Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to review the rates of interest on student loans.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the total annual investment at Higher Education level in the pure mathematical sciences; and how, as a share of GDP, this compares with that of countries with the best mathematics results at that level.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government strongly supports mathematical sciences in higher education. Ensuring that there is high-quality provision in a range of subjects is critical in order to build our workforce and support our public services. We are pleased many students chose to take up courses in mathematical sciences, with 39,210 students enrolling in England in 2019/20 academic year: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/table-49.
Our student loan system supports students who have the qualifications to access higher education, including a range of mathematics courses. In the 2019/20 academic year, a total of £300 million was made available as tuition fee and maintenance loans for students doing mathematics courses.
The UK continues to be a world leader in mathematics. To support mathematics research and development, UK Research and Innovation has awarded £104 million of additional funding into Mathematical Sciences, over and above the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s core Mathematical Sciences Theme budget. The additional investment has funded institutes, small and large research grants, fellowships, doctoral studentships and postdoctoral awards.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the success of individual universities in maintaining student courses and contact during the lockdown.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
As my right hon. Friends, the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer have both made clear, the government will do whatever it takes to support people affected by COVID-19.
Our latest guidance on the impact of COVID-19 is set out below:
Teaching, learning and assessment in higher education are not stopping and we are working with the sector to ensure that universities are able to make all reasonable efforts to enable students to continue and complete their studies, for their achievements to be reliably assessed and for qualifications to be awarded securely.
Higher education providers have adapted to the COVID-19 outbreak by rapidly moving teaching, examination and assessment online and all providers are developing their online provision ahead of the next academic year. Individual providers have issued advice and guidance to help support students through the transition to online provision and we are continuing to work closely with the sector, putting student wellbeing at the heart of these discussions. We believe that efforts so far have been largely successful in ensuring continued provision for the majority of students and are grateful to providers for taking such rapid action to ensure continued provision.
Universities offering good online tuition will continue to charge fees. However, the government has been clear that if universities want to charge full fees, they will have to ensure that good-quality courses are delivered which are fit for purpose and help students progress towards their qualifications.
The government’s clear expectation is that providers should make all reasonable efforts to enable students to complete their studies. If institutions are unable to facilitate adequate online tuition then they should seek to avoid charging students for any additional terms they may need to undergo as a consequence – therefore avoiding effectively charging them twice.
If students are concerned, there is a process in place. They should first raise this with their university. If their concerns are unresolved, students can contact the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, following the release of figures by the Department for Education on 23 November showing that the number of people starting apprenticeships has dropped by 59 per cent in the last year, what assessment they have made of the reasons for that decrease; and how they plan to reverse that trend.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
There has been 1.1 million apprenticeship starts in England since May 2015.
The 59% drop in starts only covers the period from May to July 2017, and followed a sharp rise in the preceding months, meaning that overall apprenticeship starts in 2016/17 are only down by 2.8% overall.
In April 2017, the government introduced changes to the apprenticeship system including the introduction of the apprenticeship levy and the new digital Apprenticeship Service. It is too early to draw conclusions on the impact of these reforms before employers have had time to adjust.
The government will continue to monitor the number of apprenticeship starts and work closely with employers to ensure the success of these reforms.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Viscount Younger of Leckie on 20 December (HL4031), and following the Programme for International Student Assessment survey, whether they have made an assessment of the level of progress made by English schools since 2010 in closing the achievement gap with the world’s best performing countries.
Answered by Lord Nash
In 2015, fewer countries performed significantly ahead of England than in 2012. In 2012, out of 65 participating countries, 10 performed significantly ahead of England in science, 19 in mathematics and 17 reading. In 2015, out of 70 countries, nine performed significantly ahead of England in science, 19 in mathematics and 14 in reading.
The average performance of 15-year-olds in England, and the UK, has remained stable in each three-year cycle since 2006. As participating countries improve or decline, the performance of the UK relative to other countries has improved in science, moving from 21st to 15st position and has remained virtually unchanged in reading and mathematics.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the reasons for the current ranking of UK schools in the Programme for International Student Assessment survey; and whether they intend to propose measures to improve the performance of UK schools in the survey.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is committed to raising standards of achievement in English, mathematics and science. The pupils who sat the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment in England were born around the year 2000 and have therefore experienced only some of the changes we have introduced since 2010, and none of the changes to primary education. We have introduced rigorous new English, maths and science curricula and new qualifications to match expectations set in the highest performing jurisdictions internationally.
For mathematics, we are providing £41m over the next four years to introduce mathematics ‘mastery’ in primary schools, based on successful teaching approaches from south-east Asia. We are funding the networks of Science Learning Partnerships and Maths Hubs to improve the quality of science and maths teaching in primary and secondary schools. We also offer significant financial incentives to attract top science and mathematics graduates into teaching and are investing up to £67m over four years to train up to an additional 2,500 maths and physics teachers and upskill 15,000 existing teachers in these subjects by the end of this parliament.
In English we have introduced a phonics check at the beginning of compulsory schooling which aims to ensure all pupils acquire the basics in literacy before the end of primary school.