EBacc: Expressive Arts Subjects

Debate between Judith Cummins and Nick Gibb

Monday 4th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for securing this important debate.

Educational improvement is an issue close to my heart, as my constituency is among the worst performing educationally in the UK. When I speak about educational attainment, I cite two simple facts, without fail, that speak more than any other about what an uphill struggle my constituents face in remaining competitive in this increasingly fast-moving globalised world. First, in the league table measuring percentage of individuals with level 4 qualifications or higher, out of 650 constituencies in the UK, my constituency appears 609th. Secondly, when measuring those without any qualifications whatever, Bradford South comes in at 74th.

The task is stark. In simple terms, too few of my constituents boast the higher-level qualifications that they need to access professional and technical careers in the modern economy. To compound the problem, too many are making their way with no qualifications at all, destined for a working life in low-skilled roles typically marked by insecurity, low pay, and little to no opportunity for career progression. To face a fighting chance of accessing and forging successful careers in today’s economy, my constituents have to be better skilled with more qualifications under their belts and, just as importantly, their skills and qualifications must be aligned with today’s new industries.

These new industries, which increasingly drive economic growth, demand a highly skilled and creative workforce. Often they occur in the virtual world, facilitated through computers and sophisticated software—the knowledge economy in its rawest form. Front and centre among such new industries are those falling under the creative industries banner. To our credit, the UK’s creative industries are undeniably world-leading and, astonishingly, contribute more than £76 billion to the UK economy. The sector creates more than one in 11 UK jobs. Yet these industries are afforded little recognition, either by design or as an unintended consequence, in the Government’s policy on the introduction of the EBacc. That is what I wish to address in my remarks. Will the EBacc help or hinder my constituents’ ability to attain both a broad and balanced education and the specific skills that are key to careers in the new creative industries?

On the previous coalition Government’s watch, the uptake of creative subjects in our schools fell by 14%, and our creative industries face a skills shortage. Now, with the EBacc, the current Government are finishing the job of all but destroying the arts, culture and creative learning in our schools. Chief among my reasons for saying so is that the Government’s stated policy on the EBacc is unswervingly prescriptive on subjects and will become all but compulsory for our schools.

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me to make an intervention. I just wanted to correct her hyperbole, because art and design entries in 2010-11 were 162,000 but by 2014-15 they had risen to 176,000; in music, as I have said before, the number of entries rose from 43,157 to 43,654 over the same period; and in the performing arts, the number of entries rose from 2,648 to 5,997 over the same period.

[Judith Cummins]

I thank the Minister for that intervention; obviously, he has his whole Department’s data at his fingertips. However, I will say that vocational arts qualifications and subjects have dropped.

Ministers’ ambition that 90% of 16-year-olds should take the full EBacc, alongside the Department for Education’s plan to make the EBacc a headline measure for accountability and to increase its prominence in Ofsted inspections, will effectively make the EBacc compulsory for secondary school pupils in England. The EBacc stipulates which subjects must be studied: maths; English literature; English language; double science; a language, ancient and/or modern; and history and/or geography. Where is the room for the new-found self-determination that apparently the brave new world of academisation is designed to offer localities? It is cast aside.

As a result of this prescriptiveness in the EBacc, there will be little or no scope for our children and young people to study creative subjects. Creative subjects are consigned by this new regime, wrongly, to a lesser category of subjects in which arts and creative learning are—by association—considered less worthy than other subjects.

I say to the Minister that that is wrong. Studying creative subjects is not only wholly meaningful and valuable to a broad and balanced education, but equally importantly creative subjects help to position our children and young people for future careers. The very subjects that are key to nurturing the skills critical to knowledge-intensive, highly skilled, well-paid creative industry careers are excluded from the EBacc. Jobs that are destined to become a cornerstone of our future economy are undervalued by the EBacc. That is shameful and short-sighted—negligent, even.

I urge this Government to reconsider their position, as they did with the forced academisation policy, and to do what is right for our future generations. There is no shame in rethinking; it is the mark of a mature democracy. The real shame would be for this Government to plough ahead with a widely discredited policy that is ill-considered to its core and rooted in an outdated educational view that promises to undermine our blossoming creative industries, which promise so much for my constituents and promise to deliver economic prosperity for this country in the coming years and decades.