Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Department for Education

Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Allen Excerpts
Thursday 26th March 2015

(9 years, 7 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Nick Boles Portrait Nick Boles
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right that one of the great tragedies is young people, at a very young age, making choices whose impact they do not realise and closing off routes into engineering and maths teaching. That is why we have introduced the EBacc to prioritise those subjects—sciences, English and maths—that open doors and open possibilities for all young people.

Graham Allen Portrait Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
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22. Does the Minister accept that if we are to improve basic maths and English, a key step is to bring forward, with some urgency given that the Government are about to go to the electorate, a number of proposals already in the Department, such as the disadvantaged learners fund and proposals to ensure our FE provision is completed—in my case at Basford Hall FE?

Nick Boles Portrait Nick Boles
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The hon. Gentleman has been a champion for his constituency, and not just a champion but an initiator and a creator of very good ideas and programmes. We are very keen to work with him to support disadvantaged learners in the outer Nottingham estates in the way he has outlined. We are currently looking at how we will fund that, but he has my commitment that we will be working with him to achieve his goals.