Education Bill

Debate between Lord Sutherland of Houndwood and Lord Moynihan

Monday 11th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, I thoroughly support the idea of balance in schools and education, but there is a difference between a balanced education and an attempt to produce a balanced curriculum. I agree with the idea of a national curriculum. It was a very important innovation and has had very positive results over the years. However, this is tempered by my experience of sitting in and watching my good friend Ron Dearing, as he was then, trying to chair a meeting of the national curriculum advisory group. It was basically a Mecca for every lobbyist in the business. In addition to the topics we have listed here, which come after literacy, numeracy, understanding of science and exposure to languages and before the ones that are not mentioned: parental education, financial education—many of us would think that important—and emergency life skills, which we are going to see proposed as part of an essential curriculum. This is a road to indigestion and madness. It will not work in that form. A national curriculum, yes, and it has to be a core curriculum but if core subjects are inevitably boring—I say this with all respect to my colleague and noble friend Lord Knight—we might as well give up now. If teachers cannot teach core subjects in a useful, good and stimulating way, we have really failed the children in our schools.

What do I suggest? I suggest a fairly minimal prescription both in terms of core and time. There is no need to spend 100 per cent of the time on what some have said to be core subjects. This allows room for the professionalism of teachers and all that that implies, which we have re-emphasised time and again this afternoon. Time and again we have said that we respect teachers, so they must be given room to develop the teaching of their subject. If it were my national curriculum, I would have the writings of David Hume and Fyodor Dostoevsky required for everyone over the age of 16, but I think some noble Lords would want to draw the line. If you taught those well, you could do most of this.

I suggest that we go for a balanced education with a minimum core. The worry is that they do not produce a balanced education. Judgment is increasingly a matter for the department and for Ofsted. They should make assessments on the quality of the education in terms of balance, expertise and how stimulating it is. I fear that I cannot support this amendment.

[Lord Moynihan]

My Lords, having sat through the previous three sessions of this Committee waiting for this amendment to be called, I will try to be as swift as I can and address my comments to the aspect of it that relates to sport.

A leader in the Times a few months ago stated that it was time to make the case that sport is a vital part of education. Only 7 per cent of the population are privately educated but the highly successful British team which the British Olympic Association, which I chair, took to Beijing comprised more privately educated sports men and women than state educated ones. The question is unavoidable and distressing as to why there are fewer state educated sports men and women playing for Team GB. The Times further questioned how social mobility could decline in a sphere that naturally lent itself to meritocratic achievement. It is an indictment of the state of sport in the curriculum. While the level of investment for the Treasury and the Lottery has been targeted at school sport, the result has been one which, by any international standard of evaluation, would be deemed a failure.