Exam Reform

Stuart Andrew Excerpts

Monday 17th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call finally Mr Stuart Andrew.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

Bottom of the class again!

Businesses in my constituency tell me time and again of their concerns about standards and their confidence in them. Members may find it hard to believe, but I was not the most academic pupil. I am therefore particularly interested in how best we can help such students. Guiseley school in my constituency has done excellent work on encouraging pupils into engineering and on working with local businesses to determine their needs. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that while he is introducing the changes he will put equal emphasis on creating opportunities for those less academic pupils and on encouraging partnerships such as the one that Guiseley school has established with local businesses?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes a characteristically acute point. It is absolutely right that we should ensure that all students, of whatever ability, can progress at the age 16 either to the world of work if it suits them, or to further and higher education. We need to work with business to ensure that that can happen.

May I express my sympathy for him in finding himself the final person to be called? As it says in the King James Bible, which, of course, has been distributed free to every school under this Government, the first shall be last and the last shall be first.