Education: Curriculum, Exam and Accountability Reform

Lord Clinton-Davis Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes]

My Lords—

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

My Lords, it should be the Cross Benches.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, thank you. On the radio this morning, the debate about this—before any Statement had been made—seemed to focus on whether we called someone “stubborn” or “humiliated”. That does not seem to be the way in which to conduct a debate on a serious matter. We now have another term—“listening”—although I have noticed that most politicians require a very loud shout before they listen, but that is not unreasonable in the position in which they find themselves.

I have two comments and a question. I notice that in both the Statement and the letter to Ofqual the review of A-levels is canvassed, which is very important and relates to what we are talking about now. In that context, I hope that—as promised—the Government will listen to those university leaders who are involved in teaching, for example, subjects that require a strong maths content, because some who are involved in admissions found the AS-levels a useful prop or crib, but an inaccurate one, in my view.

Secondly, the paper proposes two new measures which I hope will help schools ensure that pupils have the opportunity to sit examinations at the right level. One of these is that the percentage of pupils in each school reaching an attainment threshold should be measured. The wording is very important—percentage of what? Is it the percentage of those sitting the examination, the percentage of those in the age cohort, or the percentage of pupils over the years in the whole school? It really has to be a complete cohort before the percentage tells us what we wish to know.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

I am grateful for the mature opening views of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland. As a non-politician myself, I share his views on politicians’ listening skills. As far as A-levels are concerned, we have consulted widely with universities and will continue to do so in their formation. On the accountability measures, again we will be consulting on these. I could attempt to answer his question now but I think it would be better if we discussed this separately, which we can do.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

Going back to what the Minister said originally, did not the Secretary of State describe his original proposals as a major chunk of the Government’s agenda? When did that change? Does he agree with what was said then or now? Is it not true that teaching trade unions, Ofqual and the All-Party Group for Education all condemn these proposals as unworkable?

[Lord Nash]

As I said earlier, we have listened to the consultation and have adapted our proposals accordingly. We have many changes to make to the English education system to render it internationally competitive, and it seems odd to me that when we actually listen and make some changes to one of our proposals, we get criticised.