Tony Baldry
Main Page: Tony Baldry (Conservative - Banbury)Department Debates - View all Tony Baldry's debates with the Department for Education
(13 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Gibb
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her passion for the subject of maths education in this country. She is right to raise, and continue to raise, the issue. We will wait to see the outcome of the pilot of the twin maths GCSEs, and we will take into account its conclusions before considering what further reforms to maths GCSE we will make.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
6. What assessment he has made of the potential effect on student choices of the English baccalaureate.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
A survey of nearly 700 schools indicates that the English baccalaureate is having an immediate impact on subject choices. The numbers of students electing to study modern foreign languages, geography, history, physics, chemistry and biology are all up.
Tony Baldry
Is my right hon. Friend aware that secondary schools report a significant decline in the number of students opting to study religious studies? The reason given is that it is not included in the E-bac. This year, will he at least give thought to whether, in the humanities, there could be a choice of two out of three subjects—geography, history and religious studies? If religious studies is not included in the E-bac, it will be increasingly marginalised.
Michael Gove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. He is a very effective spokesman for the Church of England, and indeed for the place of faith in the nation’s life. However, the data suggest that the number of people taking religious studies at GCSE is rising. It was up 17.6% to 222,000 in the last set of figures that we have, overtaking history and geography.