Education Bill

Lord Puttnam Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Grand Committee

Debate on Amendment 83ZA resumed.

[Lord Puttnam]

My Lords, this amendment is grouped with Amendment 107C tabled in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Willis. I want to add to what was said towards the end of the debate on Monday. I should say that I agree with every word that the noble Lord, Lord Willis, said. He is correct that technology is not an add-on, something it would be nice to have or that we ought to be looking at. Technology in education today is absolutely fundamental. Here I must declare a series of important interests. When I worked for the department for six years between 1997 and 2003, I became fascinated by the impact of new technology in education. On leaving the department, I became engaged with and subsequently joined the board of Promethean, a company producing interactive whiteboards. I still sit on that board. I am also chairman of Futurelab, which is an educational research charity. It is important to say that the reason I joined the board of Futurelab was to try and ensure that—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

Perhaps I may intervene on the noble Lord for a second. Could I ask our expert in the corner whether the microphones are switched on because we cannot hear the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, awfully well? Perhaps I may also suggest that noble Lords make sure that their mobile phones are turned off because it is their phones which are causing that curious buzzing noise.

[Lord Puttnam]

Thank you, Lord Chairman. I could go into detail about why I think this is so important, but perhaps I should go straight to something I read the other day which is absolutely factual. It concerns a teaching assistant and special needs teacher called Bev Evans at Pembroke Dock Community School in Wales. Bev Evans puts lesson plans up on the web using the TES Resources website. Over the past few years she has shared 276 teaching resources on the web with other teachers. As of last month, her work has been downloaded 1,345,330 times by 237,364 educators in 169 countries. Teachers save an average of 30 minutes per resource, the equivalent of 672,665 hours of teaching time, which is worth 431 teaching years. I cite that because it is a fantastic illustration of the way that technology has the ability to transform teaching and learning. These figures and indeed the whole concept would have been unimaginable a decade ago, so the role that technology now plays in education is fundamental.

To put it kindly, I am afraid that, at present, the White Paper is technology-light. I am concerned about that because the whole purpose is to start a serious conversation both at the department and with the Minister. We need the reassurance of knowing that this subject will not be like discussing the adaptation to or mitigation of climate change with someone who does not really accept that climate change is an important reality. This is a reality. The noble Lord, Lord Willis, sensibly cited the example of electricity. It is absolutely true to say that in the early part of the last century, the difference between the attainments of some children over others depended on whether there was electricity in their homes. That would allow them to do homework in the evenings, whereas those without electricity could not. Technology is as fundamental as that. That may sound like a large claim, but it is not an irrelevant one.

I am also puzzled because two weeks ago the Secretary of State, Mr Gove, made a really remarkable speech at the Royal Society. The second half of that absolutely nailed and eulogised the use of technology. He was completely clear as to how important the adequate but intelligent use of technology was to our competitiveness. He was very clear about the way technology is being used in other countries successfully and that we had to get our act together and make a success of it. He could not have been more crystal clear on that. Yet none of that speech is contained at the moment anywhere in the White Paper as I read it. It would be good for the Government, the country and, I suggest, the Minister if it were. The purpose of these two amendments is to try and ensure that that finds its way into the Bill and the Government prove for good and all that they are absolutely committed to technology within teaching and learning.

[Lord Peston]

Before the Minister speaks, I unfortunately missed the last meeting of your Lordships’ Committee. I broadly support what is said here but would like, as someone who spends a lot of time using this sort of technology, to offer one or two caveats. First, I know of no other way of wasting more time than in getting on to the net. It is not merely ordinary time-wasting because it is addictive. I am keen for our young people to get involved in all this but we should not be naïve about it. When I come into your Lordships’ House, I am one of the early arrivals at 8.30. By 9.30 I am fed up to the teeth and immediately log-on. I start typing into my machine. Some two hours go by and I have looked at The Wasteland by TS Eliot—you can download it for free, which surprises me. I then begin to wonder if that is a better poem than The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. That is all good for young people except for the amount of time that it takes. Equally, one should not be naïve in assuming that they will do as I do and look for intellectual, aesthetic and scientific things. They will spend a lot of time mucking around. I am not saying a word against any of this being the right path to go down—quite the contrary. We really must go down this path but I wanted to add those words of caution.

The other words of caution already emerged in your Lordships’ earlier deliberations. For a lot of young people, we are talking about a great deal of money. As much as I support my noble friend’s Amendment 107C, it would cost quite a lot of money. Also, one should not forget how many homes still do not have computers. That was perfectly clear from the earlier discussion. It again troubled me a little that—I have forgotten where I read it now, but it was apropos of what is developing in California—increasingly if you do not submit your work via computer it ceases to be acceptable. Are we absolutely certain that we want to be completely committed to that path? I am quite certain that, were our successors to read my speech a generation from now, they would say, “Well, they really had some old fogies in those days, didn’t they?”. By then, it will just be the norm but we should just be a little cautious about the path to that norm. Nothing of what I have said should be interpreted as meaning anything other than support for technology in schools. As I say, the world wide web is a fantastic treasure trove of valuable things. We certainly want our young people to use it. I simply add the caveat that there is a little more to this than just saying what a wonderful thing that is.