Examination Reform

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

I certainly accept that we need to learn from the strengths and weaknesses of the changes that have been made. We made a number of reforms. I was a Minister when Curriculum 2000 was implemented, which created the AS-level. That was a positive reform that has stood the test of time. There is a case to look again at modularisation, but as I will say in my speech, that does not require us entirely to remove controlled assessment from the core subjects that make up the secondary school curriculum.

Sir Jonathan has been joined by other leading British innovators in warning the Secretary of State that his plans are “jeopardising Britain’s future prosperity”. Research carried out for the Department for Education by Ipsos MORI demonstrates the effect that the EBacc performance measure has already had on creative subjects. For example, more than 150 schools have withdrawn the important subject of design and technology from their curriculum. There have been similar declines in drama and art. I fear that the Secretary of State’s plans for EBCs risk making the situation even worse.

A survey by YouGov for the National Union of Teachers that was published earlier this month found that more than 80% of teachers said that the proposed changes to exams at 16 were being rushed. Louise Robinson, the president of the Girls Schools Association, has said that the Education Secretary is transfixed by

“a bygone era where everything was considered rosy”.

She said:

“You can’t be forcing a 1960s curriculum and exam structure on schools. These children are going to be going out into the world of the 2020s and 2030s. It is going to be very different from”

the Secretary of State’s

“dream of what it should be.”

It is an indication of the Secretary of State’s unpopularity that voices from the private schools sector and the National Union of Teachers are united in their opposition to his plans.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

A great achievement.

[Stephen Twigg]

It is a great achievement, as my hon. Friend rightly says.

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[Stephen Twigg]

My hon. Friend makes the point powerfully, and it is absolutely the right point to make. It is not simply Opposition Members who are making it—it was the central argument of the CBI’s excellent report on education before Christmas, when it called for a pause in the Government’s proposed EBCs. That is why, in our motion, we urge the Government to rethink. We have reflected on what we are hearing from business, as my hon. Friend rightly reminds us, and from the world of education that they are not the reforms that take our education system, our economy, or our broader society in the right direction.

The Government’s plan for EBCs is very much in tune with the Secretary of State’s wider programme for education: a narrowing of the curriculum, backward looking in terms of assessment, and a policy for the few, not the many. Last year, the Secretary of State presided over the fiasco in GCSE English marking. Now, on his plans for changes to exams at 16, week after week we see increasing opposition, whether from business, entrepreneurs, teachers or parents. In contrast, I want to see a true baccalaureate approach to assessment and qualification reform. Labour Members are working to build a consensus in the worlds of business and education on reforms that will work and will last; reforms that will strengthen, not undermine, our standing in the world. On that basis, I commend this motion to the House.

[Kevin Brennan]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I will take the hon. Gentleman’s point of order in a moment. Just before I call the Minister for Schools, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) to respond from the Government Front Bench, I should say that in order to try and accommodate the level of interest, I have decided to impose an eight-minute limit on each Back-Bench contribution. Mr Brennan, I could never forget you and I was in no danger of doing so.

[Kevin Brennan]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Given that, unusually, the Secretary of State has decided to wind up the debate rather than to respond to the opening speech and has intervened on the shadow Secretary of State on five occasions, is there any means by which the time could be extended to allow the Opposition Front Bench the opportunity to intervene on him the same number of times without him being able to cry shortage of time?

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer is no, and I should emphasise, for the avoidance of doubt, that nothing disorderly has occurred.

[Kevin Brennan]

I did not say that.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman, as he rightly says, did not say that. The order in which Ministers appear at the Dispatch Box is exclusively a matter for the Government. It may be unusual, but there is nothing improper about it whatsoever. The House will now wish to hear Mr David Laws.

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[Mr Laws]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, that was the second or third of the four confessions we heard from the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman today.

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Laws]

In the spirit of interventions set by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, of course I will give way.

[Kevin Brennan]

I am sure the Minister is grateful to his right hon. Friend. Does the Minister recognise these words?

“There has been a breathtaking rise in performance in education since 1997. Inner London was a basket case pre-97; ninety per cent of students were failing to get decent grades at 16 back then. The improvement’s been astonishing, dramatic, unbelievable.”

They were his words in February 2010.

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[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

We have had, as others have said, a good debate. There are areas of consensus, which is what the shadow Secretary of State wants us to achieve, and those are to be welcomed. The first of those is that there is a need for some reform. I will not rehash what we have already heard, but there have been problems with the system and with people’s confidence in it, which I share.

We need to look at rigour, which is now a fashionable word on everybody’s lips. We also need to examine the pressures of assessment crowding out learning. We want to make sure that there is room for deep, wide-ranging learning so that teachers are free to teach. The coalition Government have been clear about that from the outset. We should be clear that we have excellent teachers, probably the best qualified and best motivated that we have ever had, who are doing a great job. If results have improved, it may be in part because there has been competition between exam boards and changes in assessment patterns. It has also been because of improvements in teaching—the Secretary of State has acknowledged that, and I do too—and because young people themselves have worked incredibly hard to achieve those results. It is not an either/or situation. As the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) said, we must remember that those young people should be at the heart of all the decisions we take and the discussions we have.

Our duty as legislators is to raise aspiration even further, but to raise it across the ability range too. The Secretary of State has rightly highlighted the small number of people from the most deprived backgrounds—those on free school meals—who have gone on to attend Oxford or Cambridge, so that gives us one measure to consider. I hope—I am sure it is true—that we as a Government will look across the ability range to make sure that whatever people are capable of achieving, they are supported in doing so. It is not just about the very high flyers; social mobility is about making sure that everybody gets to where they could go. That is good for them, but it is also good for us as a country to ensure that we are making use of their skills and talents in future. We want a system that allows them to achieve, supports them in doing so, and does not dispirit or disillusion them in any way.

The Government have acted on vocational qualifications to distil what has worked and what has not—what is of value and what is not—to try to ensure that we have a suite of qualifications that people in business understand and can have confidence in. I welcome that work. The Government have also been prepared to revisit issues with engineering to make sure that we have got things right. That is a mature and grown-up way of doing things.

On qualifications at 16 and the GCSE, the Government have discussed internally how they should respond to the need for reform. It is unfortunate that back in the early summer a leak was reported in a national newspaper suggesting, some thought, that there was an intention within the Conservative party to move towards a two-tier qualification. The Secretary of State has made it clear that he is happy with a pattern of having one wider qualification that develops in future. The shadow Secretary of State seemed to want to return to where we were with the business of the leak instead of looking at it in the context of a formal Government announcement, but we have moved on from that. I am sure that he would acknowledge that people such as Mike Tomlinson and John Dunford have acknowledged that the proposed qualification is not a two-tier system. For example, the proposed statement of achievement would ensure that the same small number of young people who are not entered for GCSEs get something. Under the current system they have not had anything, so that is a step forward. It is important to get my understanding of that on the record. To his credit, the Secretary of State, with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Schools and other Ministers, is considering the views expressed in consultation to make sure that we get it right. That is absolutely the right approach.

I welcome the fact that Opposition Front Benchers have used some of their supply time for this debate. I might question the terms of the motion, but I welcome the debate. In recent weeks I have submitted several bids for a Westminster Hall debate on the subject, and this debate has given me the chance to make the points that I want to make.

I should like to draw attention to a couple of issues that others have raised. On assessment, my right hon. Friend the Minister said that nothing was set in stone. However, the Secretary of State and my right hon. Friend’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), from whom we have already heard, have been very keen that examination is a recognised and rigorous way of carrying out assessment. The system must work as a good assessment of the young people who are able to take that approach and to achieve under those circumstances.

Others learn and should be assessed in a slightly different way. That is not to say that I agree with programmes of study that are assessed by 100% continuous assessment. We need a balance. In the past, GCSEs were much more balanced, and that has got out of kilter. Assessment through examination during the course is another problem, because it can lead to constant learning and cramming towards a test. I can understand that from young people’s point of view it is good to bank something early on but, on balance, that has negatives.

We want to make sure that coursework is assessed properly. We in this Government trust teachers, so we know that they will be able to tell the difference between something written by the student they have in front of them week in, week out and something that has been written by their parents or friends or has been taken from the internet. It is possible to make those judgments, and we need to support teachers in making sure that they have the skills and knowledge to do so if they are lacking. We can also tighten up through moderation and so on. I hope that the door is not bolted on 100% examination for all subjects, because that bears greater exploration.

Another issue is the name of the qualification. We already have in the English baccalaureate a suite of qualifications that means one thing, and now we have an English baccalaureate certificate, so it is debatable whether the name is right. However, as long as the qualification is right I am more relaxed about its name. There is some justification for discussing which subjects are included and which are not. If it is introduced gradually to different subject areas over time, it is possible that those who get it first will be seen in a different way from those who get it later on, and we have to be careful about that.

I broadly welcome the focus on reform, which has been widely called for by people outside this place as well as by parties in the House. In particular, the statement of achievement is a big step forward for young people.

[Kevin Brennan]

Given what the hon. Gentleman has said so far, what is it in the motion that he disagrees with?

[Dan Rogerson]

The motion is set up to say that the Government should scrap their thinking and start again. The Government are examining and will respond to the consultation, which one could call rethinking. [Interruption.] We know what Opposition days are about—they are a chance for the Opposition to get their point of view on the record, as I am sure that they will; in fact, they have done so more successfully today than they have in the past on these issues. [Interruption.] Both sides have had the chance to clarify matters through their conversation over the Dispatch Box; I was not being churlish about the shadow Secretary of State’s ability to get his point across.

I hope that as the Government look at the responses to the consultation they re-examine some of these issues to make sure that we have got this absolutely right. What we want at the end of the process is a qualification that stands the test of time so that the young people who are now being born in my constituency and others across the country and who may well take the examination in future will find that it is still valued and understood by employers, teachers and everybody else. We must get it right. We have an opportunity to do that, and I am sure that the Government will take it.

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[Neil Carmichael]

First, I want to pick up on a point made by the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on beliefs and experience. We all have beliefs and some of us have had experience as well. One of my sharpest experiences was that of marking examinations taken by undergraduates who displayed an innate intelligence but not necessarily a huge ability to communicate. We should all think about that during the course of this debate, because it is important that communication skills and mathematics should be embedded as early as possible.

My second point is that there is much more continuity between those on the two Front Benches than might first be supposed. That came to my attention when I was reading Lord Adonis’s recent book on education. He has paved the way for some of the changes that we are continuing—

[Kevin Brennan]

Yes, but Lord Adonis does not support this one.

[Neil Carmichael]

I am not suggesting that Lord Adonis supports everything that we are doing; I am saying that there is some continuity. That is good, because we need more continuity in education policy. A lot of the measures that we are introducing will be useful, in that they will make things better and build on some of the achievements of the previous Government. That needs to be said.

My third point is that I am a firm believer in the Ebacc, as I stated when the Education Select Committee looked into that subject. In fact, that was the only time I ever voted against the publication of a report. I did so because I believe it is important that the Ebacc should be promoted. One of the myths that needs to be completely debunked is that the Ebacc will stop other subjects being taught. That is clearly not the case, because most, if not all, schools also offer a wider variety of subjects. That is what they are supposed to do, and what they will continue to do. I do not believe that enough attention has been paid to the role of Ofsted in ensuring that schools are going beyond the Ebacc subjects. We need to be much clearer about the process involved in the inspection regime, and about the impact that the Ebacc will have on the delivery of other subjects.

Linked to that is Professor Alison Wolf’s report, which has been discussed by the shadow Secretary of State and the Minister for Schools. I think that Alison Wolf’s report is first class. It sets the scene for proper vocational training. She makes two points, however, that have thus far been overlooked. First, she believes that an academic framework is absolutely necessary for pupils, and that it is not inconsistent with going on to vocational studies. In fact, she notes that it is a good thing to have an academic basis for vocational training. The second point that she makes very clearly in her report is that there is plenty of time in the school day to go beyond the Ebacc and into vocational training. I think that is critical, because it applies to post-16 education—beyond school and into colleges—as well. We need to bear those two points in mind when we think about the EBacc.

It is important to underline what the Minister of State said about universality. I was particularly impressed with it, as I think we should have a system in which all pupils are treated fairly and all pupils have a fair chance of taking an examination, so that we do not get division between one type of pupil and another. One of the great achievements over the last decade or so has been exactly that—and we should celebrate it. I would say, however, that the EBacc builds on that and does not threaten it, which is something of which we should be proud.

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[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

We have had a high-quality debate this afternoon with contributions from 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 Gateshead (Ian Mearns), the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed), the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore). We found out from him that at 6 am in the morning, he is checking Lord Knight’s Twitter feed—not something the rest of us would necessarily do at that time. We also heard contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) and the hon. Members for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and for Stroud (Neil Carmichael). The hon. Member for Kingswood was obviously only half awake because he seemed to think that Lord Knight’s Twitter feed said that he supported the proposals, which is certainly not the case.

It is more and more clear that the Government’s proposed EBacc certificate is the wrong reform on the wrong timetable. What is more, the Secretary of State has got it the wrong way round. In one sense, I am certain that he agrees that it is the wrong reform, because we know that it is not the reform that he wanted. He announced the reform that he wanted using the now traditional method for making important Department for Education announcements—via a leak to the The Mail on Sunday. He was celebrating his great news triumph when word got through to the Deputy Prime Minister in his hotel room in Rio, presumably wearing his onesie—[Interruption.] That is true; it might be too hot in Rio for a onesie.

The Deputy Prime Minister was so furious with the Education Secretary that he not only made him withdraw his plans and modify them into the incoherent mess that we have been hearing about today, but made him sack his trusted lieutenant, the former schools Minister, and replace him with the current part-time schools Minister, who I think is off in the Cabinet Office doing his other job—a Lib Dem incubus in the Secretary of State’s lair. [Interruption.] He has now come to the Chamber. A bit like horsemeat in a burger, it can be swallowed but it is not very palatable. Even the Secretary of State thinks that it is the wrong reform, because he has had to drop the overtly two-tier approach that he favoured for the covert one that we have heard about today. Everyone else knows that it is the wrong reform, because it does not address, as we have heard overwhelmingly from Members on both sides of the House, the real issues and challenges for education at 16.

First, the reform is anti-creativity. Many people are asking: what do the Secretary of State and the Government have against creativity? As we saw in a debate on the EBacc certificate in another place on Monday, he calls his new qualification a gold standard, but how can a qualification on which the Secretary of State places such a valedictory appellation have no place for the arts? As the former Education Secretary Baroness Morris of Yardley in another place said:

“How can an assessment that marks the end of the national curriculum not recognise achievement in music, dance, drama, art, design and craft?”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 January 2013; Vol. 742, c. 547.]

The EBacc is also the wrong reform because it does not seriously examine the purpose and relevance of high-stakes public examinations at 16 when the participation age has been raised to 18. That topic is causing a veritable buzz in the world of education. The Secretary of State needs to listen not just to his closest advisers and cronies and his own soliloquies. We need a proper debate and consensus around reform, which addresses the key issues that the Chair of the Education Committee has often cited, as he did again today—in particular the long tail of underachievement. Perhaps we should rename the EBacc certificate the GOVE—general opposition to vocational education—because the Secretary of State has nothing to say on how we can have a gold standard in vocational education. That is why we have had to take the initiative in developing the Tech Bacc, in which he seems so uninterested.

Another reason the EBacc certificate is the wrong reform is its rigid and mystifying insistence that it should be assessed by final essay-based examination only. The Secretary of State was rightly asked earlier whether it is his role to decide that anyway, and perhaps we will get an answer in his speech, but essay-based exams measure only a narrow range of skills and knowledge. I have been trying to understand what makes the Secretary of State so against controlled assessment and practical exams and why he thinks the only valid way of testing anything is a three-hour written examination at the end of a course. What traumatic event in his past could have led him to have this seemingly inexplicable aversion to the appropriate use of controlled assessment and his insistence that only written exams should count? Then I remembered—

[Michael Gove]

The driving test.

[Kevin Brennan]

He is ahead of me—he is very quick. The driving test is administered on a basis of a written test combined with a practical controlled assessment, and the Secretary of State failed his driving test on six occasions. And this is the man who does not believe in re-sits!

Had the driving test consisted of a course in the theory of driving followed by a three-hour written test, the Secretary of State would no doubt have passed first time, with flying colours. He might have achieved a merit, perhaps even a distinction, maybe an A* for demonstrating his in-depth understanding of the intricacies of the highway code. But would that have made him a better driver, and would the public have been safe with him behind the wheel? Possibly not.

This is the wrong reform, and it is also being carried out according to the wrong timetable. It is not just the foot-draggers, the naysayers and the vested interests who are saying that. It is being said by Glenys Stacey, the head of Ofqual and the Secretary of State’s guardian of exam standards, who has written to him expressing her concerns—incidentally, we know about her letter only as a result of dogged forensic questioning of the Secretary of State by the Education Committee—and it is not being said just by Ofqual either. In response to a recent survey, more than 80% of teachers said that the changes were being rushed, adding to the huge majority of heads who said that the changes would not be an improvement, and reinforcing the call from the CBI—about which we have already heard today—for a pause in the Government’s timetable.

I am old enough to have taken O-levels—I also have a CSE in woodwork, a grade 1—and A-levels, and I taught for O-level, GCSE and A-level. One thing that I do know is that it is impossible to introduce successful examination reform without being clear about the curriculum, without consensus, and without proper piloting of new qualifications. GCSE reform was kicked off by Shirley Williams, and brought in by Keith Joseph after many years of development. It is necessary to aim for that breadth of consensus at the start if lasting reform is to achieved. However, the English baccalaureate certificate proposal is not a product of consensus based on evidence; it is being rushed through to meet a political, not an educational, timetable. That is the wrong recipe for reform, and the right recipe for chaos.

The Secretary of State’s reform is being introduced for the wrong reasons, the wrong way round. The Secretary of State says it is about rigour, but rigour is achieved through engaging, imaginative, high-quality and creative teaching, not through dispiriting learning by rote that is based only on facts. That is not a recipe for rigour; it is a recipe for rigor mortis in the classroom—the stiff dead hand of Gradgrindian misery about which we heard earlier.

In a recent television interview, Lord Baker reminded us of the welcome contrast between the current CBI report on education and that of one of its predecessor bodies, which states that all that was, or should be, required of the curriculum was that it should teach “literacy, numeracy and obedience”. Sometimes, listening to what is said by members of the Government, I wonder whether that is what they believe now. As Lord Baker also said, if that is all we think is required today, God help us, because that is the attitude that has created

“the long tail of underachievement”,

demotivated generations of young people, and wasted the talents of so many.

It is, however, the background noise that hisses around the Secretary of State’s approach to this reform. The proposal is the wrong way around. It puts the cart before the horse, the exams before the course, and the outcomes before the aims.

Here are some possible aims of a curriculum for the Secretary of State. It should produce

“a confident person who has a strong sense of right and wrong, is adaptable and resilient, knows himself, is discerning in judgment, thinks independently and critically, and communicates effectively; a self-directed learner who takes responsibility for his own learning, who questions, reflects and perseveres in the pursuit of learning; an active contributor who is able to work effectively in teams, exercises initiative, takes calculated risks, is innovative and strives for excellence; and, a concerned citizen who is rooted”

in his country,

“has a strong civic consciousness, is informed, and takes an active role in bettering the lives of others”.

The Secretary of State may think that that is wishy-washy. It is, in fact, a list of the aims of the curriculum in Singapore, and perhaps he ought to take a look at it before he starts to design a new exam system. How can this style of examination achieve those aims? It cannot, which is why Singapore has been reforming its education in our direction.

This is a case of wrong reform, wrong timetable, wrong way round: wrong, wrong, wrong. The new three Rs are all spelt with a W, standing not for “reading, writing and arithmetic” but for “wrong, wrong, and”—as the Secretary of State might say—“thrice wrong”.