Education: English Baccalaureate

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, the international baccalaureate to which my noble friend refers, has many merits. I am not sure I would have benefited from it, because I was never very good at the science and maths bit, which it entails. I agree with him, however, that for many children it is suitable; it has many strong advocates. We are freeing up the system so that schools that want to offer the IB in the maintained sector are able to do so and that pupils can choose to study it.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, the Minister made great play of the fact that schools should not simply staff up to cover the English baccalaureate subjects, but there is already anecdotal evidence that that is happening. What is the department doing to monitor whether that is the case and what is happening on the ground now that the English baccalaureate league tables are being sought by so many schools? And what steps will the department take where that is identified as happening in schools to discourage them from doing it in the future?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, in some ways, if one of the consequences was that schools needed to employ more teachers to teach modern foreign languages or sciences, it would not be a development that I would deplore. I think that many of us in this House would welcome it. If more people were employed to teach those academic subjects, I would not see it as regrettable. The noble Baroness is right that we need to monitor what is happening to make sure that the provision of teachers in STEM subjects and other subjects is sufficient. We have had a long-term problem in ensuring that we have enough and we need to try to address that. We need to monitor that. The normal statistical returns which are produced each year and inform the department’s recruitment of teachers and trainee teachers will track that, enabling us to see what is going on.