Improving Education Standards

Debate between Theresa Villiers and Emma Hardy

Thursday 29th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point. One of the impressive aspects of the improvements in education over recent years is that so many of them have been seen in areas with high levels of deprivation. The improvement of schools in London is an important illustration of that, with schools supporting children from diverse backgrounds and, in some instances, very disadvantaged backgrounds. They have been some of the really striking success stories of recent years. As he says, it is absolutely possible, indeed essential, to ensure that improvements in schools and school standards deliver for those communities.

[Emma Hardy]

I am sure the right hon. Lady is just about to recognise the work that was done under the previous Labour Government called the London challenge, which encouraged and supported heads working together. I agree that that led to a fundamental change and improvement in education outcomes for pupils living in London.

[Theresa Villiers]

There were aspects of the Labour Government’s approach to education with which I did not agree, but I agree that they did have some real success. That was at its most obvious in many of the London boroughs, so the hon. Lady makes a fair point about that project.

One of the main reasons for the improvement in school standards in recent years is the emphasis that the Conservatives have put on ensuring that children are taught to read using the most effective methods. Thanks to the hard work of teachers and the Government’s drive for phonics, the results of the phonics screening test introduced in 2012 have improved significantly.

As we have already heard in today’s debate, efforts have been made to tackle grade inflation. In the Blair-Brown years, employer and university confidence in the school exam system was eroded. The reforms made by this Government and their coalition predecessor to make GCSEs and A-levels tougher and more rigorous are bearing fruit. The exams are now more stretching for students, ensuring that they have a better grounding for further study or indeed for life in the workplace. I for one particularly welcome the increased focus on good spelling and grammar, which I think are important life skills for any young person.

The striking improvement in schools over recent years means that state schools are now beginning to catch up with the independent sector, as acknowledged in evidence cited by Professor Alan Smithers, director of the centre for education and employment research at the University of Buckingham. Even more importantly, the attainment gap between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and other students has closed by 10% since 2010.

It is important to highlight that an effective way of improving standards in schools is to ensure that we have the best possible early years education. Delivering high-quality early years and pre-school education can play an incredibly positive role in improving educational standards in schools, but also in delivering social mobility and opportunity. Research demonstrates that if children fall behind in the early years, many simply never catch up. Their life chances can be permanently blighted by being held back at that early stage.

I would always urge Ministers to have a strong focus on helping parents access the highest-quality affordable early years education and support. The reformed early years foundation stage profile will have an important role to play in that. I hope the Minister will update the House on progress on that initiative when she sums up the debate.

[Emma Hardy]

I wholeheartedly agree with the right hon. Lady about the importance of early years education, and I hope she will agree with me about the importance of maintained nursery provision and maintained nursery schools. Will she urge the Government to make sure that any reforms they introduce do not have a negative effect on what is proven to be a very successful way of helping our youngest children?

[Theresa Villiers]

The hon. Lady anticipates something I am going to come on to—I am going to talk about the maintained nursery sector.

Across the board in early years provision, we need to ensure that we provide the best training and professional development opportunities for people working in the sector, to increase their ability to support children’s early speech and language development. While considering the important issue of early years, I would like to look at the issues involving the maintained nursery school sector. There are a number of maintained nursery schools in my constituency, which are grouped into the Barnet Early Years Alliance. As the Minister and others in the Chamber will know, when the early years national funding formula was introduced in 2017, the Government agreed to maintain level funding for maintained nursery schools up until 2019-20, through a block of supplementary funding of about £59 million a year. However, there is currently no certainty after 2020, which leaves the maintained nursery schools sector unable to plan and budget for the future, so its status is uncertain.

As the hon. Lady has just done, I emphasise that many maintained nursery schools deliver excellent education, including those in BEYA in my constituency. It is important for the Government to ensure that they find a new sustainable role for maintained sector nursery schools as centres of excellence and training. I know that work has been undertaken on this, but we are getting to the stage when decisions need to be made about the future status of these schools. I urge the Minister to consider that, as well, in responding to my remarks. We are getting perilously close to the point at which funding for the maintained sector is due to come to an end, and we need to ensure that we have a settled future for these schools.

I turn to vocational education and training. For many decades, successive Governments have tried to improve technical education, but I think we would all acknowledge that they have had pretty mixed results. For example, the Wolf review concluded that when Labour was in power at least 350,000 young people were let down by courses that had

“little or no labour market value.”

I think we would all agree that delivering excellence in technical education is crucial for any modern economy to be successful, but somehow this prize seems to have eluded us in this country.

I very much hope that the T-levels programme, which this Government are pioneering, will mark a turning point. The investment in these new qualifications runs to hundreds of millions, and I welcome that. I urge the Government to do everything they can to ensure that these new qualifications become high-quality, credible and successful alternatives to the traditional academic path in education. One of the most important tasks for our education system as a whole is to ensure that we provide the opportunity for young people to take on technical education and thrive as a result.

[Theresa Villiers]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend that the further education sector is crucial, as we have already heard in the debate, and we need to make sure that it has the resources it needs. I am sure the Minister will have taken on board the points that he has made, and I hope she will respond to them in her concluding remarks.

My hon. Friend is right that further education colleges, working alongside employers, are playing an important role in the delivery of apprenticeships, which is another reason why it is an important sector. I will close by saying a few words about apprenticeships, because they are so crucial in giving young people the skills they need to get on in life. About 3 million have been delivered since 2010, and we need to keep up that record in the future.

There is general acknowledgment that the apprenticeship levy has had some teething problems, and I very much hope that the changes announced in the recent Budget will help to remedy them and give more young people the chance to participate in an apprenticeship. However, apprenticeships have been a real success story. They have become longer and better, and they include more off-the-job training to complement the learning that takes place in the workplace; hence the role for the further education sector that my hon. Friend has just highlighted.

[Emma Hardy]

Again, I agree with the right hon. Lady about the importance of apprenticeships. The Education Committee recently did an inquiry into apprenticeships, and one thing that came out of that—I would like to know her thoughts on it—was the need for greater regulation to ensure that young apprentices are not exploited or paid less than the apprenticeship minimum wage. Does she agree that although many fantastic employers are doing the right thing, there should be greater regulation to ensure that everyone who does an apprenticeship has a high-quality learning experience?

[Theresa Villiers]

I agree that a successful apprenticeships programme is not just about quantity; it is also about quality, and we must ensure consistency in the training that comes with an apprenticeship. I would be delighted to read the report to which the hon. Lady refers. There probably is a case for stricter regulation in that area—the Minister will also have heard that point—and we must ensure good quality control so that young people thrive as a result of apprenticeships and are not in any sense exploited.

[Theresa Villiers]

I certainly agree with that last point, and I welcome the apprenticeship in cyber-security to which my hon. Friend referred. I am a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, and we recently published a report that highlighted big skills gaps in cyber-security, so I am pleased that Gloucestershire College is helping to fill those gaps.

My hon. Friend emphasises the role of the further education sector, but we must also recognise the great potential for the higher education and university sectors regarding apprenticeships. Middlesex University, near my constituency, is pioneering degree apprenticeships that combine the academic and technical in an innovative new form that could appeal to many young people. Apprenticeships deliver the combined benefit of broadening opportunities for young people while also improving the skills base for our economy to make us more competitive in the global race for jobs and investment.

[Emma Hardy]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Theresa Villiers]

I think I will conclude my remarks now.

A successful apprenticeships programme is vital for a thriving economy. If we are to be serious about social mobility and social justice, as I believe Members in all parts of the House are, and about ensuring that everyone can go as far as their talents and hard work will take them, and if we want to make this a country that works for everyone, the subject that we are debating is crucial. To give children in this country the best start in life we need excellent schools, great teaching, rigorous exams and the best technical education we can offer. I will be working to ensure that we achieve all those goals, and I urge the Government to do the same.