Secondary Education (GCSEs)

Charlotte Leslie Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) that this has been a historic debate. There has been a tendency for people in this country to live in a fantasy land. We think that as long as we allow grades to go up and tell ourselves it is okay, it is okay, but in an era of globalisation it is not enough to tell ourselves that everything is okay; it really has to be so. We have been doing this in relation to grade inflation and what we have been telling our young people. We have been saying, “Do this nice course—it’s all going to be fine and no one is going to tell you that you’ve done badly”, but reality has to hit them at some point, and that happens when they go out into the world of work and find that the cosy story they have been told behind their school gates does not match up to the reality outside. What the Secretary of State has said is therefore massively important. I am extremely pleased that the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) has acknowledged that grade inflation has been taking place.

I would like the House to acknowledge that we have seen the creation of a two-tier system by stealth. Any two-tier system is bad, and this one has IGCSEs and the international baccalaureate for the well-off and the sharp-elbowed, with the less sharp-elbowed left with GCSEs, or their equivalents, that will not get them a job at the end of the day. That is absolutely appalling. No one can defend the status quo, and anyone who tries to do so has a much lower opinion of the country’s children than I do. I want to concentrate on a premise that underlies a lot of the debate about this two-tier system. Of course, every child must have the opportunity, and must be pushed, to do the best they can at core academic subjects; I am a great supporter of the E-bac in that respect. However, to suggest that unless a child does those core subjects they are thrown on to the scrap heap, as Labour Members have repeatedly done, betrays an extraordinary attitude towards so-called vocational education.

Again, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central. If we did not have people who did not find grammar and algebra books the most interesting thing in the world, we would not be standing in a building that is so intricately and beautifully built, with incredible craftsmanship. I object to the term “vocational”, which has arisen in the past decade or so, because it is a euphemism that betrays a slight embarrassment about the kinds of skills that have made our cities and our country great, and a reluctance actually to name practical, manual and technical skills, crafts and tradesmanship. In future, I should like the term “vocational” to be abolished and replaced with something far more honest. In terms of equivalence, we have been doing nothing for tradesmanship, craftsmanship and so-called vocational trades and everything for academic qualifications. Nail technology is not studied to get a job, because there are not enough nail technology jobs to go round for all the hundreds of thousands of people who are doing these courses. It has been all about the exam results, not the jobs.

There has been an overwhelming need to get real, and the Secretary of State’s bravery in tackling the underlying problems in our GCSE system is a welcome attempt to do so. I hoped for a moment that Labour Members had got real, but it seems that they may not have done.