Vocational Education

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, when I saw that this debate had been tabled, I initially put my name down for one reason—to have a slightly more detailed dig about the development of, for instance, those with special educational needs and their way into further education. That was as a result of my experience of dealing with the new apprenticeships and the problems there associated with dyslexia, although apparently there are problems with dyslexia in other sectors as well. However, as I started to read through the report, I was also convinced that I should put my name down to speak because of the use of the term “coaching”. I know rather more about coaching in relation to sport than I do about coaching in relation to any aspect of further education, but I appreciated that it was a new way of learning and one that I knew something about. It involves a different process of imparting and using knowledge and teaches people how to apply that knowledge.

My noble friend Lord Lucas started with examples of trying to make training appropriate. The example we use in the documentation is a plumber. You take information, you approach how it is integrated and you go back and through. My very distant noble kinsman Lord Lingfield spoke about keeping people up to date, making sure the information is ongoing and how to learn and approach others. This approach is more appropriate for people who are not really designed for being in a classroom receiving facts and figures, which surely must be one of the primary differences between further education and the schoolroom. The connection between the two and acknowledging that there are differences between them is a very positive step forward. You create a different learning process to which those who have not enjoyed school or had great success there will find themselves more open, particularly if this different approach is explained to those on entering it.

The briefing for this debate mentioned the Wolf review. I became less happy with aspects of it, particularly going back to the insistence on GCSE passes when we brought in apprenticeships under the previous Government. I remember hearing that employers want people who can pass English and maths, but they also want people who do not put in for overtime, do not have time off, do not have children who get sick and so on. They really want people who will turn up and work for nothing; they have no right to expect that. They have the right to expect somebody who will able to do the job at least competently, who has a decent approach to what is coming next and who will not be rude to clients and fellow workers. That is what they have a right to expect.

Although City & Guilds has done good work, it is one of the bodies I had disagreements with. I discovered considerable resistance to the idea that you could change the way exams are taken. It had to catch up with the fact that the rest of the education system acknowledges things such as dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia and allows people to take qualifications and different ways forward. One example of that is telling people that they cannot have differently formatted online exams for security reasons. It might be a bad thing if somebody gets hold of the answers in advance, but it is not a nuclear strike. Other examination bodies, such as universities and GCSE and A-level boards, manage this process consistently and have done so for years. How are we going to make sure that the further education sector gets itself more up to date on taking on a mass group and giving meaningful qualifications, and how you let those people in?

The groups that I am talking about should be over-represented in the general population in this process of education. Let us take dyslexia, which is the biggest group; it affects 10% of the population. The first example I saw of somebody failing in a skill that requires using your hands due to what was key skills then—it is functional skills now—was a hairdresser who had won an award but could not pass the English assessment. You can get a degree with dyslexia by using assistive software. It is available for free on the phone I have on the desk in front of me; that is how common it is. I draw attention to my interests in the fields of both technology and dyslexia, but they are both predated by my interest in this subject—or my interest in the subject predates them. I am sure that Hansard will have fun with that.

However, the further education sector has to grow up and become part of the mainstream about bringing these groups in. It has not done very well as a starting point. If we could hear from my noble friend that she can build on what she said at Question Time today about making sure that they all take on board the fact that they must bring in these people, I would be a much happier person. This was not a confrontation I looked for and it was one which I thought would be over and done with by now. I have on one occasion had a Minister of State shouting at officials, “Sort it out, it’s ridiculous”. That was nearly 18 months ago. There does not seem to be an embracing of the fact that we have a legal framework that says that those with hidden disabilities should be brought into the mainstream. They should not be left on the side.

We do not want to create a situation where more people find greater difficulty with employment because they cannot access the very basic and fundamental forms of qualification, which we need now in finding employment—or at least to change employment frequently, as we seem to have to do. Unless we can start to address this and work it in with that very welcome change towards coaching and a more flexible approach to learning and teaching, we will just create more problems. I hope that my noble friend will be able to give me a positive reply. Indeed, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Young, will give us an idea about where he thinks it should develop, because I recognise his expertise in this field as well.