Technical and Further Education Bill
Debate between Rob Marris and Lucy PowellMonday 14th November 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Rob Marris
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. We need to think about technical education not just for the jobs of tomorrow, but for the jobs of the day after tomorrow. I am considerably older than her and my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) is a little older than me. When he entered the workforce, let alone when I did decades ago, many skilled jobs existed that do not exist now, such as in printing. Typesetting basically does not exist now. The world has changed and we have to equip the coming generation with not only the skills they need now, but the flexibility to adapt to what the workforce will look like, inasmuch as we can foretell that, in the next 30 years.
Lucy Powell
My hon. Friend makes a great point, although I do not want to get into the relative ages of Members here. But I look at my own children and think of the world of work ahead of them. We perhaps have an old-fashioned view of jobs such as engineering—engineers come in all shapes and sizes now, from digital engineers, sound engineers and construction engineers to the other types of engineer that we may know about. A key issue with the productivity gap we are facing in this country is the problem we have in applying technology and technological advances in small and medium-sized companies.
I want children from Manchester Central to have exactly those types of skills; they will therefore need literacy, numeracy and other academic qualifications but also education in digital engineering and many other technical areas. The combination of the two will be the route for so many, and for all jobs in the future—I firmly believe that. I look at my own son, who I think will want to be an engineer one day; he is highly technically able—he has great skills there—but is highly academic as well. I want him to have the option to do both right through till 18.
The Minister seems to recognise the issue here, as he has recently the launched degree-level apprenticeship scheme, which I welcome. However, the tiny numbers involved in that scheme can in no way make up for the tens of thousands already going through the university vocational pathway. I hope that he is not falling foul of the same ideological dogma that his colleague the Minister for Schools and a previous Secretary of State for Education perhaps fell for in trying to cut away entirely the university professional pathway into teaching. As the Minister will know, that has in no small part caused the recruitment crisis in the teaching profession; stripping away the university pathway to teaching has meant that teacher supply is now at crisis point. I know the Minister, and so know that he is a lot more pragmatic than some of his colleagues; I urge him to watch the situation carefully, and make sure that these well-trodden routes—both academic and vocational—into professions remain very much open for our young people.
I will touch on a couple of other points that have already been raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central raised resits. I concur with him entirely. We have to look again at the enforcing of required resits post 16. In many cases, less than 50% of children are passing those GCSEs the second time around. Many FE and post-16 institutions are struggling to get in the teaching skills needed to get children through GCSEs, as that is not something they are used to doing. The size and nature of the maths and English curricula make them increasingly difficult for some children to pass, and they are not necessary for the types of careers those children may want to go on to.
Like my hon. Friend, I entirely support the notion that children should do English and maths right through to the age of 18, but the Minister should clarify what will be required for resits. Will it be a level 4 or a level 5? I understand that it is a level 4 this year and next year, and will then go to level 5. We do not know what is happening; never mind parents and children, what are employers to make of that?
Finally, we should not have this debate without looking at the international comparisons for our funding levels for 16-to-19 education in this country. We compare really badly with our OECD competitors: we do well in terms of funding from five to 16, but then there is a significant dip in per-pupil funding. After that, funding goes through the roof for those who make it to higher education. We need a better and more consistent funding stream. The transformation we need in this area will be achieved only when we couple this sort of reform with funding.
Lucy Powell
My hon. Friend is making some good points. I did an A-level in not just maths, but further maths. [Hon. Members: “Ooh!”]