Education and Skills Bill

My Lords, I very much welcome the basic objectives of the Bill and many of the details, and I commend the Government for introducing it. In my brief comments, I shall concentrate on one major aspect of the Bill which worries me—Part 1. I have no difficulty with increasing compulsory education until the age of 17 or 18. As the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said, the case for it is overwhelming. It is moral, social and, as the Minister pointed out in his opening remarks, those between the ages of 16 and 18 in education are less likely to get involved in crime, less likely to go to prison, less likely to get pregnant or to engage in anti-social behaviour. I am convinced that it needs to be done, but how do we go about doing it? I have no difficulty with compulsion; it is absolutely necessary. If one can show that individuals have certain responsibilities that they refuse to discharge, or if there are certain matters of national interest, compulsion in those cases has to be ensured. My difficulty is whether the balance between compulsion and incentive is right. I looked at the debate that took place when the age for compulsory education was increased to 16, and I heard echoes of that debate this afternoon. It had the same arguments—no compulsion is to be used, and why not make it voluntary—but we increasingly realised that compulsion was necessary. However, the two cases cannot be compared because until the age of 16 a child is the responsibility of his parents and a minimum educational requirement is a must. After the age of 16, the game begins to change. Individuals become responsible for their own behaviour. We therefore need to ask whether their autonomy is being respected and whether they are being persuaded to engage in education. I have no difficulty with the argument about compulsion; my difficulty is with the balance between compulsion and persuasion or compulsion and incentives. My suspicion is that the Bill is a little too punitive and tends to rely a little too heavily on compulsion. That causes four difficulties. First, how can we guarantee that pupils between the ages of 16 and 18 will stay on? All the polls that the Government have referred to show that young people are not terribly happy about this. How are we going to compel them and how much punitive action can we take to make sure that they stay on? Secondly, if they do stay on, what guarantee is there that they will acquire the level 3 qualifications that we want them to acquire? They may get two or more NVQs, or something like that, but they have little market value. Thirdly, if they are alienated from the system, they could be a disruptive presence in the school and prevent others acquiring the desired qualifications. Fourthly, as many noble Lords have pointed out, young people tend to find work in small firms, which often find it economically unviable to give time off for training and cover absences. We can put pressure on them, as the noble Lord, Lord Layard, said, we can ask them to take the responsibility, but beyond a certain point, compulsion has its limits. If employers are not prepared to hire people aged between 16 and 18, what do we do? I suspect that even if the Bill were to be implemented and enforced in its current form, it will not achieve its objectives. The important thing is to look for a more nuanced strategy with a better balance between incentives and compulsion. I shall suggest three or four ideas that the Government might wish to explore. If we were to ask why people do not stay on beyond the age of 16, we would find that there are four major reasons: they are bored with formal education; they find the curriculum irrelevant to their needs and interests; they need to earn money to help maintain their families or themselves; or they come from families where education beyond 16, or even 14, is not highly valued. If we are concerned to increase the school leaving age, we need to address these underlying factors. My idea for a nuanced strategy is to show how we might be able to address these underlying causes of pupils not staying on beyond the age of 16. I shall suggest four ways. First, we must find ways of making education attractive. A flexible curriculum might be one way, and a less intimidating formal environment might be another. Better advice and guidance from teachers and personal mentoring might be helpful, and if people do not stay on after the age of 16, we need to make sure that education is as personalised as possible, taking into account the needs and interests of those whom we want to persuade to stay on. Secondly, alienation from education generally starts pretty early, long before pupils reach the age of 16. We need to find ways of making formal education until the age of 16 more attractive. That requires planting some love of learning—not that one is likely to be really successful, but one hopes—and, more importantly, giving them some competence so that they do not find education a drag and a source of low self-esteem. Thirdly, since formal schooling does not suit everyone, we may need to involve youth and community-based projects, which are often less threatening or intimidating and tend to be better prepared to provide quality learning. We might also involve other agencies that have a better rapport with the young and can motivate them. For example, the trade unions might be able to play an important part. Fourthly, but no less importantly, we need to look at the EMA. The maximum amount offered is £30, depending on the circumstances of the parents. That may not be enough to compensate those with adverse family circumstances. It is worth noting that the proportion of 16 and 17 year-olds who are not in education or training but who have jobs has been going down steadily since 2001. That statistic shows the importance of the financial incentive. This is particularly relevant in relation to ethic minorities, about whom virtually nothing has been said so far. It is unfortunate that we do not have reliable statistics on which ethnic minorities tend to participate in education beyond the age of 16 and why others do not. The little research that I have done shows that the reasons why many of them do not stay on beyond the age of 16 are the fear of unemployment and a lack of resources. That was not so until the mid-1990s. Until then the statistics always showed that ethnic minorities, unlike the indigenous community, tended to stay on in school, not only until the age of 16 but even beyond. For the past 10 or 12 years, the trend has reversed, and we might need to ask why. We might also explore the possibility of encouraging colleges to create and award their own qualifications in the same way that the universities do. They can create specialist products to suit employers with whom they can be encouraged to work closely. The Bill points in that direction, but we need to go a little further. If we are going to go in that direction, colleges need to be better funded. It might not be a bad idea for colleges, in order to produce specialised products, to work closely with trade unions, which generally have a better rapport with, and understanding of the requirements of, 17 and 18 year-olds in jobs.