Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

The NATRE study cited by my hon. Friend suggests that around one in six schools anticipate a drop in religious studies entries at GCSE related to the E-bac, but it is not clear what overall effect that might have on take-up. Well over half of schools specifically indicated in that survey that there would not be a drop in GCSE entries in RS; indeed, a proportion said that there would be an increase in entries. That bears out the fact that the English baccalaureate does not prevent any school from offering RS GCSEs, and RE remains a statutory part of the curriculum.

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

I do not know whether you are a fan of films of the ‘80s, Mr Speaker, but you might remember one called “Back to the Future”. It starred a man called Michael who was trapped in the 1950s—an echo, perhaps, of someone else in modern politics. Ministers are hopelessly stuck in the past: they drop work experience at key stage 4 and promote Latin above engineering, ICT and RE, yet we know religious education helps young people understand the world today. Ministers tell us that the E-bac is what parents and students want, so will the Minister tell us what percentage of year 9 students who have recently chosen their GCSE options have opted for the English bac?

[Mr Gibb]

We do not collect the figure centrally. We will see the effect of the English baccalaureate when we see the GCSE results this year, next year and the year after that. If the right hon. Gentleman wants a modern curriculum, he should be aware that we need modern languages to be taught in our schools. Under his watch, the numbers entering for GCSE in modern languages plummeted from 79% in the year 2000 to just 43% last year, while the proportion taking geography fell from 44% in 1997 to 27% last year. The range of subjects in the English baccalaureate is mirrored elsewhere in modern emerging economies such as Singapore, France, Japan and Alberta. [Hon. Members: “Alberta?”] In Canada. Those are the most successful education jurisdictions.

[Andy Burnham]

It is just not good enough that the Minister does not know about the impact his policies are having on student choices in schools. In my constituency, about 30% of young people are opting for the English bac; what does the Minister have to say to the other 70% who have chosen not to do it? RE teachers, music teachers and art teachers are at risk of redundancy because of the English baccalaureate. No wonder nine faith leaders wrote to The Daily Telegraph this weekend to say that they were

“gravely concerned about the negative impact current Government policies are having on RE in schools”.

Ministers promised freedom, choice and autonomy in education; is it not time that they started living up to those words?

[Mr Gibb]

If we were to take advice from the right hon. Gentleman, we would have a cap on aspiration for young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. He should be ashamed of the fact that his Government left this Government a legacy whereby only 8% of pupils on free school meals were even entered for the English baccalaureate subjects, and these are subjects that the Russell group of universities regards as the facilitating subjects that give rise to progression. Only 4% of those pupils actually achieved the results in comparison with 15.6% nationally. The right hon. Gentleman had a cap on aspiration; we want to raise aspiration right across the abilities and backgrounds of young people.