Adult Literacy and Numeracy

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I will not report you to the ageism commission for that remark, Mr Speaker. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), who has been a strong campaigner—the best I have known—on adult literacy and numeracy. She has corresponded with me on the issue many times and I am delighted to be a co-sponsor of this debate along with Members from the other two main parties.

I have tremendous guilt about this issue, because I chaired the Education Committee, which has had various names, for 10 years. We thought we were doing a reasonable job, but I do not think we focused as much as we could have on literacy and numeracy. It is never too late, however, to look at the issue again.

One of the most important things to recognise about this debate is that there are no easy solutions. The answer has evaded all Governments and all political parties over a very long period. During my 10 years as Committee Chair I learned that evidence-based policy is not always the total answer, but it is not a bad place to start. We should ask, “What is the evidence?” I have discussed adult literacy and numeracy with a number of people and there is a great danger that some think they know the answer intuitively. They will immediately say, “The reason is this”, and then give a simplistic explanation that is not based on anything. Only this morning I spoke to a colleague who said, “Well, the reason is the high level of migration in Britain”, but that is not true if we compare ourselves with other countries.

The recent report on adult literacy by the OECD—it was published only this week—is convenient and substantiates everything the hon. Lady said in her very good speech. We are ranked 19th out of 22 nations on the literacy of people aged 16 to 24, and 14th out of 22 on adult literacy. That is a chilling comment on our society.

A fundamental problem in this country is that our social and economic structure has changed dramatically over a short period. As you have said, Mr Speaker, I have been an MP for 34 years, but during my young days as a university teacher—one of the undergraduates I taught at Swansea university is sitting on the Government Benches—the world was very different, in that there were a lot of low-skilled and unskilled jobs in our economy. I remember cycling to Hampton grammar school and seeing a sign outside a factory I passed that said, “Hands wanted”. There was no mention of brains. That was the society in which we lived, with 50% or 60% of people working in manufacturing industry. It was a very different society.

When I speak at universities today and ask people about the social and economic structure of our country, they reply that 30% or 40% of people work in manufacturing, but the real figure is 9.5%, while 30% work in education, health and local authorities—what are sometimes called public services—and 60% work in private sector services. People who work in the early-years and later-years sectors are on the minimum wage or minimum wage-plus. People who work in retail and distribution are on minimum wage-plus. We live in a very different society today. The onus is on people who are seeking employment to have high skills and high literacy and numeracy.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Sheerman]

May I just finish this point? In many ways, we have responded to that challenge. We have more graduates and more talented young people coming through with the advantages of higher education. That is indisputable. However, at the same time, we have failed to deliver basic education to a significant percentage of the population. Those people are very unlikely ever to get anything other than the most menial work on the lowest wages.

[Mr Walker]

I wanted to intervene not to disagree with the hon. Gentleman, but to strengthen his argument. He said that roughly 9% of people work in manufacturing industry. I am sure that he would recognise that the nature of that industry has changed enormously. The skills that are required for people to enter that industry are probably greater than they have ever been in the past 100 years. Even in that industry, it is not just hands that are wanted, but brains. The modern manufacturing world wants people who are literate and numerate, and who can work with computers.

[Mr Sheerman]

That is absolutely right. A lot of manufacturing is coming back to this country because things can be manufactured anywhere in the world with highly sophisticated equipment, such as 3D printers, and only a small number of highly skilled people.

We have the problem that about 25% of the young people coming out of our schools have only one bare GCSE. Something is going dramatically wrong that we have not been able to put right. We must do something about it. I want to make a strong case for looking at the evidence. We need more research into why that is happening.

When I became the Chair of the Select Committee, I had all sorts of assumptions about which parts of our country were underperforming educationally, but that was absolute prejudice. The evidence shows that the coastal parts of the country are among the lowest performing areas. People on the street would say that the north-west performs very badly, but that is not true. It is coastal areas and the east of England, which contains Cambridge university and the Open university, that are the lowest performing areas.

We must look at the facts. Where is the underachievement? What is it in the structure of certain communities that means that people do not value education, do not stimulate their children to be interested in education and do not support them in the school process? We know that the early years are essential. It is important for children at a very young age to sit on somebody’s lap and have those little cloth books read to them. We must get children into reading very early on. We know that that works.

There are many fashions and fads. If there is one thing that we must not do in this debate, it is to be party political. We must not get carried away by enthusiasms. The research on teaching children to read shows that if teachers are trained to use a system and that system is used, it works. It is fashionable to say that only synthetic phonics works. We know that that is not true. If we have a system and train people to use it, we will get good results.

We must carry out research and have systems in place, but we must also have people who inspire us. Mr Speaker, you know that I am obsessed with the English poet, John Clare. When he lived, he had only 100 poems in print. We have since discovered a lost archive of 1,000 poems. He was one of our greatest poets on the environment. He left school at 12, the peasant son of a thresher and a farm labourer. All his life, the only jobs that he got were through standing in the village and being hired. He was only 5 feet tall, so he did not get much work. However, he learned to read at the parish school and was liberated to be an amazing poet. He lived a full life in so many ways.

Only this weekend, I was reading Caitlin Moran in The Times. I am an unashamed devotee of Caitlin Moran—in fact, I got some strange comments when I was in Spain with all our great-grandchildren and I was reading “How to Be a Woman” by the side of the pool. I tweeted that I was getting some strange comments, and Caitlin Moran immediately tweeted back:

“You carry on being righteous, dude”,

which I thought was rather good. Caitlin Moran is a young woman from a family of seven who lived in social housing, and there were a lot of barriers to her succeeding, but she learned to read and could not stop reading. What a fantastic talent she is. From John Clare 200 years ago to Caitlin Moran today; that is how to get kids to be liberated and become full citizens.

When I go into schools and universities I talk about the importance of education and of liberating talent, and I call it “the spark”. The spark is in all of us, if only we can reach it. If a child does not have early stimulation and the support of a network, it is quite difficult for them to find that spark later in life, liberate it and let it blossom. The earlier the better, but it can still be done later on. Further education colleges are good at parts of that and provide basic skills, but there are other ways. Mentors are crucial, and I say to the Minister that they are cheap. I find that business people, professionals and university teachers want to give back, and they will be mentors.

When I talk to university and other students, I say that if they liberate themselves, they will liberate themselves for a good life. The best debate we can have with young people is by telling them that it is difficult to have a good life on the minimum wage. That is true, and we have to liberate young people so that they are not only talented and great providers in our economy but great citizens. We can do that only by tackling the problem as early as we can, and let us do it on a cross-party basis.

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[Mr Evans]

I agree with my hon. Friend—that is exactly what should happen. When I am learning French or Russian, I use the internet. There is an amazing amount of stuff in different languages to read on the internet. It is the same for those who want to learn English, but they need the IT skills to do that. Those things can be combined—lifelong learning clearly involves IT.

[Mr Sheerman]

On that point, is the hon. Gentleman aware of an interesting innovation between Cambridge and Hertfordshire universities? They are working together on a new system that evaluates people’s competences. They begin with competences to start businesses. If people get through the evaluation, the universities give them courses to make them fit to do so. That is the beginning of an interesting process.

[Mr Evans]

I was not aware of that innovation, but the hon. Gentleman shows us the potential that is out there, which we must use to its fullest. We cannot allow millions of people in this country not to live the fullest life they possibly can. They need to be given extra support. All hon. Members recognise that we have let a lot of people down for decades. They will say fairly well the same thing as I have said in the debate—that we need to do a lot more—but when will we start? If not today, when?

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[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

First, I apologise to you, Mr Speaker, and to other hon. Members, for arriving late. I was in a Select Committee interviewing the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary so I could not be here earlier, but I wanted to speak in the debate and I am glad to have the opportunity to do so. I will not speak for too long, because others wish to speak.

I am particularly concerned about numeracy. I used to teach economics and statistics and am familiar with numeracy problems. Lord Moser, who is a splendid member of the other place, wrote a report some 15 years ago that I have talked about in the Chamber many times. He found that more than 50% of the population were innumerate. He illustrated that by saying that 50% of the population did not understand what 50% means. When I write articles for newspapers I do not just write 10% but “one in 10”, to make sure that people get the message, because not everyone understands percentages.

I have encountered many adults with numeracy problems. When I taught economics, the first question I would ask my students was: what is the difference between 1 million and 1 billion? Many of them did not know, so I said that a million is not very much and a billion is quite a lot. I used to ask, “How many houses can be bought for £1 million and how many houses can be bought for £1 billion?” In Luton, one might be able to buy five for £1 million and 5,000 for £1 billion.

[Mr Sheerman]

Was my hon. Friend teaching in the US or the UK? The answer would be different if he taught in the US.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I was teaching in Britain, where of course 1,000 million makes 1 billion—let us get that straight from the beginning.

I met Lord Moser recently at a reception in the House of Lords. He is an elderly man now, but he still despairs of the problem of adult innumeracy. Adults are bamboozled by politicians because we throw numbers about all the time—all parties do it. A Front Bench spokesperson can say, “We are going to spend £20 million extra on the national health service.” Twenty million pounds is absolutely nothing in the scheme of things in public expenditure, but £20 billion is a significant amount. Politicians constantly bamboozle the electorate, knowing that they can be not very sophisticated at handling such numbers.

I used to teach elementary statistics to A-level students studying sociology. I used to do simple sums with square numbers to find the square root. For example, the square root of 100 is 10—that is quite easy. When one of my students said that nine times nine was 89 and 10 times 10 was 110, I realised there was a problem. I have another anecdote. The daughter of a good friend of mine wanted to be a nurse. She had various O-levels, so I said, “Why can’t you be a nurse?” She said, “I can’t pass O-level maths.” I asked her why not. She said that she could not do multiplication because she had never been taught it—imagine that.

We have to go back to a philosophy of education and teaching that was utterly misguided. My wife and my brother are both primary school teachers. In the 1960s, 1970s and, to a certain extent, the 1980s, rote learning of tables was regarded as anathema—absolutely forbidden. Complete and total nonsense. Of course, I angered many of my good friends on the left who thought I was some sort of authoritarian, because I thought that learning tables was a good idea so that people knew that 12 times 12 was 144—elementary stuff.

When I first entered the House in 1997, I raised this issue with the then Schools Minister, Stephen Byers. I said that we had to look at teaching methods and the interface between teachers and pupils, particularly in primary schools so that pupils learn numeracy properly at the beginning. He said, “Oh no, that would be too prescriptive.” Sometimes we have to be prescriptive. We have to say that some things work and some things do not work. Let us look at other countries where numeracy is better.

The international comparison table published in The Independent yesterday showed that we are slipping down the table, and that 16 to 24-year-olds are actually worse than the previous generation. We are now quite low down the table, which is very worrying. If we are to produce the engineers and the skills we need for the future, we have to address numeracy problems. Governments have to look at what works and try to ensure that that is what is applied in schools. It is not enough to reorganise institutions—creating academies and free schools and so on. We have to look at what is happening in the classroom at every state school, because we have a problem.

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[Matthew Hancock]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will want to welcome the fact that inequality in Great Britain is at its lowest level since 1986 as a result of the efforts of this coalition Government.

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) made a passionate speech. I hope that this debate will not become party political because there is no need for it to be; if we all listen to what the OECD said and drive rigour and standards through schools, it does not have to be party political. He also mentioned mentors. We are reforming careers advice to make it about inspiration and mentoring, and to help brokerage between businesses and schools. If anyone had him as a mentor, I have no doubt that they would absolutely value that. He made many extremely important points, crucially recognising that this has not gone well for a long time and needs to be turned around. He said that we have failed to deliver the most basic of education over a number of years, and that is exactly what we are trying to turn around.

[Mr Sheerman]

May I remind the Minister that I was also trying to get over the fact that we have been very successful for one section of our population, really expanding things, at the same time as we have been totally unsuccessful with, and almost wilfully neglectful of, the lower achievers?

[Matthew Hancock]

Absolutely; I believe somebody once called them the forgotten 50% and they were indeed forgotten. That is no longer the case. Educational reform has to be about making sure that everybody can reach their potential. I was going to say that an intellectual error has been made in the past and we have to put it right. I am talking about the argument that because someone has a low level of education or they are undertaking a low-level qualification—level 1 or level 2—what they are doing does not have to be rigorous, stretching and high-quality. At every level of education we have to make sure that we get as much improvement in pupils as possible. We are trying to put right that mistaking of a low level with the “need” for low-quality and sloppiness.

It is fantastic and an honour to be answering the first speech that my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) has made from the Back Benches for several years. He rightly argued that this is about the fulfilment of lives as well as about jobs and the economy. He, like my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), mentioned the importance of tackling the issues faced by those who have dyslexia, and I could not agree more. It comes back to the previous point: just because someone has dyslexia does not mean they cannot have decent English and maths. It makes those things harder to teach and we need different techniques for teaching them, but we should not have low expectations just because people find something difficult. He also mentioned the importance of the context for learning and, as the Minister responsible for apprenticeships, I often find that people who failed in English and maths in a formal setting thrive in them as soon as they encounter them in a job. That is because suddenly it matters whether or not they can do their maths. If they can, they can do their job.

The hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) mentioned Unionlearn, and I am grateful to her for highlighting it. The Government support it and fund it—it would be great to get some acknowledgement for that. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) talked, as he often does, about financial literacy, and it was great to be able to put that into the curriculum. I hope that it works and that we do not think that the job is done just because we have put it in the curriculum. We have to keep an eye on it and make sure that it really works. He also talked a lot about school reform, which is the heart of the long-term solution to the problem.

My admiration grows for the hon. Member for Luton North. I did not know that he was an economic historian until now.