Barry Sheerman
Main Page: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)Department Debates - View all Barry Sheerman's debates with the Department for Education
(8 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Gibb
The EBacc is about a small number of core academic subjects, focused on those subjects that keep options open. I am confident that the new, reformed design and technology GCSE will lead to even more young people wanting to take this qualification in future years, once the new curriculum is in place. However, our policy objective is for more students, particularly those taking design and technology, to study the traditional sciences.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister take seriously the role of technical education in our schools? Design and technology has been peripheralised in the opinion of many people. On the day that the Royal Greenwich University Technical College is to close, with university technical colleges closing up and down the country, there is something rotten at the heart of Government policy.
Mr Gibb
No. We have engaged in a huge reform to improve the quality of technical qualifications. That is what the Alison Wolf review did in 2011, by removing from performance tables the qualifications for which students were entered but that were not valued in the workplace. Technical qualifications taken by young people now have real value and provide proper jobs. We have also improved the quality of the apprenticeship scheme, which the Minister of State, Department for Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), talked about earlier.