Education: Contribution to Economic Growth

Baroness Taylor of Bolton Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope that I will be forgiven for not following my noble friend on the counterfactual conditional, although I enjoyed much of his other analysis.

Yesterday, my noble friend Lady McIntosh asked at Question Time about the fact that education is more than just about its economic impact. The whole House, I think, would agree on that, though it is important that we have this particular debate to focus on those aspects.

I congratulate my noble friend Lady Morgan not only on acquiring this debate but on the nature of her analysis, which was realistic, non-political and, importantly, hopeful. I start where she started. If we are to get more out of the investment that we make in education, we have to look more at what happens in early years. Yes, in terms of economic benefits, universities make a great and increasing contribution to exports and earnings, but if we are to get all of our population to the state where they have self-satisfaction, can play a part in society and can be of economic benefit, we must start early. The most significant statistic that my noble friend used was that, at the age of five, many children are 19 months behind the average. That is a desperately serious situation that we have not properly addressed in the past.

We must think in terms of not just formal education but of getting those children off to a better start and of the factors that will determine what they can do for the rest of their lives. That is one reason why I am very proud of what the previous Labour Government did in Sure Start—helping very young children to socialise, interact and co-operate with others and to have confidence and self-respect, all of which will determine their progress later.

As others have mentioned, it is particularly important that we get parents involved. We have to break the cycle of parents who have themselves not got a lot out of education being unable to engage in the system and therefore their children being significantly disadvantaged. Everyone who has been involved in education, at whatever level, knows that when you have parental involvement, you have better behaviour and achievement and everyone finds life an awful lot easier. Incidentally, that is one reason why I have favoured home-school contracts for many years.

It is important to get parents involved in another respect. In education debates we hear a lot about providing opportunity, which is right, but we face one difficulty that no Government have been able to overcome: motivating the non-aspirational. We sometimes talk as if it is a clear choice that individuals sit down to make: “I will be aspirational” or, “I will not bother taking that opportunity”. We need to understand the fears that can inhibit people’s aspirations: the fear of entering an unknown world, the fear of moving away from the security of their family and friends. I think back to some of those films made in the 1960s, where young students from the north were going down to universities in the south and being dislocated from their families. That fear and feeling of, “It’s not for us”, is still very much there in many areas, and we must find new ways to tackle that. What my noble friend said about London was interesting. There may be things that we can learn from there, but it is a serious problem.

An article in the Telegraph today shows that some towns and cities have nine out of 10 residents with high qualifications but some towns have only four out of 10 with the same qualifications. I cannot believe that that reflects an innate ability in one place but not in another; I think that it is to do with aspirations, motivations and confidence. Until we find out how we can crack that one, we will have real difficulties because we are dealing with people whose expectations are not high, and I am not sure that we are doing enough to raise them.

Secondly, echoing what has been said so far, we must value teachers and head teachers and provide them with the training, support and mentoring that they need. Mention has been made of Finland. I am not sure that that is the complete answer, but we should value and respect teachers not just by words; we need action as well. By action, I mean inaction on occasion, because the Government should not overprescribe what teachers should be doing. I think that nearly everyone agrees that we need a national curriculum, but that means different things to different people. I recall, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Baker, does, discussion about what a Secretary of State should recommend as the 10 books that all children should read. I was shadow Secretary of State at the time, and it was very tempting to name your 10 books, but Secretaries of State should resist that temptation—it is not their job to do more than have a prescriptive framework.

Thirdly, I want to mention examinations. We have to ask the basic question: what is the purpose of the testing? Is it to assess and assist the child’s progress; is it to look at the added value that that school is providing; or are we creating hurdles and just using tests for league tables? I draw the Minister’s attention to what the Chief Scientific Officer said yesterday: that the risk in education is always that exams are the tail that wags the whole education dog.

Finally, briefly, I am surprised that no one other than the OU graduate, my noble friend Lord Graham, has mentioned the Open University. It teaches us many things. It shows that many people who did not succeed on the conventional path can succeed later. The majority of its students do not have qualifications for conventional universities. It can also teach us different teaching methods. I am pleased that the vice-chancellor is with the Prime Minister in China, because there is a lot of scope there. The Open University is showing how, through its FutureLearn programme, new techniques can be used to teach people but also to draw them into education by giving them taster courses, not least those based on the BBC programme, “The Frozen Planet”, which encourage them to take up a theme, do courses and get into education. We must look at new ways to get people into education and then keep them in.