Education: English Baccalaureate

Lord Freyberg Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Freyberg (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for initiating this debate. He has made a strong case and, like other speakers today, I find it extremely difficult to understand why the Government are encouraging schools to adopt the EBacc with no cultural component, when all the evidence suggests that the withdrawal of creative subjects and the teacher training in these subjects will have a knock-on effect not just in the cultural sphere but across industry. This seems particularly unwise when our creative industries account for one in 12 jobs and have been the fastest growing sector in the UK economy, increasing by 15.8% since 2011 to 1.8 million jobs and contributing some £84 billion to the UK economy.

Successive Governments have invested heavily in our arts education and this has been the foundation of our current success, with students from around the world coming here to train and absorb our creative know-how. Despite that, we have severe skill shortages. In a recent survey of members by the Creative Industries Federation, education and the skills pipeline was the overriding issue of concern. The migration tier 2 shortage occupation list, which permits the sponsorship of migrants in recognition of severe skills shortages, highlights that our country is already crying out for a combination of creative—in particular, design—and technical skills.

Since the introduction in 2010 of the EBacc, where the emphasis has been on core subjects, there has been a rapid erosion of vocational subjects such as design and technology, and many schools are already cutting back on creative and arts options, which the EBacc measure does not include. No one disputes the value of these subjects; indeed, in different combinations they are essential for the prosperity of the creative sector. However, this focus is contributing to the sidelining of creative subjects, as highlighted by an early research report by Ipsos MORI for the Department for Education in 2012. It found that 27% of schools had cut or withdrawn courses for the 2012-13 academic year, as a direct result of its implementation. Indeed, over the past five years there has been a 14% decline in the number of arts GCSE entries, from 720,438 in 2010 to 618,440 in 2015. Those figures do not even include BTEC qualifications, where arts and design entries have fallen by approximately 20,000 since 2010. On top of that, the number of hours for which the arts are taught in secondary schools has fallen by 10%, while the number of art teachers fell by 11% in the years 2010-14.

In effect, the introduction of the EBacc as a headline attainment measure sends a worrying message that the creative subjects are not a central and essential part of schooling. That is particularly troubling when a recent report, commissioned by the Creative Industries Federation, highlighted that countries such as China, South Korea and Brazil have learned from our success and are investing heavily in their creative education because they, too, can see the economic value of culture.

Another concern is the reduction in career pathways. The Russell Group of universities list of facilitating subjects was used to support the introduction of the EBacc, but it is only one indicator of what is useful for students to study. Creative subjects require different combinations of subjects if they are to continue to produce students for the creative industries. By focusing on a group of subjects that benefit one group of students you may diminish the life chances of another, who are less likely to perform well on these measures.

Evidence has shown that many of the courses that need students to study art and design also have high levels of students with special needs, such as dyslexia. These students epitomise the dangers of what might happen when EBacc becomes the headline assessment measurement for schools and students have to study seven of eight EBacc GCSEs. The fear is that they will struggle to perform in the subjects that the Ebacc requires them to study. At this point, students are more likely to drop the extra arts subjects to concentrate on the required curriculum. I believe that it is irresponsible to introduce measures that are likely to limit achievement for a significant number of students at a time when there is such a demand for their skills.