Education Bill

Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

56A: After Clause 22, line 41, leave out “not exceed 10 per cent of the body’s” and insert “only relate to a body’s relevant”

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

Amendments 56A and 56B are in my name and both are amendments to Amendment 56. I tabled them because we, and I suspect other noble Lords, have received a fair amount of correspondence about this provision. Two issues arise from it. One, which is the subject of my amendments, relates to a very narrow issue—the 10 per cent of turnover to which the fine should be related and the question of whether that is the total turnover of the organisation or just that part of the organisation’s turnover that relates to its United Kingdom activities. As the Minister has made clear, the Government have effectively accepted these amendments, and I gather that the turnover will relate only to United Kingdom activities.

The other issue goes somewhat wider and relates to the whole process of consultation that took place. I understand that, as the Minister explained, the Government were anxious to get these powers on to the statute book because Ofqual had the choice of only either a fairly gentle reprimand or the nuclear option of withdrawing recognition of the examining board, and it wanted a further range of sanctions to apply, as is the case with other regulators. However, it is very unfortunate that the period of consultation was reduced to as little as 10 days and that the examination boards did not have a chance to respond to these proposals as fully as they would have liked. It is also unfortunate that a wider consultation with other people affected by the knock-on effects of this provision did not take place. Some of them may also have received a letter from the ASCL pointing out that a fine imposed on the examining boards is quite likely to be passed on to the schools, which pay considerable fees for their pupils to sit these examinations.

I recognise that we do not want our examining boards to make the serious errors in examinations that occurred this summer and that sanctions of some sort are not a bad idea. Nevertheless, the fact remains that an inquiry was set up to examine those errors and it is not going to report until the end of the year. Normally, one would expect to see some action taken after the inquiry reports, and I therefore ask the Minister whether it was really necessary to act as quickly as he did. Furthermore, I hope that full consultation will now take place with the examination boards. As the Government put flesh on the bones of the sanctions in this amendment, I hope that they will have proper discussions and consultations with all those concerned about how the sanctions should be imposed and implemented. This is not good practice and I hope that the coalition Government will not continue with the rapid pursuit of issues in the same way.

[Lord Lingfield]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister that, following my remarks, these clauses are to be inserted.

It is worth reminding noble Lords of the unedifying accounts in the newspapers a short time ago, when we saw complaints from parents, teachers and schools. A printing mistake by the AQA board led to some schools receiving GCSE maths papers, taken by 32,000 pupils, which included questions from a previous version of the examination. The OCR maths AS-level paper, with nearly 7,000 candidates, featured an impossible question worth a whole 11 per cent of the marks. OCR’s Latin paper mixed up a passage by Cicero and attributed it to Tacitus, and two characters were mixed up. Edexcel’s AS-level biology paper offered a selection of wrong answers to a multiple choice question, but the correct answer was not included. The OCR guide issued to staff marking the AS-level information communication and technology paper contained four errors—staff were required to mark down students who gave the correct answer. AQA’s AS-level business studies examination, taken by 41,000 students, asked about a fictitious company’s factory profits, but the adjoining profile information failed to show the profits, making the question completely unanswerable. Of course, there were other examples in earlier years. The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, who is in his place, carried out, as I am sure he will mention, a review that suggested that QCA was responsible for massive failures resulting in tens of thousands of children getting their SATs results late.

That is why I support these extra powers for Ofqual boards. I believe the penalties that are outlined seem a fair and useful way ahead, with the appropriate safeguards of notice and appeal that the Bill sets out. I hope that noble Lords will support them and they will lead to a diminution in the angst and difficulty caused earlier this year to pupils, parents and teachers after the examinations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Lingfield and Lady Sharp of Guildford, and the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, for their broad welcome for the measures, and the recognition that this responds to a need.

On the speed of the consultation, referred to by my noble friend Lady Sharp and the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, we responded to the points that were raised in Grand Committee. A legislative opportunity presented itself with this Education Bill and we had before us the failures of this summer. I know that the previous Government consulted. Our case would be that, with the legislative opportunity there and the evidence of the failures that we had this summer, which the previous Government had not had, it was sensible to act while the opportunity presented itself, but I take my noble friend’s point about the importance of consultation. Ofqual will consult on the detailed implementation of its powers, which will be a full 12-week consultation.

In response to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, Ofqual will publish a statement as part of its qualifications regulatory framework, which will set out how and in what circumstances its powers will be used. That will make clear Ofqual’s expectations that only serious or persistent breaches could lead to a fine.

On the question of appeals, there will be an appeal to the independent First-tier Tribunal, in line with other regulators. I know that concerns were raised about fines being passed on to schools, effectively. Ofqual will have powers to cap those fees if it thinks that it is necessary to do so. I understand the point that obviously some of the big awarding bodies are charities, but some of them are charities with very large tens of millions or hundreds of millions of pounds of turnover. Our basic point is that a pupil or student on the wrong end of a duff examination paper is not too bothered whether that paper has been set by a charity or a commercial organisation. That is why we think that it is appropriate to give this extra power. The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, is right that there are two powers but we feel that in essence they are not sufficiently nuanced. Giving this additional power we hope will lead not to large amounts of fining but to better and more accurate examination papers.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

I thank the Minister for that explanation. I am reassured that there will be extensive consultation with the boards concerned on the implementation of these things. I just want to reiterate my general feeling that it is important for consultation to take place before rather than after legislation as a general principle. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 56A (to Amendment 56A) withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Paisley of St George's]

My Lords, I, too, support this amendment. I had two wonderful experiences recently. One was on board a ship that was visiting Belfast. On a tour of that ship we were shown an operating theatre. The captain said to us, “There is the theatre”. It was a beautiful operating theatre, and the captain explained, “There is a computer in the wall, and in mid-ocean we can perform life-saving operations on board this ship directed from shore hundreds of miles away”. I thought it was wonderful to see how technology had advanced to this degree. In other times this could not have happened.

The other experience I had was in my own family. My great-grandson, who is two and a half, went to the computer, put in a DVD and waited until it came up on the screen. He knew which buttons to push to fast-forward it to pass the adverts to the part that he wanted to see, and of course he knew how to reverse it back if he missed something. If a two and a half year-old is able to do that, I think there is great hope for the future for technology and I support this amendment.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Willis and those who have spoken in favour of this amendment. There are two issues that are important. One is that this is not just about access to hardware. Yes, we are going to move to a situation where you no longer have a suite of computers within a classroom but instead young people have iPads and technology that is mobile around the classroom and around the whole school, and that will make for a much more flexible atmosphere within the school. Access to the technology is important. I think it was my noble friend Lord Willis, or it may have been the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, who made the point that many of the disadvantaged do not currently have access to broadband or to mobile technologies, both of which are quite expensive. For those existing on a weekly jobseeker’s allowance of £90, it is one of the items that they have to forgo. It is vital, therefore, that our public libraries are open and available to such people so that they can have access through the public library system.

My second point is that, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, mentioned, the pedagogy is changing rapidly. The technology is interactive and when you use this interaction, because the learner can respond, you get a different and much more motivational form of learning. It is vital that our teachers are trained to use this pedagogy, recognise its development and move forward with it.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, we had a very good debate on this issue in Grand Committee, and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, and my noble friends Lord Puttnam and Lord Knight for distilling our earlier debates into what we might label a call for action that can be included in the Bill and would ensure that the Government took some of these important issues forward.

Before I go on, though, I have to take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. He is completely wrong on the previous Government’s record on this. A lot of the groundwork and preparation for what now gives us a launching pad was laid down by the previous Government. We have been given mixed messages so far by the current Government: they do not have technology or ICT in the English Bacc or in their plans for the core curriculum. I understand that Michael Gove has been saying some warm words on the issue, but the gauntlet has now been thrown down to the Government to actually follow this up and act upon it.

My noble friend Lord Puttnam has faced us with the challenge of employability for the next generation if we do not get this right, while both he and my noble friend Lord Knight have once again inspired us with what is possible in terms of revolutionising teaching if we do get it right. The fact is that some schools are already way ahead of the game, and our challenge is to make sure that every child has access to the advantages that technology can bring to the classroom. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Willis, who said in Committee that,

“to deliver a 21st century curriculum we have to have 21st century methodology and 21st century equipment”.—[Official Report, 11/7/11; col. GC236.]

There is a massive range of benefits. The most obvious one is that if you have sophisticated equipment as a teaching aid, children’s knowledge of technology applications is enhanced. However, it goes much further than that. Children’s research skills are improved and their access to information multiplied. Homework becomes easier and quicker. They no longer have to rely on the availability of often scarce books in the library. As we have heard, it is transformative, engaging and enthusing. Even the most isolated schools can be linked up with others to share learning experience and to interact. Teachers can be linked together to share best practice, swap teaching modules and experiment with and improve materials. As my noble friend Lord Puttnam rightly pointed out, this change can be delivered at scale across the sector.

When we last debated this, and indeed in the debate we have had today, the importance of computer access for all was a strong theme, and I am sure that we can all agree with that. There is still a worryingly high percentage of families that do not have access to a computer at home and are therefore becoming more isolated and excluded. It is also true that we need to address the training of technology teachers if we are to reap the potential benefits that could come from all this.

There is a tendency to look at this problem in terms of narrow unit cost, whereas we should really apply a much broader cost-benefit analysis that compares the advantages of providing high-quality technology in the classroom and in the home with the damage done if a generation of young people is outsmarted in the global information and communication race. I very much support the amendment and hope that the Minister is able to give the simple commitment to delivering the technology plan by 2012 that the amendment requests.