Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

5. What steps he is taking to ensure that all pupils attain basic levels of literacy and mathematics before leaving school.

[Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

15. What steps he is taking to ensure that all pupils attain basic levels of literacy and mathematics before leaving school.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

Before I answer the questions, may I say on behalf of the House that you, Mr Speaker, would want us to pass on our best wishes to the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), who has recently suffered an accident from which he is slowly recovering. We all miss him. He was a fantastic constituency MP and great scrutineer of education [Hon. Members: “He still is!”] He still is, and we look forward to him being restored to full health.

The new national curriculum includes more demanding content in English and mathematics. In line with high-performing south-east Asian countries, mathematics will have more emphasis on arithmetic, fractions and decimals. There will be a new professional development programme for mathematics teachers at key stage 3, which will help them teach fractions more effectively, with robust evaluation of the results. We are, of course, also reforming GCSEs and making changes to nursery education.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to make sure, of course, that we intervene early to ensure that the next generation succeeds at a higher level than ever before, but we also need to ensure that older people who, for whatever reason, failed to benefit from the education on offer during their time, are given the chance to re-engage with the world of education to improve their literacy and numeracy.

[Jonathan Lord]

Last year, the CBI reported that two thirds of businesses were complaining that too many school leavers were struggling with basic literacy and numeracy and were unable to use a computer properly. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is unacceptable to ask our employers to set up remedial classes in these most core basic skills?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. No young person can confidently take their place in the world of work unless they are secure in literacy and numeracy. That means having secured a GCSE equivalent or better.