Robert Halfon
Main Page: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)Department Debates - View all Robert Halfon's debates with the Department for Education
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberWales acts almost as a controlled sample. Welsh children are as intelligent and motivated as children in England, but unfortunately in Wales there are no academies, no free schools, no league tables, no chief inspector such as Sir Michael Wilshaw and no determination to reform like this coalition Government. It is an object lesson in what happens when people abandon reform and succumb to the NUT orthodoxy, which I am afraid has suffocated aspiration for far too many children in the Principality.
University technical schools have huge potential to transform education through their emphasis on technical education, vocation and science and mathematics. Such a school will open in Harlow next year. Will my right hon. Friend expand the university technical school programme even further in order that young people may gain the vocational and technical expertise from which they will benefit?
University technical colleges are an excellent innovation and we want to make sure that there are more high-performing UTCs.