Alun Cairns
Main Page: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)Department Debates - View all Alun Cairns's debates with the Department for Education
(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Michael Gove
Poland does not spend more than us; indeed, Vietnam, which outperforms us in mathematics, spends significantly less than us. What they do have is a commitment to higher standards that are rigorously policed. Poland’s curriculum is modelled on, or is similar to, our English baccalaureate. Both Vietnam and Poland have a determination to place standards on a higher plane than those on the Opposition Front Bench would contemplate.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that the outcomes in Wales are nothing short of a scandal and that they are the ultimate demonstration of Labour’s education policy in action? There are parents across Wales, and even some in this House, who are genuinely worried about the future of their children’s education. Will the Secretary of State encourage the Welsh Government to follow his robust reforms?
Michael Gove
Wales acts almost as a controlled sample. Welsh children are as intelligent and motivated as children in England, but unfortunately in Wales there are no academies, no free schools, no league tables, no chief inspector such as Sir Michael Wilshaw and no determination to reform like this coalition Government. It is an object lesson in what happens when people abandon reform and succumb to the NUT orthodoxy, which I am afraid has suffocated aspiration for far too many children in the Principality.