Adult Literacy and Numeracy

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)]

I echo the words of the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) in saying this has been an excellent debate and congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) and the other supporters of the motion. Not only has the debate been informed and valuable—there is now no need for me to read out many of the statistics I have to hand to set the context as they have already been given—but it is timely given Tuesday’s OECD report. It was a shocking report and it will reverberate down through the education debate in Britain for many years. I hope it will persuade many who are sceptical or resistant to the reforms being put in place to come onside and support more rigour, and support stronger maths and English within schools.

The OECD demonstrated that over 8 million people in our country lack functional numeracy and over 5 million lack functional literacy. While Britain is strong at the top of the skills range, on these measures we have gone from being about the third best in the world to about the third worst in two generations between 55-year-olds and 16-year-olds.

[Toby Perkins]

That statistic was given earlier today by the Leader of the House. The OECD report said we were third bottom of 24 countries, not third-bottom in the world. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not want to mislead people. He is out there fighting for British jobs, and he would not want to tell people that the situation is worse than it is.

[Matthew Hancock]

Absolutely. We are third from the bottom in the developed world, as surveyed by the OECD. We are 22nd out of 24 in numeracy and 21st out of 24 in literacy and however we want to cut those figures, they are bad.

I pay tribute to all those who have worked so hard in this area, especially the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education and its chief executive, David Hughes, whose lifelong work has been spent trying to drive up adult literacy and numeracy. So much of the solution is about high expectations and standards and, as a country, we have tried over the last decade and more to find one merely by throwing money at the problem. It is clear that while money is part of the answer, it is only part of the answer, and a lot of it is to do with making sure we get the right teaching to the right expectations with the right level of rigour.

This problem must be solved first in our primary and secondary schools. We can then try to solve it, for those who do not succeed at school, in colleges and further education, and then, of course, for those for whom that still does not work, throughout life. This problem must be tackled at all levels, therefore.

Let me set out some of the actions the Government have taken. The focus on numeracy and literacy in primary schools is crucial, but, as well as time spent on these issues, we have to make sure we have high expectations of children at a young age. We need to make sure that grammar is taught properly and that mental arithmetic matters—that we do not rely only on calculators, and instead the understanding of basic maths is inculcated deep in pupils. Then we must reform GCSEs and have a more stretching curriculum for teenagers, and then, for those who do not get the crucial C or above in GCSE, make sure they continue to learn English and maths. The introduction of the tech level and the tech bac will drive that among those who do not go down the A-level route. As announced this week, we are introducing a core maths paper that is somewhere between a GCSE and an A-level so that for the 40% who get a C at GCSE but do not continue to study maths there is a qualification that is not as big as a full A-level but allows them to continue studying maths.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I wonder whether the Minister is going to touch on teaching methods in primary schools and some of the points I made. Some of his ministerial colleagues and former ministerial colleagues were keen on examining teaching methods, particularly in primary schools, to make sure that we have got that right. If we do not get that right, we will not make much progress.

[Matthew Hancock]

I could not agree more with almost everything the hon. Gentleman has said in this debate. He made a remarkable contribution and I was coming on to respond in more detail to it. I entirely agree that getting teaching methods that work matters, but what also matters is that the teachers believe in the methods they are using—that is what the evidence shows—and move away from what he called an “utterly misguided” philosophy of learning. I like him more the more I listen; thank goodness there are people on both sides of this House who think that it is utterly misguided not to stretch pupils and not to have rigorous and evidence-based methods of teaching.

We are also tackling levels of illiteracy among benefit claimants, introducing new conditionality to require the learning of English and looking towards introducing a concept for younger benefit claimants of “earn or learn”, so that we incentivise people into training rather than pay them so long as they do not train for more than 16 hours a week.

Apprenticeships and traineeships are, of course, close to my heart, and they increasingly require English and maths. Some people say, “If you go into an apprenticeship, you should not have to do English and maths because apprenticeships are for people who are going into jobs that do not require those things.” But there is almost no job that does not require a basic standard of English and maths. In this modern workplace—by that I mean around the country, not necessarily in this building, as it is not the most modern of workplaces—the level of English and maths required is vital.

[Mr Binley]

The Minister knows I am keen on using community assets in a much more imaginative way. How might we do that in this context, particularly with libraries, which are very underfunded, as the shadow Minister stated? How might we improve that situation and have a more involved local community push in this respect?

[Matthew Hancock]

I was coming on to deal with the role of community facilities, where I understand my hon. Friend is driving forward the argument. Academies and free schools are one way to help, because giving more autonomy to head teachers allows them to use their buildings as they wish. On libraries, managing community facilities more imaginatively is important, and a lot of that is down to the individual managers of individual institutions. I strongly support what he said about that.

Of course, good teaching of English and maths requires good English and maths teachers, so we are today announcing new Department for Education support for the national centre for excellence in the teaching of maths to develop a maths enhancement programme to upskill existing teachers of maths in further education. The programme will be delivered by professional development leads associated with the centres for excellence in teaching and training. We need more maths teachers, and we are on track this year to have trained more than 600 FE teachers. So we are constantly working to drive up the number of English and maths teachers, as well as the English and maths taught.

Above all, this comes down to school reform, because without excellent schools we will not solve this generational problem. I hope that the OECD report will have helped to build a stronger consensus behind our school reforms, which remain opposed—inexplicably—by some people who otherwise describe themselves as “progressive”. As the shadow Minister said, the OECD showed the problem of the link between deprivation and education being greater in England and Northern Ireland than elsewhere, but the problem is that poor education entrenches deprivation. Education needs to be the foundation of social mobility, and in the UK that is not happening nearly enough now. The hon. Gentleman did not mention the collapse that the OECD study showed in the results among 16 to 24-year-olds, where this country has gone from the top to very near the bottom. We are driving forward on making sure that we reform our schools system, bring in free schools, give head teachers powers under academisation and improve the standards of teachers. However, we have opposition, and I do not understand why people who otherwise call themselves “progressive” say that they are opposed to these things. I wonder whether we are going to get a change of heart from the Opposition Front-Bench team on so-called “unqualified teachers”, not least because the new shadow Education Secretary once was an unqualified teacher.

[Toby Perkins]

The report makes it absolutely clear that England and Northern Ireland need to address social inequalities, particularly among young adults—that was a key part of its recommendations, which is why I focused strongly on it. Of course I understand that educational inequalities can lead to social inequalities, but this report is saying that social inequalities will lead to educational inequalities.

[Matthew Hancock]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will want to welcome the fact that inequality in Great Britain is at its lowest level since 1986 as a result of the efforts of this coalition Government.

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) made a passionate speech. I hope that this debate will not become party political because there is no need for it to be; if we all listen to what the OECD said and drive rigour and standards through schools, it does not have to be party political. He also mentioned mentors. We are reforming careers advice to make it about inspiration and mentoring, and to help brokerage between businesses and schools. If anyone had him as a mentor, I have no doubt that they would absolutely value that. He made many extremely important points, crucially recognising that this has not gone well for a long time and needs to be turned around. He said that we have failed to deliver the most basic of education over a number of years, and that is exactly what we are trying to turn around.

[Mr Sheerman]

May I remind the Minister that I was also trying to get over the fact that we have been very successful for one section of our population, really expanding things, at the same time as we have been totally unsuccessful with, and almost wilfully neglectful of, the lower achievers?

[Matthew Hancock]

Absolutely; I believe somebody once called them the forgotten 50% and they were indeed forgotten. That is no longer the case. Educational reform has to be about making sure that everybody can reach their potential. I was going to say that an intellectual error has been made in the past and we have to put it right. I am talking about the argument that because someone has a low level of education or they are undertaking a low-level qualification—level 1 or level 2—what they are doing does not have to be rigorous, stretching and high-quality. At every level of education we have to make sure that we get as much improvement in pupils as possible. We are trying to put right that mistaking of a low level with the “need” for low-quality and sloppiness.

It is fantastic and an honour to be answering the first speech that my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) has made from the Back Benches for several years. He rightly argued that this is about the fulfilment of lives as well as about jobs and the economy. He, like my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), mentioned the importance of tackling the issues faced by those who have dyslexia, and I could not agree more. It comes back to the previous point: just because someone has dyslexia does not mean they cannot have decent English and maths. It makes those things harder to teach and we need different techniques for teaching them, but we should not have low expectations just because people find something difficult. He also mentioned the importance of the context for learning and, as the Minister responsible for apprenticeships, I often find that people who failed in English and maths in a formal setting thrive in them as soon as they encounter them in a job. That is because suddenly it matters whether or not they can do their maths. If they can, they can do their job.

The hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) mentioned Unionlearn, and I am grateful to her for highlighting it. The Government support it and fund it—it would be great to get some acknowledgement for that. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) talked, as he often does, about financial literacy, and it was great to be able to put that into the curriculum. I hope that it works and that we do not think that the job is done just because we have put it in the curriculum. We have to keep an eye on it and make sure that it really works. He also talked a lot about school reform, which is the heart of the long-term solution to the problem.

My admiration grows for the hon. Member for Luton North. I did not know that he was an economic historian until now.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

An economist, not an economic historian. I am sorry.

[Matthew Hancock]

It was going so well. Never mind, I will forgive the hon. Gentleman. I am a former economist, but I have repented my sins.

My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) talked about employer concern and the problems highlighted by the CBI, the FSB, the BCC and the EEF. I want to put the Government’s position on the record on one point. He said that there is sometimes an impression that people are not mathematically minded and went on to say that they should still be able to learn maths. The concept of people who are not mathematically minded does not exist anywhere else in the world. It is a peculiarly British cultural concept and we must eradicate it, because everybody can do maths. It is just a matter of how they are taught. I absolutely hope we can turn that around, although changing cultural perceptions takes time.

Many Members talked about probation and prisons and we are working hard to drive up English and maths in prisons. We are paying by results and outcomes rather than simply the number of classes taught to try to improve that.

The challenge is historic and is set next to an historic publication. The shock from the OECD’s report has brought up an objective fact, which needs to be answered. I hope that it has finally settled the debate between those who say that a constant increase in qualifications passed represents a constant increase in quality of education. Increasing numbers of qualifications matters only when those qualifications are of constant value and we know that they have not been. The evidence shows that we have a serious problem that has got worse in the past 10 years.

We have learned that, above all else, alone in the developed world, our 16 to 24-year olds are not better educated in English and maths than those aged 55 to 65. Yes, money is important in solving the problem, but money alone is not the answer. Expectations, rigour and challenge matter too. The solution will not happen quickly. It takes years to turn around schools, but then it takes years for those turned around schools to educate the next generation. It is a vital task and I hope that all parties and Members of this House can get behind it so that everybody in this country can reach their potential.