out of the bag in answer to a question from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Hudnall, that,
“it better enables us to monitor immigration issues within this country”.—[Official Report, 12/10/16; col. 1889.]
How is that a function of the DfE? Data gathered by the DfE should not be used to monitor immigration issues. Teachers are not border guards.
This is a children’s rights issue. Many parents are against the provision of these data and campaign groups have displayed serious concerns about it. The regret Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, is unfortunately well founded.
School Census: Pupils’ Nationality
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
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The Earl of Clancarty
To ask Her Majesty’s Government for what purpose they intend to use the information ascertained from the newly introduced question in the school census on pupils’ nationality.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, we will use information on pupils’ nationality and country of birth to understand how we can give all pupils a better education that caters to their individual needs. If there are people whose first language is not English, we will be able to see how well they are doing and how we can help their school to contribute meaningfully to raising pupils’ outcomes. These new data are solely for the DfE to use in research, statistics and analysis.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that parents are appalled by the introduction of these questions on nationality and place of birth, which have nothing to do with a good education? Is he further aware that a freedom of information request has revealed that the Home Office has frequently used the pupil database for immigration purposes? Does he not therefore agree that these questions are on the same level of intrusiveness as listing foreign workers, and should be removed from the census?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My Lords, the census covers a range of things, and we should be aware that children of foreign nationals can face additional challenges upon starting school in the UK. They are not likely to speak English fluently and may not have been here for the full school choice or application round, so they are more frequently placed in schools that, ideally, they would not choose. The education system they have arrived from may be different from the English system, so they may be behind our expected standards simply because they have yet to cover elements of our curriculum. Understanding nationalities helps us to put the right policies in place to help those children, and there are safeguards in place.