Education and Skills Bill

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, rightly told me that I was trapped. I am glad to be. I would like to distinguish my remarks on Amendments Nos. 4 and 7 from those on Amendment No. 10. On Amendments Nos. 4 and 7, which I had not expected to speak on, I am already parti pris in supporting the Bill, although I very much want us to avoid criminal sanctions. I wrote a long article, by my standards, back in November or December about the problems of motivating young people who, at 14, had had quite enough to carry on learning until 16. I took the perspective of the teacher and the head teacher. They have enough problems already, I thought. However, I was influenced by the fact that we are moving towards a radically different option at 14, which is fundamental to this issue: giving certain young people, as a matter of choice, an opportunity to engage in a different form of learning, such as the young apprenticeship, which has been extensively piloted from the age of 14 and had an excellent Ofsted report recently, and the vocational diplomas. A lot of work needs to be done on the vocational diplomas. I suspect that those who composed the curriculum had in mind what today’s comprehensive schools and teachers could offer in practice rather than what was desirable. That led me to start proposing, as I have continued to do since, the option of going at 14 to a technical college that is especially equipped to offer a hands-on approach to learning by doing, rather than by sitting, reading and listening. I believe that this is fundamental. When I was the chairman of the body concerned with the national curriculum, the greatest personal battle that I fought was to introduce the GNVQ as an option at 14. That was about learning in a group by finding out, rather than sitting and listening. Its motivational effect was profound. I regretted the fact that, to increase its standard, it was changed to become the applied GCSE. The academic community grabbed it and changed its character and the salt was lost. My willingness to support the Government's basic principle on compulsion, subject to Clause 39 being liberally interpreted, is congruent with a really radical option at 14 for a different experience of education and learning. I come to the challenge from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I cannot do other than support Amendment No. 10. In doing so, I am not forgoing my right to speak on Amendment No. 210—just before we rise for the summer, no doubt. I think I see the logic behind what the noble Baroness was saying. It is irrational to say that you may have a level 3 learning experience up to 18 as a matter of right, but you may not have it the following week. Surely, if there is a right to have education up to level 3, you should have the right to take it when you judge that it is right for you. I cannot see the logic in denying it. The alternative argument is the one I offered at Second Reading: it is not a right of the individual but a national imperative. We have all backed the realisation, so strongly expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Leitch, that we need radically to increase the number of pupils achieving level 4. He said, and the Government agreed, that we should aim for at least 40 per cent at that level by 2020. I have said since that the Germans and the Americans are there already, and it is not enough: we should aim for 45 per cent. Furthermore, the noble Lord, Lord Leitch, identified that even to achieve 40 per cent we need to engage in education again those who have already left. In Germany, where 70 per cent achieve level 3 by their early 30s, there is plenty of power to lift the figure of 40 per cent at level 4 to the kind of figure that I am talking about. I was arguing that if we are serious about the Leitch agenda, as the Government are, we need to recognise that it will be achieved only by investing in people who have left education. You cannot get high numbers at level 4 unless you have a base at level 3. Therefore, we must do all that we can to encourage people who have left education to complete level 3 and then move to level 4. A further argument was adduced yesterday at a meeting at which Chris Humphrey spoke. Some of us may have been there. He pointed out that the demographics of the next decade, with declining numbers of young people, make it all the more important to invest in people who have left school. Only by investing in people’s education and skills capital can we increase productivity to the levels of our competitors, because we are lacking in that regard. For two reasons, then, I support the amendments from the noble Baroness, but I reserve my right to have another go on another day as the department, in our discussion this morning, undertook to give me guidance on the realities of what the noble Baroness and I would like to see.