GCSEs

Debate between Michael Gove and Peter Tapsell

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

May I, first, thank the hon. Gentleman for his witty and discursive response? Picking through the thickets of the comments he made, I think there was a broad welcome for the direction of travel we have set out today, and in our efforts to achieve consensus across the House—which has always been my aim—I am grateful for that.

May I also thank the hon. Gentleman for his acceptance that Ofqual is right to recognise the case for tiering in mathematics and science? He asked what my view is: my view has always been that we should, wherever possible, seek to remove any cap on aspiration, but we have listened to the experts, and they conclude in this case that tiering in maths and science is appropriate.

The hon. Gentleman also asked whether I believe, as some do, that we should move from not just an alphabetical to a numerical skill, but to scaled scores. The consultation provides an opportunity for those who believe that that is appropriate to make their case. Ofqual will make a judgment, and I will listen closely to what it says, but I think the need to change the way in which we award grades reflects the improvement in teaching, to which he alluded and which I entirely endorse.

The hon. Gentleman asked about technical and practical subjects. As I have confirmed before, technical and practical subjects are our highest priority in the Department for Education, which is why our reforms started with vocational qualifications and the publication of the Wolf report. I recently wrote to the hon. Gentleman to ask him if he still stood by his endorsement of the Wolf report. I still await a reply, but I know he is a busy man and I shall wait patiently to hear what he has to say.

The final thing I should say is that the hon. Gentleman asks for evidence for the case for change, and all I need do is commend to him the superb work done by the Select Committee in its report today, which points out that it was the introduction of changes by the last Government that fundamentally destabilised GCSEs. The hon. Gentleman himself has acknowledged that there was grade inflation on Labour’s watch. Let us be clear: yes, there were improvements, thanks to changes in our education system and a higher quality of teaching than ever before, but they were put in doubt by Ministers’ failure to ensure that the gold standard was adequately protected. We are, at last, protecting the standards on which all our children depend.

[Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

Instead of all this perpetual messing about with the education or examination system, would it not be better and simpler to return to the arrangements of my distant youth, in which in order to matriculate—that magic but now disappeared word—pupils had, as the Secretary of State knows very well, to get six credits at school certificate level, one of which had to be in mathematics and one in a foreign language? If they got those six credits, they went on to the higher certificate, and if they could get two distinctions in higher certificate they automatically got a state scholarship and a guaranteed free university education. Everybody understood it, it worked very well, so why do we not go back to it?

[Michael Gove]

First, may I say to my right hon. Friend that his youth is not that distant? He is still in the prime of life and the full vigour of all his abilities, and the system he has outlined, with credits for a broad range of subjects, is very similar to the English baccalaureate measure we have introduced. I did not know that, in introducing the English baccalaureate, I owed so much to my right hon. Friend, but I am happy to say that the virtues of the education system that existed in his youth have been reinstated. However, impressive as the education he enjoyed was, we also need to move with the times, and we are making a number of changes that better reflect the competitive nature of the 21st century.