Education Bill

Lord Sutherland of Houndwood Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Lingfield]

My Lords, I rather support the amendment because, as my noble friend Lady Perry said, a large number of schools, not just in the state sector but in the independent sector, are considering innovation as regards examinations. A number of very grand independent schools can consider these and not worry about any point scoring that comes out in league tables throughout the country. However, many other schools cannot afford to take these initiatives in a way that they might wish to. This is a good idea. I am not certain what the minutiae of it could be, but I very much hope that the Minister will take away the point made by my noble friends Lord Lucas and Lady Perry and look at it carefully.

While we are on the subject of Ofqual, noble Lords will remember that huge difficulties were mentioned in the newspapers during the previous round of examinations which did not show some of the awarding bodies in a very good light. I understand that there were nine incidents overall. I am sure that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that Ofqual can impose two types of sanction on the awarding bodies—first, a rap over the knuckles, which may not be very effective; and, secondly, the nuclear option of striking them off the list, which may not be in any way suitable and could cause great difficulties. Therefore, will the Minister and his colleagues consider a third option that could involve a series of fines for various circumstances that would add seriously to the sanctions available to Ofqual? Perhaps some of the difficulties that arose last year and caused distress to pupils and schools will not arise in the future?

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, I support the remarks that have just been made. Ofqual is in its early stages; it has set off on what is essentially a new path with new powers given on the Floor of this House, among other places. It is important that Ofqual has the powers and flexibility to maintain a reputation that will be essential if standards are to be properly observed in this country.

[Lord Boswell of Aynho]

My Lords, very briefly, this is my maiden contribution to this consideration in Committee of the Bill. I am a former Minister, and perhaps I should formally declare that I am a fellow of City and Guilds, although I have no operational responsibilities there.

I also warm to this idea. There was a time—if noble Lords wish to look it up; as I recall, it was Section 24 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992—when it was in the hands of the Minister of the day, who happened to be me, to exercise a kind of nuclear option whereby everything that was not authorised could be extinguished. That is an extreme version and one that every year we fought off enacting. I am very glad that we did. The world is a much more protean place now. I happen recently to have had correspondence with the Minister’s colleagues in the department about some very sensible input by the French inspector general of education, which I had not expected to be made in quite the tones that it was. It certainly was not insular.

We should allow Ofqual, as a new institution, the maximum slack to pursue its interests and duties. There are concerns about the quality of the examination system, although I suspect—given the sheer industrial volume of what is processed through the system, including the number of entries and scripts—it is perhaps not surprising that mistakes are made from time to time. However, at least let us not ask Ofqual to confine its activities to a narrow schedule in presenting the achievements of schools and the options that it can take. My message to the Minister would be to keep as much flexibility as we reasonably can.

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[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I am also one of those who think it pretty important that the curriculum is seen to be independent of Government. I am thinking about the future of what is planned. It is said that the QCDA may well not have been the most successful of bodies, but it did a pretty adequate job nevertheless. We do not have any clear idea where it is going, but one is told and one hopes that some of the bodies will be transferred to other organisations. If the advisory body that will be giving advice to the Government as and when required—this is important—it should be much more available on an independent basis to the emerging range of academies. There will be a need for good independent advice. I am inclined to support all these amendments, but will bear in mind what the Minister says in his reply about plans that will be seen to be more satisfactory to the Committee.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, I am happy to reassure my noble friend Lord Peston that philosophy occasionally plays a part in schools. I could take him to a couple of primary schools not six miles from here where it is argued by the head teachers that it improves behaviour in the playground. However, that is a separate matter.

On the amendments before us, it is important that we get this matter right one way or the other. I do not accept the connection to 1935, and nor does my noble colleague who proposed the amendment, but if you look at the argument and the tussle going on in Scotland at the moment over the history curriculum then you will pause and have thoughts about where decisions are finally made and on what basis. There is an issue here.

Two things are clear. First, in the end the Secretary of State has the responsibility to make the decision. That is the current decision and I rest content with that. Secondly, though, the Secretary of State, however clever, will need advice. That advice is of great interest to Members here and elsewhere. I would not propose going backwards and effectively reconstituting the QCDA. We have been there and done that, and there were problems; let us think new thoughts. My own inclination as a time-served academic is that when the Secretary of State publishes changes to the curriculum, he or she publishes, as a good academic would, a series of footnotes and references to the advice sought, who gave it, to whom it was given, what the advice was and whether it was well evidenced. That would give me much greater confidence than setting up a board.

There is no final expert opinion on what should be in a curriculum. The risk for the QCDA and any successor would be an assumption that there was a right answer. There is not; there are nuances and leanings in different directions. In the end, that should be a matter for the Secretary of State to take a view on, but we need to know what the advice was so that we can protest if necessary.

[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, I agree that philosophy is very helpful to young children. It helps them understand who they are and how they fit into this great big world. I hope the Minister can assure us that when we take advice about what should be in the curriculum, there will be representation of our diverse society in the approach that it takes. I believe that will go a long way to helping people from diverse backgrounds understand who they are and how they fit into our society.

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[Baroness Whitaker]

I support Amendment 98, in particular new subsections (6) and (7). We live in a nation of many cultures and several faiths. I declare an interest as a vice president of the British Humanist Association. These many cultures and several faiths are a huge asset for our culture, understanding of the world, trade, regeneration and enterprise—lots of things—but to realise these assets we need to be at ease with our fellow citizens, to understand their culture and their faith, especially when we do not share it. If we do not have this opportunity in school, we risk losing out culturally and economically but, almost more importantly, we risk increasing bigotry and prejudice.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

I have been mentioned. I have not resiled from the position I took on Monday and I continue to have concerns about the overcrowding of the required curriculum, as I am bound to say in talking about these amendments. None the less, I accept that PSHE is a very important part of education for many young people and that it will continue in schools, and rightly so. However, it seems that we are trying to impose the shape of education through legislation, whereas the shape of education is a matter of balance and balance is never formulated in a set of clauses in a Bill. The real issue is how well this is done and whether a balance of attitude is preserved. This applies to PSHE and to the teaching of religion and about other faiths in faith schools.

I have reservations. First, I do not think that we do PSHE very well. We have already had mention of the fact that teenage pregnancy numbers may be falling but we are still the worst in Europe. STD admissions are rising among young people. Whatever we are doing, and we have done a lot more of it the last two years, we are not doing it well. I am not sure that legislating in this way will change that. Secondly, it is very much a delicate balance. Thirdly, one of the ways in which you try to deal with delicate balances in schools is by having an adequate inspection system. I am not saying that the one we have is good enough yet, but if there were an adequate inspection system one of the things it would ask is, “Is the balance of sex education in this school, in this community and in this culture right?”. That is what you would expect from a good school inspection. It looks as if, in this Bill, many schools will be exempted from that kind of inspection and that is where I see the gap. I would be reassured about all this being written down in an Act if there were some way of ensuring that it were well done in schools. It is a delicate issue. How this is taught varies from one school and one community to the next and that can only be properly assessed by trained and qualified inspectors.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I entirely agree what with the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, just said. I would have said it myself if I could have said it as well. It is crucial that children learn these things at school. It is daffy to prescribe that individual items should be learnt. One should look at the outcome. The only sensible way of looking at the outcome is inspection. This Bill is setting out to destroy that aspect of inspection rather than building on it, so I am entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, in my concerns. The only other thing I would like to say is that this is a great subject to be debating in this room, under a picture of a PSHE lesson.