Exam Reform

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Monday 17th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Secretary of State for sending me an advance copy of the statement. I appreciated having an hour to consider it, although considerably more advance notice was given to readers of The Mail on Sunday yesterday. It is deeply disappointing that, once again, the Secretary of State’s plans for GCSEs have been leaked to the press before being presented to Parliament. Head teachers to whom I have spoken to today are angry, and rightly so, that issues affecting the lives and opportunities of their pupils have been drawn up by Ministers in secret and then leaked to selected media outlets without proper parliamentary scrutiny or consultation with parents, teachers and pupils.

Last week, the Secretary of State appeared before the Education Select Committee. The Conservative Chairman of the Committee said that he was “flabbergasted” by the fact the Secretary of State was not aware of the ministerial code regarding leaks. So, let me ask the right hon. Gentleman: will he today condemn this further leak and reassure the House that he did not authorise it?

The plans that were leaked yesterday look somewhat different from those leaked in June. Can the Secretary of State explain those changes? Does he not really want to introduce plan A, which, according to The Daily Mail in June, would consist of O-levels and CSEs? Is that why he is delaying implementation until 2017? An unnamed source in The Mail on Sunday said that if

“pupils simply aren’t up to taking the new exam they may be forced to find a different option.”

Is that the reason for delaying the implementation of the new system until 2017? The only other plausible explanation is that the Secretary of State has already lost his first battle with his new Minister of State, the Minister for Schools. Is this a Trojan horse preparing the way for a two-tier system, or a cave-in to the Liberal Democrats?

Thousands of young people have been failed because the Secretary of State refuses to sort out the grading fiasco of this year’s GCSE English exams. Opposition Members have called for fairness. The right hon. Gentleman has tried to claim today that he will sort out the credibility of GCSEs in five years’ time, but why should anyone believe what he says today when he has failed so miserably to deal with the GCSE fiasco this year? I urge him to get a grip and to call an independent inquiry so that we can get to the bottom of this mess.

Labour is absolutely committed to rigour and raising standards, but this proposed new system does not reflect the needs of society and the modern economy. Moderate Conservatives, such as the former Education Secretary Lord Baker, have set out their views. Earlier today, Lord Baker said that the best system

“does involve coursework. It involves project work. It involves working in teams...We mustn’t lose that from the education system. Otherwise we’ll be denying a huge opportunity for many young people today”.

I agree with Lord Baker. Surely our system should value skills as well as knowledge. Does the Secretary of State really want to remove all coursework from these core subjects? Is he saying that rigorously assessed field work in geography will not count? Is he saying that an extended essay in English simply will not count? I think that approach is totally out of date, and it is typical of a Government who are totally out of touch with modern Britain.

Schools today do need to change. The education leaving age is rising to 18 and we need to face the challenges of the 21st century. I simply do not accept that we achieve that by returning to a system abolished as “out of date” in the 1980s. Instead, we need a system that promotes rigour and breadth, and prepares young people for the challenges of the modern economy. Nearly a year and a half on from Professor Wolf’s report, not enough is being done for vocational education. What does this new system do to ensure that all young people are studying English and maths until they are 18? How does it help the 50% who do not go on to higher education? How does it help the bottom 20% who are most at risk of becoming not in education, employment or training?

In the 1980s, when the GCSE was introduced, there was cross-party support and extensive consultation. If the right hon. Gentleman really wants a reform that will last, I suggest that he shelve these proposals and start a genuine consultation. Ahead of today’s announcements, what has he done to consult employers; what has he done to consult education experts; what has he done to consult head teachers?

Does the right hon. Gentleman envisage all these changes being implemented in all of what he has identified as the core subjects from 2017? Will he set out the cost implications of his proposed changes? He has just said, and I think I am right in quoting him, that some “will go on to secure English baccalaureate certificates at the age of 17 or 18.” Surely the new standard should be one that any well-educated 16-year-old can achieve. Opposition Members will not support changes that work only for some children. We need system-wide improvement and change that enjoys genuine support from the world of education and from employers. The truth is that these plans do not meet those challenges: they are out of date, out of touch and have been drawn up in secret. Above all, they have been launched amidst a fiasco surrounding GCSE English. The Secretary of State has come before us today with a plan for 2017, but the reality is that he has failed to produce a plan to sort out the fiasco of 2012.

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for West Derby—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), yes. I am grateful for his questions.

The hon. Gentleman’s first point was about the secrecy with which these plans have been drawn up. He then went on to complain that they had been shared with the second-best selling tabloid and the second-best selling Sunday tabloid in our country, as a result of which millions have had an opportunity to comment on them. Which is it? It cannot be the case simultaneously that the plans were drawn up in secret, and that they stimulated a widespread debate.

It would have been helpful if the hon. Gentleman had engaged with what we had announced today rather than engaging with what he had hoped we would announce, for his own reasons. He asked us what we would do in order to deal with the students—the weakest 20%—who were currently unable to secure good GCSE passes. We had explicitly said that we expected more students to be able to secure good GCSE passes, and that for those who did not, we would provide enhanced support and an assessment giving an all-round view of how they had done, enabling them then to take examinations at the age of 17 or 18.

The hon. Gentleman asked us what we would do for students who wanted to take examinations in English and maths at 17 or 18. We had explicitly said that students who could not secure a good pass in those subjects at that age would be offered the new certificates so that they could make the progress that they wanted to make later. He asked us what we were doing to deal with the problems that we had inherited with GCSEs which were dysfunctional this year and which had caused students suffering. We are explicitly addressing the problems with modules and controlled assessment that were introduced by the previous Government, and making sure that as a result of those changes, students will never again face the difficulties that they face this year as a result of dysfunctional examination design.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the cost of these qualifications. Getting rid of modules, coursework and controlled assessment means that less time will be spent on sitting and resitting examinations, and more time can be spent on teaching and learning. Schools will save money, and they will be able to reinvest that money in high-quality teaching, high-quality learning, and the stretching of every child.

The hon. Gentleman was faced with his own test today. He was faced with an opportunity to embrace the reform that has been outlined on this side of the House, and he flunked that test by making clear that he would engage in blind and partisan opposition. He asked us to build cross-party support for these proposals, but the best minds in the Labour party have already endorsed them. Conor Ryan, former special adviser to the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) and to the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has said that there are good ideas in what the coalition Government are doing. He has said that it is right to end competition between exam boards—the hon. Gentleman did not address that issue. He, Conor Ryan has also said that it is right to have more rigour at the top, and the hon. Gentleman did not address that argument either. Conor Ryan has also said:

“More rigorous GCSEs, particularly for top achievers, do not have to place a cap on ambition for many other students.”

That is another argument that the hon. Gentleman failed to address.

There will be an opportunity for the hon. Gentleman to resit this test. There will be an opportunity during our consultation for him to rethink his blind opposition to this progress. I hope that we can count on him to reflect on the decision that he made today, and decide that he will join this side of the House in delivering better, more rigorous and more inclusive qualifications.