English Baccalaureate: Creative and Technical Subjects

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, when I was helping to fashion the national curriculum in the 1980s, I selected 10 subjects. The basic subjects were English, maths and science and seven more to ensure a rounded education, with art and other creative subjects among them. The idea was to prepare GCSEs for the 10 subjects and hope that 70% of schools could reach the standard. In fact it proved to be too ambitious. You do not have to worry too much about bright children because they will survive any education system, and that is true right across the world—if they are not neglected they will do very well. I was more concerned about the long tail of underachievers who were not coping with such a demanding curriculum. So I very much welcomed the Dearing report in 2003 which recommended a simplification of the curriculum. Certain subjects like history, geography and a foreign language were made voluntary, as it were, at GCSE. The world did not fall apart because of that. There was a much greater variety of GCSEs; indeed too many were rather light and careless ones which were quite properly excluded in 2010. On the whole, however, pupils got a much more rounded education as a result.

In 2010, Michael Gove decided to impose the EBacc on the education system. It covers just five subjects: English, maths, science, history or geography and a foreign language. Everyone is expected to take it. The EBacc is the policy of an American educationist called E D Hirsch. There are very few examples around the world where it has worked, but none the less it is what we have got, and of course it has had very serious consequences. As all the speakers in the debate have said, a whole range of subjects have been dropped. From 2010 until now, art, music, drama and dance have all declined at GCSE; that is irrefutable. I am very concerned about design and technology, a subject that I introduced in 1988, where the take-up has fallen by 30%.

By the age of 16, many youngsters will not have had any experience of a technical education at all. It is not surprising that that is in huge contrast to Germany where by the age of 18, some 70% of young people have had experience of a technical education, while in Britain it is 30%. The policy of the Government is to expand technical education, so what proposals does the Minister have to arrest the decline in design and technology? For example, could a bursary be given to teachers of design and technology similar to those which are available to the teachers of maths and physics? There should be a policy to reverse this decline.

The other subject that worries me considerably is the status of computing. At GCSE there are two exams—computer science, which is a tough exam, and a less tough one in IT. This year the take-up of the tough exam rose by 4,000 but the easier one fell by 11,000. This July, 7,000 fewer students took an exam in computing. This is the digital revolution and the Government have a digital strategy, so where do those figures fit into the strategy? I am very concerned about that. The charity I chair wants a fundamental change, but I do not think that this Government are going to bring one in. Perhaps we could settle for something that would move towards it.

At this point I want to put a positive proposal to the Minister. It is not a wrecking proposal, but a positive and helpful one. The concept of a choice between subjects in the EBacc is already in place because students must choose whether to study history or geography. Why can there not be a choice between a foreign language and computing? Some 300,000 students study a foreign language while only 65,000 take computing. It is more important that the students of today should have an understanding of a computer language than a smattering of a foreign language, particularly when we are on the edge of having instantaneous translation. It will soon be possible to speak in your own language and have it translated into the language of the person you are talking to, and his response translated into your own language. Given that, I do not believe that the importance of learning a foreign language is anything like as great as it was. This is a positive proposal and I hope that one day I might get a response to it.

The real problem with the Department for Education is that it is rather bifurcated. There is the side where my noble friend Lord Nash is—I should like to thank him for the very considerable support he has given to UTCs; he understands what we are trying to do—while the other side of the department is concerned with FE colleges and so on. At the moment they seem to be on different tracks. The FE side wants more apprentices, but if a student has studied only academic subjects up to the age of 16, it is very difficult for that student to be employed by someone as an apprentice. They have not had any practical experience. This is the great advantage of university technical colleges. By the age of 16, our students will have worked in teams on projects, something you do not get in normal schools. They will have worked on problem solving, something else you do not get in normal schools. They will have made things with their hands and designed things on a computer, which you do not get in normal schools any longer. These students are highly employable as apprentices.

By far the most remote UTC in the country is up on the energy coast near Sellafield. It is 100 miles away from the next UTC. In July this year, the school placed 59 apprentices, 30 of whom were 16 years old. No other school in the country will place anywhere near even 10 apprentices, let alone 59. If those young people had gone to normal schools in Cumbria, they would not be apprentices at 16. Employers want them because they have handled metal, they have designed things, they have solved problems, and they have experience of all those things which no longer happen in normal schools. This particular UTC also achieves a 96% pass rate in engineering and 80% in English and maths. Some sixth-formers took the triple A in engineering and they all got A*s. This simply would not have happened if they had been studying for the EBacc.

On most days the Minister likes UTCs and he knows what we are trying to do. There has to be a greater variety. We have to train youngsters today for the jobs of tomorrow, and not with the sort of curriculum that I studied years ago, which is what the EBacc is. In fact, it goes back even further. Its progenitor was the curriculum announced by a Minister at the board of education in 1904. It is word for word the same curriculum. Those who support the EBacc so strongly should perhaps ask why it has not worked well for 120 years and why are we still committed to it.

I hope that my proposal to offer a choice at the age of 16 between foreign languages and computing will be considered seriously by the Government.