A-level Archaeology

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on securing this very important debate. I agree with him—I have never seen him as a dusty fossil, and I hope he does not see me as a Visigoth—about the importance of archaeology. It is an important discipline. It connects our present to our past and helps us understand what it means to be human. Anyone who has had the privilege to visit Pompeii or gaze in wonder at the treasures of Sutton Hoo—even an accountant—knows how far archaeology has enriched our cultural heritage and our understanding of the past. It would indeed be a tragedy if our young people were prevented from pursuing archaeology as a career in the future.

Securing a pipeline of students to study archaeology at university, as my hon. Friend did, is clearly very important, but it would be wrong to assume that only students who study the subject at A-level go on to degree-level study. As he knows, archaeology is a broad subject requiring critical analysis and research skills. It covers aspects of art, history, science, sociology and mathematics. Universities look for students who have a range of academic A-levels for entry to their archaeology courses.

For those reasons, and because the archaeology A-level is not widely available, universities do not require an A-level in the subject as a prerequisite for degree-level study. The number of students currently studying the subject at A-level is very low: there were just 340 entries in 2016, of which just 26 were from state-funded schools. Although the Council for British Archaeology has sought to encourage take-up of archaeology A-level, it also advises students who are contemplating a degree in archaeology to consider humanities A-levels, particularly history, geography or geology, and a science A-level where the course follows a science-based route. A knowledge of ancient languages can also be a useful route in many courses.

Those are the subjects that many universities are looking for. A greater focus on those facilitating subjects will ensure that a broad range of high-quality choices are available to A-level students and help them to choose the subject that will open the most doors to top university courses. We have worked with universities and exam boards to develop new A-levels that better prepare students for university study, including in each of those subjects.

In history A-level, students must study topics from a chronological range of at least 200 years, and might, for example, make use of archaeological sources to complete their compulsory, independently researched historical inquiry. In ancient history, students must develop a broad and extensive understanding of the ancient world. They must understand the nature and methods of the analysis and evaluation used to examine historical evidence. In geography and geology, students are now required to have extensive practical field work skills and the analytical knowledge to interpret their findings. Across a range of subjects, our reforms to A-levels will equip students with the knowledge that is essential for undergraduate study.

My hon. Friend raised concerns about AQA’s decision not to develop a new archaeology A-level for teaching from September 2017. I share his disappointment about its decision. I assure hon. Members that, contrary to some media reports, it was not a Government decision; it was taken by AQA itself. Our intention has always been that there should continue to be an A-level in archaeology, which is why we published subject content earlier this year. The way our exam system works is that individual exam boards decide which qualifications to develop once the Government have set the relevant framework. The Government can seek to persuade where necessary, but ultimately we cannot require the boards to develop particular qualifications. Their decisions on whether to do so depend on a range of factors, including the level of demand for a qualification and the extent to which they can offer a high-quality qualification and award grades to students fairly and consistently.

In this particular case, AQA initially intended to develop a new archaeology A-level, but, having submitted an initial specification to the regulator, Ofqual, for accreditation, it reviewed its position and concluded that it was not able to continue. It explained that the decision was due to concerns about challenges in ensuring that grades could be awarded in a safe and fair way, given the small number of students taking the subject and the wide range of options that the qualification would need to offer, which meant that ensuring comparability between students would be difficult.

[Tim Loughton]

The points that the Minister is making about archaeology apply also to statistics and history of art, which have been saved. I quoted the problems that AQA cited. Will the Minister acknowledge that there is a problem with AQA and that many people are moving away from it? It did not consult the archaeological community, which offered help on all those problems, so they could have been addressed. Because it is the only examining authority that still offers archaeology, the future of archaeology is now in peril.

[Mr Gibb]

I will come to the other A-levels that my hon. Friend refers to in a moment. AQA was also having difficulty recruiting suitable examiners for the qualification. Those challenges also apply to the existing A-level, which AQA offers. It tried for some time to find acceptable solutions, but unfortunately it has not been able to do so.

My hon. Friend asks what action the Government have taken to secure the future of the qualification. As soon as AQA notified us of its decision not to continue to develop A-level archaeology, in addition to, as my hon. Friend said, history of art, classical civilisation and statistics, we opened urgent discussions with the other exam boards to see whether they were willing to offer those subjects.

As my hon. Friend mentioned, discussions with the exam board Pearson were positive. On 1 December, in a written statement, I announced that Pearson is to develop A-levels in history of art and statistics. Classical civilisation has already been developed by another exam board, OCR, and the specification has been accredited, so the A-level is available for schools to teach from next September.

Unfortunately, no exam board has been willing to develop a new A-level in archaeology for teaching from 2017. Other boards felt unable to overcome the challenges identified by AQA in relation to that particular qualification. The A-level will therefore no longer be available for students starting courses from September 2017. The option for any exam board to develop an A-level in archaeology, however, will remain open. I reassure my hon. Friend that students studying archaeology A-level now, for examination in 2017 and 2018, are not affected by AQA’s decision. They may continue to study the subject and to take the qualification.

My hon. Friend also expressed the concern that, were students no longer able to study archaeology A-level, they would not have the opportunity to be introduced to archaeology as a discipline or be encouraged to take the subject further. I disagree with that analysis. Recent archaeological finds such as that of Richard III and the site at Must Farm, with the wide coverage they received, can only serve to engage and enthuse a new generation of potential archaeologists.

[Kirsten Oswald]

I am an historian, rather than an archaeologist, and I find myself in agreement with much of what the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said. Does the Minister agree that initiatives such as Dig It! 2017 and the inaugural Scottish archaeology and heritage festival are important in encouraging people to take an interest in archaeology and perhaps pursuing it as a further course of study?

[Mr Gibb]

I could not agree more with the hon. Lady. Such activities, when they receive wide coverage in the media, enthuse people generally to be interested in the subject and young people to consider archaeology as a career.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I apologise for arriving late to the debate. The Minister is showing that of course he is not a Visigoth, or a Goth of any sort. If any Minister can be relied on to protect an important subject, albeit a minority one, it is he. Therefore, and in the light of concerns expressed by people such as the staff, parents and students of Brockenhurst College in my constituency, where archaeology is taught extremely well, will he do his very best to redouble his efforts to persuade another board to take up that important subject?

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s kind comments. I suspect that his school, Brockenhurst, must therefore be a major contributor to the 26 A-level archaeology entries of 2016, and I congratulate it on its wide-ranging curriculum. I assure him that I left no stone unturned in my encouragement of other exam boards to adopt the subject, as with the languages with small cohorts—we were successful in persuading Pearson to take up those subjects, too.

It remains open for any board to produce a specification or an offer to take forward archaeology. We published the content because we want the subject to continue. We remain open to any exam boards wanting to set an archaeology A-level.

The changes we have made to the national curriculum will help to provide students with a greater understanding of the subjects that they study, feeding their enthusiasm for further study. In history, students are now required to have greater chronological understanding through the study of a wider range of historical periods, including more than one ancient civilisation. Enrichment activities, such as battlefield tours of the western front, in which 1,400 schools have participated to date, have enabled students to gain a deeper understanding of, and develop an interest in, significant historical periods.

Many universities will expect students to arrive already having had work or volunteering experience in museums or heritage sites, or having had practical experience in the field, where possible. Organisations such as the Council for British Archaeology, which runs almost 70 Young Archaeologists’ Club branches all over the UK, and industry magazines such as Current Archaeology offer a wealth of volunteering opportunities around the country.

I hope that I have been able to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham that the Government are fully committed—

[Tim Loughton]

The Minister and I have been in this place a long time. With great respect, if he says that he really has left no stone unturned in pursuit of an alternative, he would not make a good archaeologist. Can the Minister honestly say that he has gone to every examination board and made a case as strongly as has clearly been made for those other subjects rescued and saved by Pearson and that he really thinks nothing further can be done? If so, that will come as a huge blow to many people in the archaeology community in this country, and in years to come, his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government will find their plans for infrastructure projects seriously thwarted because he has not been able to produce trained archaeologists to do that vital job.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s words, but with respect the absence of an A-level does not prevent students from taking the subject at university. As I explained earlier, universities are looking for a range of A-level subjects for entry into the degree subject. That is where his focus should be: on encouraging more young people to study archaeology at university.

We did leave no stone unturned. The exam boards have been facing financial issues to do with the cost of running examinations, and both OCR and AQA have dropped a range of subjects. Thanks to the work of Department for Education officials, we have managed to persuade Pearson to take on a number of subjects despite their small cohorts and the fact that they will not be lucrative for the exam board to pursue. We have to be realistic.

As I said, even now if an exam board came forward with an offer to continue to develop a new archaeology A-level, the Department would be responsive—our intention was not that the subject should be dropped at A-level. I am as disappointed as my hon. Friend about the decision, the root of which, however, is the low numbers who have been taking the subject in recent years: down to 26 in state-funded schools and 340 across the piece, compared with more than 80,000 taking the single most popular A-level, maths. That is the degree of difference between archaeology and the more popular subjects.

I hope that I have explained that the Government share the concerns about AQA’s decision to withdraw from archaeology, but I am confident that our wider A-level reforms will equip students with the knowledge, skills and drive that they need to succeed, whatever their chosen field.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the future of A level archaeology.