Birmingham Schools

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

It is true that in recent years, Ofsted has strengthened its inspection regime by recruiting inspectors who speak Arabic and Urdu and are trained in the various Islamic ideologies, but we have today announced many other actions that we will be taking in relation to those schools. I do not accept that it is as a result of recent government actions that these things have happened. The noble Baroness may believe that these things have suddenly turned around; they have in fact taken root in these schools over many years, particularly under the previous Government, but it is this Government who have dealt with those points.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

The Minister painted a very worrying picture, and we should all work together to improve things. The use of special measures in the Birmingham schools and the prospect of unannounced inspections are good things. In my experience, both in government and in business, they can make a huge difference, so I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, on that particular point.

What wider measures can be taken in schools to tackle the culture that breeds terrorism? Examples might include preventing teaching about suicide bombing, reducing gender segregation and even, perhaps, looking at copying the French, who have prevented various forms of face covering, in addition to the Minister’s proposals for banning extremist speakers and, above all, promoting British values.

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is quite right. I outlined in the Statement the other actions that we will be taking, including, as she says, promoting British values. One issue that has come out of these Ofsted reports is the importance of keeping children safe on the internet. It is widely known that the biggest recruiting ground for extremism is the internet, so it is particularly important that we focus on that issue, as the Government are. As I said, we will be taking steps to ban teachers and governors from promoting extremism.

Education: Vocational Education

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Monday 3rd March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the approach taken by Germany and Austria in promoting vocational education; and what lessons they have drawn for the United Kingdom and UK competitiveness.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, in Germany and Austria, vocational education is of high quality and closely involves all local employers, which in Germany is sometimes on a compulsory basis. Of course there are differences between our countries, but there is much we can learn from them. This has informed our reforms of vocational education and Professor Alison Wolf’s review. By introducing the tech bacc and tech levels, reforming apprenticeships and through our UTCs and studio schools, we are expanding high-quality technical education while at the same time ensuring that industry is involved at every step of the way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that welcome news. We all valued the visit of Chancellor Merkel to Parliament last Thursday, during which she spoke of competitiveness. The German education system does a better job for the nation’s economy and for the less academic partly by ability streaming in schools with the possibility of switching between streams. This provides better educational outcomes and a larger, better pool of talent that can be apprenticed to German business, which is very actively involved. Can we improve our PISA scores and our business performance by doing the same in our schools?

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend is quite right that the PISA results were a stark wake-up call for all of us about the need to improve our education system across the board in order to compete internationally. In comparison with Germany, we do particularly badly on maths and science. To achieve improvements, we are continuing to introduce a whole suite of reforms, as noble Lords know. As for streaming, we believe that all pupils need a core body of knowledge and indeed I understand that Germany is now extending the period during which their pupils have this. However, there is much that we can learn from Germany. Our UTCs and studio schools, of which we have now approved almost 100, are modelled closely on the success of German technical schools, as are our higher apprenticeships.