Sarah
Teather: Get on with
it!
Mr.
Hayes: I never know whether the hon. Lady is more churlish
than childish or more childish than churlish. She is certainly both.
Nevertheless, shemade an important point about whether we see
FE’s continuing role as duplicating the role that is performed
in sixth form colleges and schools or whether, like Sir Andrew Foster,
we believe that one of the problems that faces FE is the fact that
because it does a large number of things, its purpose is insufficiently
defined. Sir Andrew
Foster described in his report last year how FE’s identity is
blurred by the fact that it is seen as doing different things by
different people. He stated that teachers and learners in FE often have
a blurred sense of the college’s purpose and that there may be
some displacement of resource and attention because FE lacks
focus. There is a
case to be made for FE focusing much more heavily on vocational skills
and on upskilling and re-skilling the work force. There is a parallel
but equally powerful case for FE picking up the whole “Skills
for Life” agenda, in the way the Government elucidated after the
Budget, in the new entitlements for people up to the age of 25, and
doing less work that could be as usefully done elsewhere. I do not make
a definitive judgment on that because I do not have a definitive view
on it, but it certainly needs to be explored. It has direct relevance
to this part of the
Bill.
Annette
Brooke: Will the hon. Gentleman explain his vision of what
students might study if they are based at a school? Would that include
only A-levels at school, and vocational studies at college? Does he not
see that a particular student, based primarily at one institution,
might study for a range of diplomas being developed by the
Government?
Mr.
Hayes: That is precisely the argument that we have been
having about the breadth of opportunity available to young people,
post-14 and post-16, and the need not only to review the curriculum,
which is what the Government have done through the diplomas,
but—in my judgment—to look more closely at the
relationship between schools and FE
institutions. I have
no prejudices about the idea of schools and FE institutions jointly
designing, managing and even funding courses so that skills can be
shared. Schools have a problem of providing sufficient resources and
skills in order to offer the breadth of provision within their own
compass that students might demand. Even schools, such as Gleed girls
school in my constituency, that have gained vocational specialism have
that problem. To do that, they need either to collaborate with other
schools or to have a much closer working relationship with other
institutions, such as
colleges. The
Chairman: Order. I remind the Committee of two things:
first, the Chair is located at this end of the Room, and, secondly,
comments are meant to be directed towards
it.
Mr.
Hayes: I am sorry, Mr. Cook. I shall follow your advice
with my usual
diligence. We learn
from the comments of the hon. Member for Brent, East that the purpose
of the amendment is to discourage or inhibit the expansion of schools
offering sixth-form provision because she discerns that that might be
unhelpful to FE. As I said, my case is not prejudiced, but
hypothetical. One might say that there is a direct counter-argument
that it might be rather helpful to FE to refocus its energies away from
what could be done through collaborative arrangements, but essentially
around school
education. As I said,
that is not a prejudiced or partisan matter, but it is one that needs
to be debated in the context of the Bill and the amendments. If the
hon. Lady’s vision, in which FE would continue much as it is
now, is to be realised, we would be ignoring Sir Andrew Foster’s
conclusions. I suspect that my view and that of the Minister are more
similar to each other than either is to that of the Liberal
Democrats.
Annette
Brooke: Will the hon. Gentleman reiterate that he thinks
that there is the possibility of collaboration so that an individual
pupil might study academic and vocational subjects—in other
words, a mix, which is the direction in which we are moving 14-to-19
provision? Does he not think therefore that FE institutions need to be
consulted to see where they would fit into that
collaboration?
Mr.
Hayes: Yes, I think that that is one of the purposes of
the provision, which is why I talkedabout collaboration,
jointly designed, managed and implemented courses, and the possibility
of joint institutions. For example, I have a school in my
constituency—I shall not go into too much detail—that is
hoping to develop a centre working with other schools to take advantage
of the vocational specialism that it has acquired and to deliver
precisely the range of products described by the hon.
Lady. Of course I am
in favour of FE institutions and schools working together more closely
so that they can offer the mix of which the hon. Lady is in favour.
However, I am not sure that that kind of collaborative model can be
squared with the view that began to emerge from those on the Liberal
Front Bench—I accept that it was only a short speech on a
particular amendment—which seemed to be rather hostile to the
idea of encouraging school sixth forms and that
model. Unless we are
prepared to rethink more radically how we provide post-16 education,
both academic and
vocational, we will not overcome the problems identified by Sir Andrew
Foster, to which I draw the Committee’s attention. He argued
that FE “lacks a clearly
recognised and shared core
purpose.” I think that
he is right. FE colleges should develop specialisms in which they can
excel. That happens increasingly in schools and has long happened in
higher education. Of course higher education institutions provide a
range of courses, but we all know that some have specialisms in which
they have particular expertise and focus, and for which they have a
reputation. Why should not that situation be reflected in
colleges?
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills (Phil
Hope): I was not going to speak in this debate, but I wish
to ask the hon. Gentleman whether, as he is quoting Sir Andrew Foster
so favourably, he supports the Government’s White Paper,
“Raising Skills and Improving Life Chances,” which
implements 74 of the 80 Foster recommendations. We are implementing the
other six in a different way. He cannot quote Foster only in support of
FE colleges, but he can support the White
Paper.
Mr.
Hayes: Yes, the Government have got some of this right. I
would be the first to acknowledge that the Under-Secretary’s
personal commitment to the matter is undoubted. I know that he has
given considerable attention to the Foster report, but the Government
start from a difficult position on skills, because we have a skills
crisis. No Government want to admit that, but it is clear from the
interim Leach report—we expect the final report this summer to
say nothing different—that the task is
immense. One of the
dilemmas at the heart of the matter is the fact that the
Government’s core skills entitlement for those up to the age of
25 might well further skew the resources and attention of FE away from
upskilling and re-skilling the existing work force towards a second
chance for those up to 25. I put that point to the Under-Secretary as
he has challenged me on the
matter. One
understands entirely why the Government want to give the entitlement,
and I do not wish to question their intention or ignore the necessity
of dealing with core skills, which are vital to the life chances of
individuals and to national competitiveness. However, I worry about the
impact that the policy might have on FE, which is already telling us
that the Skills for Life campaign concentrates resources in a way that
makes it even harder to get at the hardest to get at
groups—older people, more disadvantaged people, existing workers
or people outside the work force. That is my judgment, and that of some
FE principals to whom I have spoken. I raise that caveat to my general
words of praise of the Government and the
Under-Secretary. As I
have said, we should be even more creative and imaginative in
reconstructing the provision of skills training. We must be radical in
breaking down the barriers between schools, colleges and employers, and
we must look more closely at how courses are designed and how to
implement vocational education. We must think much more laterally about
such matters.
In meeting the parity of esteem
challenge, we can borrow from accreditation practice in industry. We
can draw on the best talents available in each sector and not be
hidebound by the conventional structural barriers that can lead us to
replicate and contradict some of what is done in vocational
education. I am not
ignoring the points that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole
made about the need to consult FE and the important debate to be had
about the role of school sixth forms and sixth-form colleges. I do not
intend just to be adversarial, but I am just not sure that I agree with
her about what FE colleges should be
doing.
11.45
am The hon. Lady
makes an important point in that my argument is most applicable in
places where it iseasy in practice to access the kind of
mixed provision through collaboration that she advocates. That kind of
provision is probably more straightforward to access if one lives in a
conurbation or other area in which it is easier to get about than it
might be in a rural area in which travel distances and the simple act
of getting to the places where learning and resources are located make
things more difficult. In rural areas, it is harder to construct a
model around what I said in relation to Sir Andrew Foster. There,
travel issues are a profound problem, particularly for younger
learners. We shall say more about that when we consider transportation
in the later parts of the Bill. The viability of post-16 provision
because of numbers in sparsely populated areas—another matter
that relates to the hon. Lady’s comments—also needs to be
factored into our considerations, but perhaps that is a debate for
another time. It is
right that we take full account of the important role of colleges, and
that we understand the significance of vocational education in the mix
of education that is to be provided, and which is affected by the Bill.
It is right, too, that we make a judgment about how and from where we
want that educationto be provided. However, I am not
instinctively sympathetic to the amendments and nothing that I have
heard has made me more so, but I shall be interested to hear the
Minister’s response to them.
The
Chairman: Perhaps it would be helpful to the Committee if
I were to register the fact that I am not a mind reader. Anybody who
wants to catch my eye ought to stand erect. Greg
Mulholland. Greg
Mulholland (Leeds, North-West) (LD): Thank you, Mr. Cook.
I hope that that was erect enough.
I hope that the Minister will
agree that this is an important point, and I am pleased that the hon.
Member for South Holland and The Deepings acknowledged that it is
important to have the discussion. The Liberal Democrats agree that we
need to focus on post-16 education and to improve what is on offer.
That is why we have been consistently supportive of the Tomlinson
agenda. I was a little concerned about the way in which the comments of
the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings came across. He
appeared not to acknowledge or even value the contribution of the FE
sector and colleges to
post-16 education. We are very aware of that on these Benches, and
support it and I hope that the Government will echo my comments.
Indeed, a recent Government survey of 27,000 businesses showed that 95
per cent. of employers approved of the trainingthat they
receive from colleges. Together with the facts that my hon. Friend the
Member for Brent, East set out, and despite the 10 per cent. funding
gap that still exists between FE colleges and school sixth forms and
the fact that there is no timetable or plan as to how that will be
changed— Meg
Hillier (Hackney, South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op): It is
interesting to hear the hon. Gentleman’s comments about support
for vocational education. How does he square that with his
party’s opposition to a Bill that proposes 14 post-14 vocational
diplomas?
Greg
Mulholland: As the hon. Lady well knows, that is not why
we opposed that Bill. The point is collaboration. The word has been
used in the Committee, but we are still not convinced that the
necessary collaboration is occurring at local level to analyse the
effect of the Bill on local education as a whole. It is precisely
because of the need to improve post-16 education—a need that the
hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings touched upon—that
we support the extension to vocational education that the Government
have proposed. The point of our amendment, however, is that post-16
education will be threatened unless its planning and implementation is
examined as a whole at local level, along with the effects on different
institutions. All
members of the Committee would agree that parents want good local
education from the ages of five to 18 and 19. My party is certain that
in proposing a new school, subject to the Secretary of State’s
veto, local authorities will continue to work with the local FE sector,
but I ask the Minister to assure us that that will be the case. The
amendment acknowledges and reinforces the commitment of local
authorities to the strategic planning of education, because we believe
that that has been abandoned by both the Government and the
Opposition.
Mr.
Hayes: Just to be clear, I think that the hon. Gentleman
is right: there is an immense amount of good work being done in FE
colleges both by managers and teachers, and in no way do I
underestimate that. My point was that we expect too much of FE. If we
are not clear about what we want from FE it is a bit rich when we
complain about what it provides. It does a good job and we need to give
more strategic direction, of the kind that the hon. Gentleman
described, about what we want from the sector. We need local agreement
and national clarity of
purpose.
Greg
Mulholland: I am pleased to hear that acknowledgment, and
I challenge the Minister to show that the Government have the same
commitment. From their policy, it does not appear to our party that
they have the interests of colleges uppermost. In
general, we are not convinced that there is sufficient acknowledgment of
the effect of decisions about new schools and new sixth forms on local
provision in other schools. I ask the Minister to comment both from an
FE perspective and generally, because the issue isthe
Bill’s direction of travel—the atomisation of education,
as Neil Kinnock put it, which my party wants to
avoid.
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