Examination Reform

Angela Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

Jonathan Ive, the designer behind the iPhone, has said of the EBacc:

“It will fail to provide students with the skills that UK employers need and its impact on the UK’s economy will be catastrophic.”

He said that the EBacc

“will starve our world leading creative sector of its future pioneers.”

What does the Minister say to that?

[Mr Laws]

I do not agree with that suggestion; otherwise I would not support the reforms. Indeed, I believe that they will have exactly the opposite effect in delivering higher standards and the ambitions I have just set out.

To be blunt, most people consider that, in the three areas I have just set out—as key ambitions for our qualifications and examination system—the last Labour Government failed to deliver. They failed to maintain standards, and confidence in standards, over time, as I think the shadow Secretary of State acknowledged; they failed to ensure that children were always choosing qualifications for the right reasons, and I would be surprised if the hon. Gentleman did not acknowledge that serious criticism; and in their commendable ambition that all should succeed, they failed to ensure that the rigour and stretch of our qualifications kept pace with the best in the world. Therefore, the qualification reforms that we are debating today have two objectives: first, we want to restore confidence in standards, and secondly we want to ensure that the quality of our qualifications matches the best in the world.