Secondary Education (GCSEs)

Dan Rogerson Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

We seem to be having a remarkable outbreak of consensus in the Chamber—

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

Yes. Put a stop to that.

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Gentleman is welcome to the Chamber. We look forward to interjections from him.

What was presumably billed, as Opposition day debates are, as a good knockabout seems to have collapsed into consensus. I am left feeling that I agree with much of what has been said from both sides of the House about the way forward in terms of rigour and a genuine consultation and re-examination of the examination system. I am left disagreeing only with the Daily Mail, a situation in which I often find myself, so it is reassuring territory for me.

If we are to consider the key points of the debate, we should look at what was floated in that esteemed publication as a bid to end the GCSE and restore the O-level and a qualification equivalent to the CSE. It is a little like those debates about selection, in which one hears a lot about grammar schools but not so much about secondary moderns. That is not to say that there are not excellent schools out there which are now no doubt called comprehensives or academies, but which once upon a time were known as secondary moderns. They are doing good work in areas where selection still exists, but that it not a position that my party would seek to push forward.

I was delighted to hear the Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box talking about a thorough examination of the GCSE, what it is, what it offers, how testing it is of young people, and its ability to stretch young people at all levels of ability, so that we celebrate the fact that not everyone will get an A*, and for those who were at one time predicted to get an F in some subject but who manage to get a D, that is a real success for them.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

We are raising the participation age by looking to use the extra years up to 17 and 18 to deliver a basic and rigorous standard. The most successful state school in the country, which I think is Lawrence Sheriff school in Rugby, uses a three-year course for its GCSEs and gets a tremendously high level of success. Perhaps it would be helpful to find out more about how education can be structured so that children can keep on learning until they get to that very high standard.

[Dan Rogerson]

The Chairman of the Select Committee said that he had to rewrite his speech. He has clearly been doing that and has made an additional contribution to the debate. I welcome his intervention.

The debate is about how we can ensure that all young people are stretched by the system—that they are driven forward, that they are inspired and that they can aspire to reach the very best. That is what teachers, head teachers and their parents want for them. It is clear that there has been grade inflation, a topic that has been covered by several right hon. and hon. Members. People are perhaps being given the impression that there is an endless arc upon which we will see results improve. We had a brief discussion about the Deputy Prime Minister’s progress at the Rio summit and the issues there of exponential growth without due consideration being given to sustainability. Perhaps what we are talking about in this debate is sustainability in the examination system.

When the Secretary of State came to the Dispatch Box last week to respond to an urgent question from the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), we had a slightly more Daily Mail-influenced discussion across the House, as the news was hot off the press. The Secretary of State at that point was clearly responding to the leak, from wherever it came, and was not able to present a more thorough position, as he has done today. He ruled out the idea of returning to the 1950s with the O-level and the CSE, and instead proposed re-examining the GCSE and moving forward. I welcome that.

The proposal relating to examination boards seems to be moving forward to consultation. I can see the strengths of a system in which a board concentrates on a particular subject area. There are those of us who might be surprised not to see the Secretary of State looking at a more market-based solution. The proposal could be said to be a little centrally directed, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Tessa Munt) pointed out, young people are increasingly moving with their families to other parts of the country. If they join a school or college part-way through a course where the syllabus is different from their previous course, that presents problems. There have been one or two examples where the head teacher of an academy, who is responsible for admissions, has said that they are not able to take a young person on a course offered at their institution because the syllabus is different. Perhaps progress could be made in that respect.

These issues would need close examination to ensure that a range of courses was available so that all young people are inspired by what is on offer. There must be no sad homogenisation, and teachers must have the scope to ensure that they cover a broad curriculum.

We have an opportunity to look closely at the issue of rigour. I am delighted that we are not moving towards a wholesale change of the system, which could prove to be a distraction. As a Government the coalition has rightly moved to lift burdens on teachers and to remove unnecessary bureaucracy. Teachers want from us the support to use the skills that they have acquired. The Secretary of State was absolutely right to point out that we have a fantastic generation of teachers out there inspiring and working with young people. They do not want another upheaval and change; they want the confidence to know that the examinations to which they are submitting their students will be correct, robust and a fair assessment of those young people’s attainment, and, in some senses, of the attainment of the school or college in supporting those young people to the best of their potential.

I am delighted to say that the motion hangs on the words of the Deputy Prime Minister, unlike the shadow Minister, who sadly is not hanging on the words that I am offering to the Chamber. He clearly was hanging on the words of the Deputy Prime Minister last week, and it is good to see that the Opposition take such close account of what he has to say, as they did earlier this afternoon. The motion talks about a Government proposal to do certain things, which, as has become clear, the Government are not proposing to do. Therefore, it would be entirely the wrong thing to support a motion based on such a false premise. On the other hand, we have an amendment, around which I hope the House can coalesce, which talks about rigour and the need to ensure that there is a broad-based curriculum focused on the key areas of study and encouraging all young people to aspire to the best of their potential, and tackling social mobility, as the coalition agreement and the Government have set out to do, to ensure that all young people, no matter where they start out, are given every opportunity to achieve the very best for them and for their communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

We have had a fascinating debate, with contributions from 13 hon. Members: my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden), the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) and my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith). It has been an interesting, although not entirely illuminating, debate.

The Opposition have no disagreement with the case that there is a need to reform the GCSE. As the House knows, the GCSE was first sat by pupils 25 years ago. I was teaching at the time. The idea that the world has not changed sufficiently since then for the GCSE to require reform is as ludicrous as the idea that the world is sufficiently similar to how it was 50 years ago that we have to return to O-levels and CSEs. The raising of the education and training leaving age to 18 raises the fundamental question of what public examinations we need at 16 and what they are for. That is a legitimate debate. One hon. Member asked whether we need to spend the huge amount of money that we spend on examinations at the age of 16. We have to ensure that GCSEs are fit for purpose, but we do not need to go back to the future.

In the words of the Deputy Prime Minister, we do not need to recreate

“a two tier system where children at quite a young age are somehow cast on a scrap heap”.

The more observant hon. Members will have noticed that we included those words in our motion. However, the Government amendment, which is signed, among others, by the Deputy Prime Minister, would expunge those words from the motion. That is a novel approach. It might well be the first time that a senior Cabinet Minister has tabled an amendment to delete his own words.

[Dan Rogerson]

There would be a problem if the Deputy Prime Minister had said something in the amendment that disagreed with what he said before. The amendment has a different emphasis, but there is no contradiction between the two.

[Kevin Brennan]

In that case, the Deputy Prime Minister could have left his own words in the amendment that he signed, but he chose to delete them. I am tempted to say, in the words of the late, great Amy Winehouse, “What kind of Lib-Demery is this?” Let us allow for a moment the notion that the Deputy Prime Minister meant what he said about a two-tier system, despite trying to delete his own words from the motion.

The Government amendment appears to contradict the leaks from the Secretary of State’s advisers last week that he would not need parliamentary approval or Lib Dem support for his proposal to bring back CSEs and O-levels. We have it from the Financial Times that Downing street now insists that the Secretary of State cannot go ahead without approval with the proposals that he leaked to the Daily Mail last week. The Financial Times article goes on to say that

“the idea of a lower qualification for less academic children”

is “dead in the water.” Perhaps when he responds, the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) will confirm whether that idea is dead in the water. If it is, why are the Secretary of State’s advisers at this moment spinning to the press lobby in the House of Commons that a lower qualification known as an N-level will be introduced—something that he did not announce to the House?

The Minister needs to come clean when he winds up. Is the two-tier plan that was leaked to the Daily Mail by the Secretary of State’s closest advisers dead in the water or not? Is it full steam ahead for the Secretary of State, or is this a humiliating climbdown? The Secretary of State was asked on three occasions—or as he would say, thrice—whether the Daily Mail report was wrong, and thrice he demurred and did not tell us. If he is making a humiliating climbdown, he must apologise to all his friends who came out in support of the proposals in the media.

The manner and timing of the leak to the Daily Mail were a disgrace, at a time when students up and down the country, who have been working hard for months on end, were sitting their GCSEs. What a contrast that is to the way in which the GCSE was introduced all those years ago. A debate was kicked off in 1976 by Jim Callaghan, the former Labour Prime Minister. It was developed by Shirley Williams, although she has gone off the tracks a little since then. Come to think of it, we have not heard much from her on this subject. It would be interesting to know what she thinks. The idea was picked up by Keith Joseph—that well known lily-livered, liberal, loony lefty—and implemented by Mrs Thatcher’s Education Secretary, Kenneth Baker, following thorough debate and consideration. It was welcomed across the House.

In contrast, we now have a proposal to rip up the GCSE, with accompanying disparaging rhetoric, cooked up by a cabal, no doubt using private e-mail accounts, with no reference to the Department’s officials or to other Departments, and kept secret even from one of the Secretary of State’s Education Ministers. What a ludicrous way to run a Department that is, and how symptomatic of the Secretary of State’s seething lack of trust in his own Minister and officials.

At least we can assume that the Secretary of State would be kinder to and have more faith in those on his own side. Not so, because we now find out that not even the Prime Minister knew the details of what he was about to leak to the Daily Mail. A Downing street spokesman told the Financial Times:

“It looks as if we’re being bounced into something we weren’t prepared for.”

What about the Education Committee, which is chaired ably by the Secretary of State’s Conservative colleague, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness, who as always made a thoughtful contribution today? Let us be clear that the Chair of the Select Committee is no fan of Labour education policy. We have had many discussions about it and, to save him any embarrassment, I confirm that he is no fan of Labour education policy. Nevertheless, we respect his long-standing commitment to raising the standards for those at the bottom. As the Secretary of State well knows, the Committee is at this moment undertaking a review of qualifications and examinations that seeks to address some of these questions. What contempt the Secretary of State has shown for the Education Committee by publicising his plans in the press without any consideration of the Committee’s work. I took a sharp intake of breath when the Secretary of State said to the Chair of the Select Committee, “If the cap on aspiration fits, wear it.” That was uncalled for and was off the mark with regard to the hon. Gentleman’s commitment to helping those at the lower end. However, I know that he needs no help from me.

I met the CBI earlier today. Like us, it thinks that the GCSE needs to be looked at again. Like us, it thinks that a much wider debate is needed than the headline-grabbing call for a return to O-levels and CSEs that we have had from the Secretary of State. GCSEs are not, despite the impression that the Secretary of State tried to give last week, a worthless piece of paper, but that is exactly how Kenneth Baker described CSEs, which the Secretary of State last week seemed so keen to bring back. As my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe pointed out, many O-levels were not rigorous qualifications, but required little more than a Gradgrindian regurgitation of facts. Factual knowledge is not enough in a world in which, as the CBI told me today, more data will be created this year than have been created in the previous 5,000 years. Rote learning is insufficient in a world that needs citizens who can process intelligently a mass of information and data in their daily lives. We need breadth and balance in the curriculum.

The GCSE was brought in not as a single examination paper, as some Government colleagues seem to think, but as a single examinations system that would give everybody the chance to succeed if they reached the required standard. That is a principle worth preserving. Reform, yes; back to the future, no.