Education: Contribution to Economic Growth

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, I must first apologise for my husky voice. My advice to all your Lordships is: do not come near me, you might catch it.

I am very pleased to be speaking in this debate for two reasons: not only is it an important debate but I shall hear the maiden speech of my old friend Stephen Sherbourne—now my noble friend Lord Sherbourne. We go back 40 years, when I was the most junior Minister in Ted Heath’s Government and he was a political adviser. Stephen has spent his life trying to make Conservatives more intelligent, better read and perceptive. You might think that this is a hopeless task; it is certainly thankless, and I look forward to his maiden speech.

The reason why this debate is important is that there is total dysfunction between the needs of British industry and commerce and the educational system of our country at all levels. At university level, with the skills gap by 2020, British industry and commerce will need 850,000 STEM graduates, including in computing. It will be 300,000 short; 45,000 short each year for the next seven years. When it comes to levels 3 and 4, the advanced and foundation degrees, it will need more than half a million. The FE college system cannot possibly meet that need in that time. The reason why it cannot meet it is that if a student starts at FE college at 16, it takes him two years to get to GCSE in engineering, computing or the built industry. At 18, with that qualification, he goes off for a job. If you start at 14, by 16 you will have a BTEC or a good GCSE in a technical subject. You then go on to level 3 and level 4, but the conversion rate of FE colleges to levels 3 and 4 is the lowest in Europe, so that is a major problem.

Then we come to the school system. We have nearly 1 million unemployed youngsters today. That is a disgrace and a shame. All Secretaries of State, including me, have tried to do something about it. Michael Gove is trying to do it by increasing the quality of maths, English and science teaching. Good luck to him; I wish him well but actually, we have all failed and I must bear some responsibility for that. There are 1 million people today who, after 11 years of free education, cannot get a job in our country. We must do something about that, and that means a fundamental change to our education system.

We can see the demands of industry. Last week, we had a meeting with Allan Cook, the chairman of WS Atkins, one of the largest consultancy firms in Europe. He said that we are short of 4,000 railway engineers. Talk to anybody in Cisco or Microsoft and they will say that they are tens of thousands short of computer scientists for their own business and for their clients. Last week, I had a meeting with the food processing industry, which I do not know very well. It is today short of 100,000 technicians. This week, your Lordships probably saw our Prime Minister opening a college in China sponsored by Jaguar to train young engineers. He will have the chance to open a university technical college in Coventry next year, which Jaguar is supporting because the schools in Coventry just do not produce youngsters who want to work in Jaguar. It has put in for a second one in Solihull because the schools in Birmingham are simply not producing the youngsters who want to work in Jaguar, one of the most successful companies in our country.

We have to do something about this. Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector, put his finger onto it earlier this year. He said that we need more specialist colleges for 14 year-olds. This is what university technical colleges are. I think many of your Lordships are aware that they are the new colleges, for students aged 14 to 18. They have a demanding day. They start at 8.30 am and go on till 5 pm. They have shorter holidays. For two days of the week the youngsters, the girls and the boys, are making things with their hands—designing things, working in teams and problem solving—and the rest of the week they are doing their GCSEs in English, maths, science, a foreign language and history or geography.

These colleges have proven to be very popular. We are very proud of them. Seventeen are open; 27 are waiting to open. We are assessing, together with my noble friend Lord Nash, 11 at the moment. This year there will be 3,000 students in the colleges; next year there will be 9,000; in 2015 there will be 15,000. When they are all fully operational, over four years, there will be more than 30,000 students. This is making a contribution. Indeed, the Prime Minister is a fan of these colleges, and said recently that every major town in the country should have one. The number depends on how you define “major town”, but it is somewhere between 200 and 300. We need that sort of number to create the sort of opportunities for young people for the jobs that they will have.

I would like to thank my noble friend Lord Nash personally. Having come from business, he understands the importance of good technical and practical training in any business. I also thank the Secretary of State, Michael Gove. Sometimes he is said to be not very keen on these colleges. On the contrary—I had a meeting with him last week, and he said that he is a fan of UTCs. In the House of Commons this week he said that they are an excellent innovation, and he wants more high-quality UTCs. This is an all-party programme. These colleges started under the previous Labour Government, when I won the support of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. The Labour Party is still very committed to supporting this; the Liberal Democratic Party committee on this matter has also supported it. This is an initiative that will not change if there is a change of Government. It is very important that there should be some stability in this area.

One of the things we found is that when English and maths are taught under the same roof as a technical subject, there is a dramatic improvement in English and maths. At the JCB Academy, it was forecast that the youngsters would get to only 50% having Level C in maths. After two years, they got 85%. There are astonishing improvements of 30% to 40% in the basic subjects because the youngsters suddenly realise the basic subjects are not taught in a separate classroom; it is intrinsic to all their work, and it is leading to jobs.

One of the proudest things we have as a target is that, when we have leavers at 16 and 18, we will have no NEETs. So far, of the two colleges that have had leavers at 16 and 18 every youngster has got a job, got an advanced apprenticeship at 16, gone on to study A levels and BTECs, got a hired apprenticeship at 18 or gone to university. Very few schools in our country can say that they have achieved that, so we know that we have a successful model. We also know that we get attendance rates of 95% from an average comprehensive intake. We take children with special educational needs and those who have free school meals. Very few schools can say that they have a 95% attendance.

In conclusion, I will read a letter from a young student at Central Beds UTC. He was not asked to write this letter, but he wanted to encourage Ministers and the Government to be enthusiastic about this subject. He is called Morgan. I have not met him. He says this:

“After (underachieving) failing my first year at a standard sixth form, I made the best decision of my life and started fresh at UTC. My grades have rocketed from D’s and E’s to A’s and B’s (in mathematics and physics), and I’m currently achieving D*D*D* in the BTEC course which has set me well on my way to attending a top university such as Bath, Bristol or Loughborough to study an engineering design masters degree”.

He went on:

“It’s not like school, we don’t get spoon-fed information to pass our exams, we have to put the effort in to get something out. And I believe it is more than possible to pave your way to your dream career from this UTC, as we are given the opportunities needed to proceed to the next stage of life, be it an apprenticeship… an engineering firm or a degree at university, the college will help you get there”.

We need more Morgans. We need hundreds more Morgans. We need thousands more Morgans. We need tens of thousands more Morgans. It is up to us all to realise this, because, otherwise, we will let down British industry and the prosperity of our country will be weaker.