Academies Bill [Lords]

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

It was not necessarily only academies that went down that route: all kinds of schools throughout the country forced children on to GNVQs and equivalent qualifications to force up their results. It was not unique to academies.

[Mr Hunt]

As the hon. Gentleman will hear later, the statistics are rather sharp on the difference between academies and the rest of the maintained sector. Moreover, the academies were unwilling to divulge the difference between academic qualifications and academic equivalent qualifications in vocational subjects.

Let us be clear that we are not debating the relative merits of academic versus vocational education. The equivalent qualifications sold as vocational are, in fact, rarely so. Many academy pupils are directed towards what might be described as semi-vocational or semi-academic subjects that do not provide the rigorous technical training that might lead to an apprenticeship but are simply weaker versions of GCSEs, such as BTEC science or OCR national certificates in information and communications technology.

[Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)]

Did not the Labour Government put in place the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, with its dogma of equivalence that made those subjects equivalent in the first place and give head teachers the incentives to treat those qualifications equally?

[Mr Hunt]

Clearly, the hon. Lady has not discovered the new politics. This is not about party political point scoring. [Interruption.] As I said at the beginning of my speech, this is about what children learn in our schools, and Government Members would do well to remember that amid their guffawing. Although a BTEC can officially be worth two GCSEs, or an OCR national certificate worth four GCSEs, that equation is not necessarily accepted by further or higher education colleges or other academic institutions, so often the pupil is short-changed even as grade results are inflated.

[Andrew Percy]

I could not agree with the hon. Gentleman more on that point, but it is important that he understand that, very often, local authorities that controlled schools were forcing them down that route. That will not be allowed to happen if the Bill is passed.

[Mr Hunt]

Academies are going down that road to raise their league table offering.

[Andrew Percy]

rose—

[Mr Hunt]

If the hon. Gentleman will wait a moment, the statistics that might quiet him will come.

Returning to the academies offer, the important point is that pupils have true options. First, they should have the choice to pursue academic subjects, even if that is to the detriment of the school’s results. After all, whose interests are the schools serving, apart from their pupils? Secondly, pupils should not be misled into thinking that undertaking equivalent qualifications will give them the same standing as GCSEs in history, modern languages, geography or the hard sciences; they will not.

The facts are stark. A series of parliamentary questions has shown that academies succeed disproportionately in equivalent qualifications and that academic subjects are in steeper decline in academies than in maintained schools. Just 17% of pupils in academies take geography GCSE, compared with 27% in the maintained sector, and 21% of pupils in academies take history GCSE, compared with 31% in the maintained sector. Whereas only 26% of academy pupils take a modern language, some 44% of maintained pupils do so. A similar story could be told for English literature, where one learns the rudiments of grammar, and for physics, chemistry and biology.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a good point about the importance of studying academic subjects in our schools. However, in the figures that he quotes, were academies compared with other equivalent schools, with similar catchment areas, or with the whole maintained sector?

[Mr Hunt]

That is a very good question. It has taken me so long to get the information out of the Department for Education that it relates only to the whole maintained sector. Our next stage is to pursue those questions locally. Of course, as the hon. Gentleman indicates, the data are influenced by the fact that, given the achievement gap in English schools, poorer students are disproportionately entered for equivalent qualifications at GCSE level. Academies, which have served lower-income cohorts to date, have mirrored that scenario, but that is surely the challenge that academies should take up.

We do not want the soft bigotry of low expectations, with academy league tables benefiting at the expense of pupil learning. That two-tier education fails to give some of our poorest communities the education that they deserve. Sadly, certain academies have accentuated that trend. As independent schools, they are exempt from the curriculum and, to date, have not had to reveal the details of their results beyond the basic percentage of their pupils who pass five-plus GCSEs or the equivalent.

I refuse to accept that that trend of teaching is inevitable. In my constituency, the Mitchell business and enterprise college on the Bentilee estate—for which my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) did so much good work in his time as a Minister and where youth unemployment is high and household income low—continues to offer rigorous academic subjects to all its pupils, not least because that is what business wants. Genuine vocational training requires a solid academic foundation up to the age of 16—a view espoused by employers in vocational areas of work. So it is of great value that amendments passed in the other place now ensure that academies are subject to freedom of information legislation, but there seems little change in the Bill to ensure that as many academies as possible deliver the broad curriculum that provides a stimulating learning environment. In many cases, freedom for academies has produced a narrowing of the curriculum options.

[Ben Gummer]

I am fascinated by the hon. Gentleman’s destruction of the policy supported by Labour Members for so many years. Given his firm disapproval of the independence of academies, I am interested to know whether he would recommend that the school that he attended should submit itself to the authority of the local authority, as he clearly wishes to pursue that line for other schools?

[Mr Hunt]

To be honest, I did not quite follow the hon. Gentleman’s line. The point that was pursued by Labour Members when we were in government is that standards in teaching and academic qualifications matter, and if academies produce league table inflation at the cost of the education of their pupils, that is to no one’s benefit. The worry is that, with greater freedoms, there is a narrowing of curriculum options, which is what the statistics have proved.

I have no ideological opposition to academies. In many situations, they are refreshing, innovative and provide the aspirational step change in low-income communities that can transform the life chances of many young people. I am proud of the Labour Government’s achievements in that regard, but we need greater transparency. What we need in the Bill is an understanding that there can be no more equivalence at the cost of academic rigour, as that is to the cost of the educational life chances of our young people. That is what we are dealing with. We want a tailoring of the curriculum in many cases, so that teachers have control, and can teach to the needs of young people and pursue vocational and academic topics, but we need clarity, accountability and transparency about these issues.

This is about more than league tables and data sets; it is about studying and learning skills and—dare I say it?—enjoyment. Too many schools and academies are denying that to some of the most disadvantaged communities in the country by not allowing the full academic curriculum. We must not make economic deprivation a licence for intellectual deprivation.