Education and Skills Bill

I should like to make a brief contribution of two or three points to the debate. This is an excellent Bill in terms of its aspirations and the sort of society we could become. However, the noble Baroness was right in saying that the crux of the matter is whether there should be compulsion or entitlement. My noble friend the Minister is aware that I have some concerns that I should like to explore here and I look forward to hearing his response. Placing in the Bill exemptions to compulsion is the wrong way to go. If we introduce a narrative which says that in certain circumstances you do not have to be educated, we are almost saying to teachers and educators that in certain circumstances you do not have to educate certain groups of children. Whether it is because they are in custody, are pregnant, or are carers, I do not like that list which exempts certain groups within a Bill making education compulsory. If education is going to be compulsory, we must have an education system which turns its mind to meeting the needs of every child and every young person, no matter what their circumstances. My concerns are a little different. I have three points to put to my noble friend the Minister. Those of us who have been teachers for any length of time will know that the nature of educating 16 to 18 year-olds is different because it is optional. Talk to any teacher and he or she will say that the attraction of taking a sixth form class is, to put it bluntly, because the kids have chosen to be there. One of the great changes in further education came about when the old YOP kids were brought in and it became compulsory. I should like the Minister to reflect on the nature of 16 to 18 education when it becomes compulsory. It is quite a significant point. I want to relate one story about a sixth form teacher who said to me that the nature of teaching AS level today is different from what it used to be because more children feel that they have to be there. Schools, colleges and workplaces where attendance from 16 to 18 is compulsory takes away from what almost might be described as a young person’s university. If young people are there by choice, it invites a different teaching style from compulsory education. That has huge implications for the organisation of 16 to 18 education. My second point is that the years from 16 to 18 form a bridge between childhood and adulthood. At 16 there are hardly any legal entitlements to adulthood, but by 18 you have them all. Between 16 and 18, those entitlements come along in dribs and drabs. The Bill causes me a bit of a problem in two respects: first, it makes the decision that the responsibility for education between 16 and 18 lies with the young person. The responsibility to be educated moves from adults to young people aged 16. The Bill gives a clear message that at the age of 16 you take charge of your own education. You make the decisions, and if you make the wrong ones and go against the law, you carry the consequences. In terms of choosing whether to be educated, the Bill makes it clear that the move from childhood to adulthood takes place at 16, not at 17 or 18. The problem is that that rests uneasily with compulsory education. We do not have compulsory work, for heaven’s sake. There are implications if you do not go to work, and rightly so, but we do not impose compulsory activity in any sense. Can my noble friend explore further the fact that the decision about education moves to a child at the age of 16 but the state makes it compulsory to take on an activity? Thirdly, my main objection and concern is this: I see the benefit of the Bill in making education from 16 to 18 compulsory only if it creates a commitment to a lifetime of learning and relearning, skilling and upskilling. I am not interested in compulsion from 16 to 18 if no one goes on learning afterwards. It has to keep people in the system. Does my noble friend not think there is a risk that compulsion at 16 to 18 could turn people off? I taught back in the 1970s when life was a lot different, but I see some elements of that system of education coming back, albeit in another form. My first headmaster was a wise person who would say, ““What we should do is make them all leave school at 13 and get them back at 14. Those children would come back wholly committed to learning and we would do better with them””. He did not mean it as a serious suggestion, but there is a lot of truth in what he said. At some point in a young person’s life, a gap in education can commit them to a lifetime of learning. I worry that the compulsory element might mean a lifetime of never wanting to learn again. As I said in my speech at Second Reading, I am waiting to be persuaded because in every other circumstance the work of the Government and that led by my noble friend is absolutely excellent and can get us to a wondrous place. I hope that in his response my noble friend can spend a few minutes exploring these issues.