Capita: Turing Scheme Contract

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Coussins]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what criteria were used to determine the award to Capita of the contract to administer the Turing scheme after March 2022.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, the procurement was run in line with Cabinet Office rules and bids were evaluated on the answers to four questions relating to quality and social value, compliance with a range of financial and corporate information tests and the cost of the service. Scores were moderated and weighted in line with the published evaluation model. Capita received the highest overall score and provided the best plan to administer opportunities for students to study and work abroad.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the significant disquiet within the HE sector about this contract, notably from the University and College Union and the University Council of Modern Languages, on the grounds that Capita has a track record of failure on a range of other government contracts? The criteria listed by the Minister do not convince me that due diligence adequately covered the kind of experience and networks across the sector needed to run the scheme, rather than just being a cheaper alternative to the all-round stature and experience of the British Council. What mechanisms are in place to ensure quality assurance in the Capita contract?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am happy to try to reassure the noble Baroness. We are confident that Capita has the capacity and the skills to administer the Turing scheme. The delivery of the scheme is a major DfE project and therefore subject to best-practice project management principles. We have a dedicated delivery management team that will work with Capita to make sure it is fulfilling its contractual obligations. Looking at the quality aspects relating to the scheme itself, there are performance metrics and financial incentives around the key milestones to make sure that it delivers a good service.

Initial Teacher Training

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Clancarty is right that the proposed reforms call for a subject-by-subject analysis, as well as looking at the overall context of ITT. I will focus on the training and recruitment of teachers of modern languages, and I declare my interest as co-chair of the APPG on Modern Languages.

The supply chain of MFL teachers is shrinking to such a serious extent that the sustainability of language teaching and learning in our schools could be under existential threat. If the UK’s deficit in language skills deteriorates much further, our capacity to deliver public policy in education, research, diplomacy, defence and security will be significantly weakened, as will our ability to supply UK businesses with the school-leavers and graduates they need to compete in a global market, and to build export growth.

Let me illustrate the scale of the problem. A language is one of the subjects required at GCSE for a student to achieve the EBacc. Yet in 2020, only 72% of the target for MFL teachers were recruited; only physics fared worse. This shortfall needs to be seen as being on the back of under-recruitment over many years. Numbers of German and French teachers declined by over a third and a fifth, respectively, in the decade between 2010-11 and 2020-21. Even if every single university student currently doing a languages degree went into teaching, we still would not meet the shortfall, yet a mere 6% of MFL graduates actually end up in teaching.

Part of the systematic collapse in the supply chain of MFL teachers is due to university department closures. Since 2000, over 50 university languages departments have closed and the reforms in ITT, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, may exacerbate the problem even further. If 35 universities, accounting for 10,000 teacher training places, go through with their threat to withdraw teacher training if reforms progress in their current form, this will have a disproportionate impact on MFL. However, I believe there are various measures which Her Majesty’s Government could take immediately and which might help.

First, we need to reverse the cut in bursaries for MFL trainees. These have been slashed for 2021-22 from £26,000 right down to £10,000, even though the reduction for physics, chemistry, maths and computing is only a slight cut, from £26,000 to £24,000. I understand that in 2022-23 the MFL bursaries will rise again, but only to £15,000—still significantly short of the £24,000 for the other subjects I have mentioned. The MFL scholarships have been scrapped altogether. Can the Minister explain this disparity, given that all these subjects are part of the EBacc requirement?

Secondly, we need to look at the barriers we have created, presumably unintentionally, to the smooth and continued recruitment of EU nationals into MFL training. EU students have typically made up between 30% and 75% of ITT cohorts for MFL, but now face a cliff edge in recruitment. Those with settled status were able to access bursaries or student loans last year, but those without this status will not be eligible in future, despite MFL teachers now being on the shortage occupations list—a change for which I commend the Government, but which needs to be followed through logically in policy terms, such as by giving access to these bursaries. Has there been any impact assessment for how these changes will affect future MFL teacher recruitment, especially given that MFL is of course uniquely reliant on recruiting native speakers from EU member countries, particularly France, Germany and Spain?

Thirdly, the cuts to funding for subject knowledge enhancement, or SKE—yet another acronym, I am afraid—should be reversed. SKE is a recruitment tool which was introduced in 2005 to try to bridge that shortfall by attracting UK graduates with a modern language as a subsidiary part of their degree. Typically, 40% to 70% of MFL trainees undertake SKE as a condition of entry, but the funding cuts in the last academic year translated into an estimated reduced capacity in the number of trainees one provider could offer from an anticipated 40 to just 13.

Finally, I want to emphasise how relevant these issues are to the Government’s levelling-up agenda. There is a clear link between low MFL take-up and disadvantage, as measured, for example, by eligibility for free school meals. Lower GCSE take-up correlates with regions of poor productivity and low skill levels. There is also a growing disparity between state and independent schools. For example, the latest Language Trends survey reveals that independent schools are more than three times as likely as a state school to host a native speaker language assistant.

School leavers and graduates with even a basic working or conversational knowledge of another language are more employable and mobile than they would be otherwise. Languages are not just for an internationally mobile elite. One survey showed that lack of language skills accounted for a 27% vacancy rate in clerical and admin jobs.

I hope to hear from the Minister that Her Majesty’s Government will look again with some urgency at restoring the cuts to MFL bursaries, scholarships and SKE funding and access for eligible EU students to these financial incentives. These measures have the potential to save language learning throughout our education system, boost the supply chain of teachers once more and equip young people to compete with their peers from the rest of the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The framework obviously focuses on the outcome, which is that teachers are competent in all aspects. Given the percentage of children in the classroom with SEN, that is obviously a core part.

In view of the time, I shall continue. This desire to create the best initial start for teachers is why we asked Ian Bauckham to lead a review of the ITT market, focusing on how we can ensure that the quality of ITT is consistently of a world-class standard. As mentioned, Ian has been supported by an advisory group, and the report making recommendations to government was published in July 2021. As we have heard this evening, government has consulted on the recommendations made in the report, and we are currently considering them in light of the responses that we had to the consultation. We expect to publish our full response shortly.

In making their recommendations, the expert advisory group reviewed the available evidence on initial teacher training, including international and UK evidence. The objective evidence shows that there is clearly much to be proud of, as we have heard from your Lordships, in our current system of initial teacher training, with many examples of world-class practice, delivered by providers of all types. As would be expected, it also shows that there is scope to improve further.

To level up standards in every school, for every child, we need to strive for excellence in all corners of the country. The evidence we have available suggests that there is more we can do to make sure that high-quality training is being consistently delivered across the whole system. We must ensure that all trainees receive the training that they deserve.

The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, raised concerns about the content of the national professional qualifications. The NPQ frameworks have all been independently reviewed by the Education Endowment Foundation, which has her extremely knowledgeable noble friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, in its fan club—I will join her there if I may. That is obviously to ensure that the content is based on the best available evidence. The delivery of the NPQs will be quality assured by Ofsted, which I hope gives the noble Baroness some confidence.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, raised—these may be my words rather than hers—the absolute importance of developing critical thinking skills. We have built that into the framework at a number of levels, including in our consultation around the new specialist NPQs. There was a clear demand for more qualifications at the middle leadership level, for teachers who want to specialise in leading teaching or curriculum in their subject or phase, as well as supporting the professional development of other teachers. I hope that goes some way to addressing her question.

We continue to value the expertise of all types of ITT providers in developing courses that are underpinned by a strong evidence base. All courses leading to qualified teacher status must incorporate the mandatory core content framework in full. However, to be absolutely clear, in response to the suggestion of several noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, the Government do not prescribe the curriculum of ITT courses beyond this and we have no plans to do so. It remains for individual providers to draw on their own expertise to design courses of high quality that are based on evidence and appropriate to the needs of trainees and to the subject, phase and age range that they will be teaching.

In response to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about training, child development and dyslexia, the core content framework sets out a minimum entitlement of knowledge, skills and experiences that trainees need to enter the profession in the best position possible to teach and support pupils to succeed, including pupils identified within the four areas of need set out in the SEND code of practice.

On a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, and others, I reassure the House that the Government have no plans to remove certain types of providers from the ITT market. The market is formed from a rich tapestry of provision and partnerships, as we have heard this afternoon, including higher education institutions and school-based providers, and we want to retain this diversity in the future. We value the choice this offers trainees, and our objective is not to reduce the range of ITT providers but to ensure that supply is of the highest quality it can be.

There have been some calls to pause the review or, from the noble Lord, Lord Knight, to cancel it altogether. He will not be surprised that that is not in the Government’s plans. We know that there have been particular pressures and we are very grateful to ITT providers for what they have achieved during the pandemic. However, we believe that supporting our teachers with the highest-quality training and professional development is the best way that we can improve pupil outcomes.

That said, as we develop our response to the report, we are considering the timescales for implementation and will ensure that we allow reasonable time for ITT partnerships to implement any of the review’s recommendations that we take forward.

My noble friend Lord Lexden asked about the compulsory reaccreditation of suppliers. The review report recommends that an accreditation process is the best way in which to implement the recommended quality requirements. If any of the recommendations are accepted, we will proceed carefully to maintain enough training places to continue to meet teacher supply needs across the country. I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that the accreditation process will indeed be open, transparent and equitable.

There is agreement across all involved in initial teacher training that mentors play a pivotal role in providing trainees with strong professional support and subject-specific support—points that my noble friend Lord Kirkham made. Ian Bauckham’s report identifies effective mentoring as a critical component of high-quality ITT and makes a number of recommendations about the identification and training of mentors. Alongside mentoring, school placements are critical to teacher training. It is right that people training to become a teacher spend the majority of their time based in schools. That is why having enough high-quality school placements is fundamental to ensuring the quality and sufficiency of teachers entering the system each year.

I am puzzled by the suggestion of the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, and the noble Lord, Lord Knight, that schools will be put off from employing early-career teachers. Certainly, in my conversations with schools that are involved in initial teacher training and the teaching school hubs, they feel that this is a fantastic opportunity to build the culture of their school or multi-academy trust into that initial training. They believe that this will help give those teachers the best start to their careers and improve retention.

As we consider our response to the recommendations we are, of course, very aware of the need to protect teacher supply. Many noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, raised concerns about that. We will ensure that the ITT market has the capacity to deliver enough well-trained newly-qualified teachers to the schools and ultimately the pupils who need them. This will include ensuring that there is good geographical availability of initial teacher training.

The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, asked about the criteria used for awarding bursaries. Initial teacher training bursaries are offered in subjects where recruitment is the most challenging. In the academic year 2020-21, we exceeded the postgraduate ITT targets in art, in which it was 132%. In response to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, regarding music, the figure was 225%.

The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, asked about the recruitment of modern foreign language teachers from abroad. As she pointed out and is well aware, EEA and Swiss citizens with settled or pre-settled status under the EU settlement scheme can continue living, working and studying in the UK. In England, that also allowed continued eligibility for home fee status, financial support from Student Finance England and ITT bursaries on a similar basis to domestic students, subject to their meeting the usual residence requirement. There is no limit on the number of international students who can come to the UK to study. For modern foreign languages in 2020-21, 29% of new entrants to postgraduate ITT were from the EEA or Switzerland and 5% were from outside. That overseas/ UK split for modern foreign languages has remained broadly consistent for the past few years.

The noble Baroness, Lady Blower, asked about the new Institute of Teaching, and it will, from September 2022, be England’s flagship teacher development provider. As the first organisation of its kind, it will design and deliver a coherent teacher development pathway, from trainee through to executive headship. It will base its teacher development on the best available research evidence about what works, as set out in the ITT core content framework. There are so many acronyms here—the ECF and NPQ frameworks and the NLE development programme—but I know noble Lords are familiar with all these TLAs. We really believe this will ensure that teacher development in England goes from strength to strength. In answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, I say that we are running an open procurement to identify the suppliers that will allow us to establish the institute next year.

I thank all noble Lords for their thoughtful and constructive challenge to the Government’s plans. The response to the ITT review will be published later this year, and I look forward very much to debating this further once that has happened. We also look forward to working with the ITT sector and its partners to ensure that all ITT in England is of the highest quality possible.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

Just before the noble Baroness sits down, could she undertake to write to me with answers to my questions on bursaries, SKE funding and scholarships for MFL trainees?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I would be delighted to write to the noble Baroness and any other noble Lords, where I have not answered their questions.

Schools: Modern Languages

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I think the irony has to lie with the noble Lord opposite, because in 2004 the Labour Government removed the compulsory requirement for modern foreign languages at GCSE. It collapsed from 70% participation to 40% in 2010 and we have clawed it back to 46%. That is not enough, I absolutely accept that, and I give full commendation to the Italian Government who are helping with Italian in this country. The Goethe Institute is also helping with German and we have announced our own scheme, which has been running for three years with the Spanish Government, whereby we bring over young Spanish undergraduates to work in our schools.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that an estimated 35% of our MFL teachers are non-UK EU nationals, and that even if every single one of our students now doing languages at university went into teaching, the shortage of MFL teachers would still not be met? Will he therefore ensure that the shortage occupations list is amended when the new skills-based immigration rules are introduced, so that the list includes teachers of French, German and Spanish as well as Mandarin teachers, who are the only ones on that list at the moment?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point, and I will certainly take that recommendation back to my department and the Home Office. The noble Baroness mentioned the Mandarin programme, which we began in September 2016. It started with 23 schools; we are now up to 64.

Education: Newly Qualified Teachers

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with my noble friend. Teach First is expanding its programme to all areas of the country. It will have nearly 1,500 new recruits this summer, and it has some very high-quality, well-educated people.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, last year’s report from the National Audit Office recommended that the DfE should focus more on retention, especially as some subjects, including Spanish and German, are increasingly being taught by non-specialists. Does the Minister agree that the DfE should start monitoring retention by subject so that efforts to dissuade teachers from leaving could be better targeted?

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the noble Baroness and that is something we are looking at very closely. We have recently introduced a new scholarship, in partnership with the British Council, to recruit MFL teachers, worth £2,500 tax-free.

Education: Polish A-level

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We agree entirely that all pupils should have a rich cultural education. We have made it quite clear that it is particularly important for languages to expose them to a different culture.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, the Government’s commitment to the continuation of Polish is welcome, but will the Minister also assure the House that the Government’s injection of £10 million into teaching Mandarin in schools will not be at the expense of other languages identified by the British Council as the 10 most vital to the UK for economic, cultural and diplomatic reasons, including French, German and Spanish, as well as lesser-taught languages such as Arabic and Turkish?

[Lord Nash]

I am happy to give the noble Baroness that assurance. China is obviously a country of huge strategic importance to this country and education is very important in that. A great deal of activity is going on. In addition to the £10 million that we have given to boost Mandarin teaching in schools, excellent work is being done at the IOE Confucius Institute, supported ably by organisations such as HSBC and Swire.

Schools: Foreign Languages

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, the Question is about progress. The problem is that we have no real idea about that, because there is no benchmark either to help schools to interpret the national curriculum guidelines consistently, or for pupils to know what level of competence they should achieve at the end of each key stage. Will the Minister agree to consider introducing a light-touch measure for progress linked to the Common European Framework and apply it to all key stages?

[Lord Nash]

In April last year, we published a set of key principles for assessment, produced as a result of consultation on accountability. We also announced last May a new package of pupil assessment methods developed by teachers for their fellow teachers. Schools are able to develop whatever methodology of assessment they like. However, I will take note of what the noble Baroness says and look at that further.

Schools: Arts Subjects

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with my noble friend. We have invested £340 million in arts and cultural programmes over the last three years, including £3 million for the British Film Institute’s new Film Academy.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Progress 8 measure could be the kiss of death for languages, as it does not stipulate which EBacc subjects need to be taken? The recent increase in take-up because of the EBacc is likely to be reversed, and some head teachers are already saying that languages will be downgraded in light of the Progress 8 measure. What will Her Majesty’s Government do to counter that?

[Lord Nash]

We have brought back languages into primary schools, which I think all parties have acknowledged was a good move. Languages are up 25% as regards entries under this Government, and we do not believe that the outcomes will be as the noble Baroness says.

Education: Social Mobility

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, the coalition Government have said that they want to close what they called “the vast gulf” between the life chances of children educated in the state sector and those from independent schools. I should like to use the opportunity of today’s debate to draw attention to the role of learning foreign languages in achieving that objective. If by social mobility we mean being equipped to have more choices, broader horizons and greater employability, then language learning must be a vital component in any educational or wider public policy strategy. Sadly, the status quo is that languages at GCSE, at A-level and at university are increasingly seen as a mark of the advantaged elite. I believe that state schools where languages are not offered or encouraged are doing their pupils a huge disservice in terms of the quality of their education and their future chances in a global labour market.

Before I go on, I should declare interests as chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages and as a vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists.

I know that I am, in theory, knocking on an open door with this argument. DfE Ministers made it clear that the gap between rich and poor in language learning was one of the main drivers behind the EBacc initiative. There has certainly been a positive impact on take-up of languages at GCSE in the past two years, attributable to the EBacc. It was notable that the increase was concentrated in schools with the highest levels of social deprivation. The latest GCSE entry figures for languages also show the gap between independent and state schools beginning to narrow. The Government deserve credit for this, but the EBacc is just one part of the jigsaw and by no means enough on its own to turn round the decade of dramatic decline that we have witnessed since 2004, when languages became optional after the age of 14. Indeed, a parliamentary Select Committee report on the EBacc raised questions as to its effectiveness as a measure of progression and social mobility. Nor is it enough to claim that things will improve over time because of the introduction of compulsory languages at key stage 2 from next September. Thoroughly welcome though that is, a great deal of support, recruitment and training still needs to be put in place to ensure the genuine success of key stage 2 languages.

Perhaps I may briefly summarise the evidence for languages being such an important part of any person’s skill set for the 21st century. It is a myth that English is enough. Certainly no one will go very far in business or international relations, academically or culturally unless they speak English. However, if they speak only English, they will find that that is a huge drawback and a limitation on their choices and advancement in pretty much any field. British employers regularly express dissatisfaction with school and college leavers’ foreign language skills. A CBI survey in 2013 revealed that only 36% of employers were happy, although 70% of businesses said that they would value such skills. Our school leavers have the worst language skills in the whole of Europe and are increasingly losing out to their peers from other countries—not just from the EU but from the US, India, China and elsewhere—in a global labour market. A British Academy report last year pointed out that language skills are needed at all levels of the workforce, not just for an internationally mobile elite. A survey in 2011 showed that 27% of vacancies in the UK for admin and clerical jobs went unfilled due to shortages of foreign language skills.

Specialist linguists are needed too, of course. We are desperately short of English native speakers in the interpreting and translation services of the EU and the United Nations. There is a shortage of public service interpreters in this country—those who translate and interpret for people in hospitals, courts and police stations. Language skills are also needed for defence, security and diplomacy purposes. Ironically, some of the languages most needed for this work are present in abundance in our own communities, such as Tamil, Turkish, Somali and Farsi—I could go on. But the Government, very short-sightedly, scrapped the Asset Languages programme which had provided a way for children who speak another language at home to develop that language in a more formal way and have it accredited at GCSE level. What a waste of talent. Will the Minister please take this issue back to the department to persuade the Government to think again about how we can offer children with English as an additional language, who often come from the most socially deprived areas and schools, the opportunity to have their language skills recognised and rewarded and shown how this could lead to a range of professional opportunities when they are older?

It is also important to know that learning a foreign language helps you learn everything else. That is another reason why schools are misguided if they deny their pupils a chance to take languages because they are not considered bright enough. Robust evidence shows that learning another language improves children’s literacy and oracy in their own language. Research from America shows that language learners are better at maths and reading tests. At key stage 3, the cognitive benefits from language learning transfer to problem solving, lateral thinking and critical analysis across the curriculum. It is therefore extremely disturbing that the practice of disapplication, whereby certain pupils are removed from the statutory language teaching during key stage 3, seems to be on the increase. I have had the benefit of seeing a preview of the 2013 Language Trends survey; it will be published in a couple of weeks and I have been authorised to refer to it today. It shows that a significant and increasing number of state schools carry out some form of disapplication of pupils from languages at key stage 3, with the result that many lower ability pupils have no experience of learning another language at all. Will the Minister agree to study with particular care this aspect of the Language Trends survey when it comes and take steps to discourage schools from this practice so that all pupils, whatever their level of ability, have access to the cognitive, social and employability benefits of learning a foreign language?

Despite the boost to take-up at GCSE from the EBacc, I am afraid that nearly half of all secondary schools still say that they have no plans to improve their language offer. Take-up overall has halved post-14 in the past decade. Twice as many pupils in independent schools take a language GCSE than in state schools. Even within the state system there is a very worrying variation, with only 14% of children eligible for free school meals getting a good language GCSE, compared with 31% of other state school pupils. This pattern carries on to A-level and to university. A third of all MFL entries at A-level are from independent schools, and at university 28% of students going on to do modern language degrees come from the private sector, compared with only 9.6% across all subjects. Alongside this, there is a distinct lack of opportunities to study a language as part of any vocational course. Only a very small number of FE colleges offer languages and this in turn has implications for employability and the general divide between those who are seen as the academic elite and the rest.

Despite the recent signs of improvement at GCSE and the advent of languages taught at primary school, it has to be said that our language provision is fragile. Competence in at least one language in addition to English should be a 21st century skill that our young people can take for granted. Those who have it will be not only more socially mobile but more culturally aware. Those without it will be left behind. Individual schools should not have to sort this out by themselves, however much the Government want to give them freedom over the curriculum. The Government must give a stronger lead and I urge the Minister to accept this challenge.

School Pupils: English Speakers

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, it is for schools to determine how to respond to the needs of pupils with EAL, including how they support pupils’ families. We do not hold centrally a figure for the number of interpreters employed in schools. Local authorities have the freedom to allocate EAL funding to schools as they see fit. Schools may well choose to spend this on interpreters or on employing bilingual staff. For example, we know that in 75 local authorities, primary school pupils with EAL attract between £250 and £750 each. The Government are investing £210 million per annum in community learning language programmes to support families with EAL. We are also funding English courses for 24,000 adults with the lowest levels of English through the £6 million English language competition. There is no specific duty for schools to teach English to parents; however, schools have a key role to play in this. Parents of new pupils at, for instance, Millbank Academy—one of the primaries up the road, which is in my wife’s group—where 85% of pupils have EAL, are introduced both to other parents and a member of staff who speaks their home language, and are invited to the school every week to be updated on their pupil’s progress.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, a recent British Academy report highlighted the importance of the diverse languages of the UK’s minority communities for our diplomacy, national security and defence needs. Will the Minister therefore acknowledge the data, which suggest that the presence in schools of children who are bilingual or have English as an additional language tends, in fact, to raise overall school performance at GCSE, not damage it? What action will the Government take to recognise and improve these language skills for the benefit of the whole country?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is quite right. In fact, pupils with EAL progress very well and have higher EBacc scores. Indeed, sadly, it is many white, working-class British boys with English as a first language who do particularly badly. We recognise the importance of language skills, which is why we have introduced them as a compulsory measure into primary schools. Under this Government, the number of pupils doing languages at secondary school has risen substantially.

Education: Reform of GCSEs

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness makes some very good points. It is essential that we now make sure that our vocational qualifications are seen by all— employers, parents and students—as being as rigorous as academic qualifications and equally valuable. The Alison Wolf review, which suggests that we focus down on a core—although still substantial—number of vocational qualifications, is helpful here. However, we started from a very low base. You could get a diploma in a subject—I will not mention the name—which required no examinations at all because it was assessed entirely by continuous assessment. That counted as four GCSE equivalents. We clearly had got to a point where the system of equivalents was out of control. However, we need to see more rigorous vocational qualifications—and the UTC programme is very focused on this. We are seeing pupils, aged 14 and 16, going to UTCs which offer extremely rigorous vocational qualifications, and we need to spread this practice into schools as well.

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages. I welcome the Government’s intention to introduce more rigour in foreign languages at GCSE. However, there seems little point in improving the system if very large numbers of pupils are effectively disfranchised from access to it. What can the Minister tell the House about the Government’s intention in relation to the pupils in the 20% of state schools that have condensed key stage 3 into only two years, meaning that there are tens of thousands of pupils who do no languages at all after the age of 13, and who therefore have no chance of taking a language at GCSE, improved or otherwise?

[Lord Nash]

Yes, there are quite a few schools that take GCSEs over three years. It is a technique that troubles me a bit personally because we all know that if key stage 3 was better and not the kind of desert it can be, more pupils would do it. The noble Baroness makes a very good point: we are short of language teachers. We have put bursaries in place to encourage language teachers with good degrees into the system, but I will take her points on board.