Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will hold discussions with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs and the Department of Education in Northern Ireland on the potential merits of teaching agriculture in schools in Northern Ireland.

Education is devolved in Northern Ireland. Therefore, with a small number of exceptions, the department’s responsibilities relate to England only.

In England, the science national curriculum has space for agriculture to be taught in various places. For example, in the science Key Stage 1 and 2 topics of ‘Plants’, and ‘Living things and their habitats’, the biology Key Stage 3 topics of ‘Reproduction’ (in plants, including fertilisation) and ‘Relationships in an ecosystem’, and the Key Stage 4 topics of ‘Evolution, inheritance and variation’.

The department does not specify how schools should teach the curriculum, instead the national curriculum is a framework setting out the content of what the department expects schools in England to cover in each subject. The department believes that teachers should be able to use their own knowledge, professional expertise and understanding of their pupils to determine what is the most appropriate way for them to teach, the aim here being that they develop the right approach for the pupils in their particular school.

There is also an Agriculture, Land Management and Production T Level available to students in England. During the two-year programme, students will learn the core knowledge and skills that are needed for entry to a range of agriculture, land management and production occupations that include agricultural engineer, farmer, and tree surgeon, amongst a number of others.

Whilst education is a devolved matter, if it would be helpful, departmental officials would be content to meet their relevant counterparts in the Department of Education and Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland.