My Lords, this is a long list of amendments with, the noble Baroness will be pleased to hear, a brief message. The Government are trying to ensure that children with special educational needs have the best education and we are all agreed that that is commendable. The Bill focuses on provision for SEN children and young people who are within mainstream education. This excludes some 100,000 youngsters who cannot have access to the traditional schooling system for reasons of chronic illness, disability, exclusion, relocation of looked-after children, or children who live in a secure environment.
The Government often give the impression that they believe that excluded young people are not interested in learning. As a result, the focus is on mainstream education. At Second Reading, my noble friend Lady Howe of Idlicote highlighted the BIS research paper from January 2013 on the motivation and barriers to learning for NEETs—young people not in education, employment or training. I discussed it further in Grand Committee. It is obvious that it is actually these barriers which make young people feel disillusioned. This leads to their exclusion from the education system and puts them at risk of joining the 979,000 young people who
are currently on the NEETs register. These young people cost the taxpayer about £56,000 a time. It is vital that they are not left behind.
We know that the right support given at the right time can make an enormous difference and helps young people to achieve their personal ambitions. Students who appear to opt out of education do not do so on impulse. There is usually a chaotic background to their lack of engagement that needs to be dealt with sensitively. We must bear in mind when developing an education solution for these vulnerable young people that one size does not fit all. Clause 19 shows clearly that the Government are determined to involve children and their parents in the decisions around specialised education and that they get the right support at the right time. Surely, by allowing parents and children to have direct input into the organisations that could be part of their education provision, the Government would ensure that they have the best provision with the widest range of suppliers, helping them to achieve their objective.
Education provision for those outside the mainstream is often supplied by individual organisations such as Nisai and the Red Balloon project, which have created innovative ways to help those pupils who are currently out of school. Online and blended learning is one such innovative technique that has been utilised by parents to ensure that their children have access to the education they need. I described in Grand Committee the means by which this is achieved so I will not repeat myself. As I said then, this type of learning is an important tool for many parents but is not recognised as part of the framework of education provision for young people with special needs. This means that it cannot be rolled out to help numerous other children. It is available just to those parents who are in the know and can afford to pay. As it stands, money assigned to a pupil or student while inside the mainstream school system does not follow them once they cease to be on the school roll. This means that it is often difficult for them to access the alternative provision that would help them.
If online and blended learning was officially recognised as part of the education provision that can be provided by local authorities, it would become easily accessible and enable the Bill to fulfil its purpose,
“to improve services for vulnerable children .... to ensure that all children and young people can succeed, no matter what their background”.
In addition, the costs make sense. Online and alternative providers can help to save the Government money. Students will no longer need to be taught in isolation for a few hours a week by home tutors. They will join virtual classrooms of 10, with one teacher, and will have access at any time of the day or night. Local authorities, which are under pressure to reduce their costs, will be able to save on other parts of their budgets. For example, I understand that in 2010 Northamptonshire County Council spent more than £6 million on taxis for disabled special needs children, expelled pupils and young mothers. Saving these costs by centralising the use of online and blended learning would enable local authorities to allocate funds to other vital services.
If online and blended learning were to be formally recognised, there need be no fear that anything need be taken away from mainstream education for the
majority of children. These amendments are simply about adding a safety net to catch youngsters who would otherwise be drinking at the last chance saloon. I have already used the example of Nisai to highlight the important role of individual organisations which have created imaginative ways to help those who are excluded and produced excellent results. It makes sense that the good work which alternative education providers have been doing for a small percentage of vulnerable young people can be rolled out to reach the most vulnerable in society.
Finally, I stress to the Minister that it is obvious that the use of online learning has support from all sides of the House. We noticed that in Grand Committee. We really need to enter the digital age in this educational field. Virtual education has been used successfully by universities for many years and I am sure that the noble Baroness would agree that it is time that primary and secondary education caught up. Most children are computer literate at a very early age and those who cannot attend mainstream schools would probably enjoy the ability to access educational material in virtual classrooms. I think particularly of the young people who I know best: those who are housebound or bedridden because they have ME. They can take small bites of material at a time and many have had excellent examination results.
I am very grateful for the meeting that I had with officials yesterday. I hope that, as a result, the noble Baroness will look on my amendments kindly and that, even if she is not prepared to see them within the Bill, she will ensure that online and blended learning are included in the relevant codes of practice. I beg to move.
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