Curriculum and Exam Reform

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I think the real harm occurs when children are at schools where teaching is not of a good quality, and where ambitions and aspirations for those children are insufficiently high. One of the problems we have experienced in the past is that employers have said that some qualifications—including those introduced under the last Government—do not command confidence. That is a tragedy, but today we are playing a part in the ending of it.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I greatly welcome the move away from the blunt, simplistic “five-plus C-plus” measure involving the “three perverse incentives” to which my right hon. Friend referred. Will he strive to make the new progress measure a lot simpler and easier to understand than “contextual value added”, which was so complex that it was hardly ever used?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend—who used to be a member of the Education Committee—has made a very good point. One of the other problems with contextual value added was that it seemed to embed a culture of low expectations by automatically assuming that students from particular ethnic minority backgrounds would do less well. The “value added” measure that we hope to introduce will be clearer and simpler, and will also embed high expectations for every student.