Education Bill

I have been asked by my noble friend Lady Walmsley to speak in support of Amendment 86, which is in her name and that of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. By laying this amendment, we wish to reiterate the importance of the Secretary of State having the benefit of independent advice on changes in the national curriculum. This picks up the points which have just been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes. My noble friend Lady Walmsley is very grateful indeed to the Bill team who have briefed her about the processes taking place, and above all about the transparency that currently exists between the Secretary of State and the QCDA, and the fact that these will remain under the new proposals. However, the note that the team provided says: "““Following the passage of the Education Bill, the Secretary of State will remain responsible for making proposals to change the national curriculum and will still be able to ask another body to advise him if he wishes to do so””." It is the phrase ““if he wishes to do so”” that bothers us from the Liberal Democrat stance. We would like to ensure that the Secretary of State always takes advice from experts on these matters. As we heard last Monday, the curriculum is vital, and other countries are not as fixated as we are on what exactly is taught. The high level of prescription in this country goes somewhat counter to the claims that teachers are trusted as professionals. In other countries, the design of the curriculum is very different from the one that seems to be emerging in this country when we look at the remit for the expert panel which are to advise the Secretary of State. In Singapore, for example, core values are emphasised. These are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management, and responsible decision-taking. One cannot imagine all of this being delivered without the compulsory teaching of life skills, and indeed if we look in detail, this is exactly what we find: at the core are things like health education, PSHE, citizenship, global awareness and physical education. Surrounding these are knowledge skills—which include languages—maths and science, and, lastly, humanities and the arts. In New Zealand, the key competencies are critical thinking and problem solving, using languages, symbols and texts, managing self and relating to others. In Australia, there are three core interrelated strands which include heath and physical education, personal and interpersonal development and citizenship interwoven with subject knowledge and cross-curricular skills. Indeed, thinking processes are included in nearly all these curriculums, and these are three very successful education systems which I think we can learn from. However, none of these issues seems to emerge in the remit for the expert review panel; it mainly talks about knowledge and facts. We would like to know how the panel’s remit has been arrived at. The note from the Bill team says that the remit is always very important, and we can well believe that. But looking at it, we rather doubt whether what comes out will be anything like the curriculum of those very successful countries. This is one reason why this particular amendment has been put forward.