Cultural and Education Exchanges
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Earl on securing this debate. I am going to speak about school trips from abroad. My younger daughter is a schoolteacher at a small rural lycée in the Sarthe region. She has lived there nearly 28 years and has a French husband and three children, who have British and French nationality. As a result of Brexit, she has become a French citizen.
Every other year, travelling by Eurostar, my daughter used to lead a party of her 16 to 18 year-old students to visit London. There were never fewer than 21 in the party; the largest group had 43. Typically, they stayed for five nights at a youth hostel in Canada Water. During the week, they visited all the major museums in London, the Cabinet War Rooms, Roman London, the Houses of Parliament, Camden Town, the National Gallery and much more. A lot of what they visited reminded them of the common history and close links of friendship between the people of France and the United Kingdom. I asked my daughter: what was the value of the visits? She said, “It’s hard to put into words how much it gives them. So many have barely left the region. So many have never taken the train before. The majority come from simple backgrounds with few opportunities for travel. Going to London is just such an amazing experience for them”.
The visits have now stopped and French schools are turning to Ireland instead as an English-speaking destination. A major problem is the British refusal to accept the French identity card, as almost none of the students holds a passport. The disappearance of the European health insurance card from the UK is another major obstacle.
Open-mindedness, cultural and linguistic enrichment, the building of character and increased independence and confidence: that is how my daughter describes what the visits give her pupils. The UK is now barely offered as a destination, so future generations of international pupils are being deprived of a wonderful opportunity. This is also the case for European and British students, who of course can no longer participate in the wonderful Erasmus programme.
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]
Lord Faulkner of Worcester ExcerptsMonday 19th July 2021
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
We now come to the group consisting of Amendment 76A. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Clause 22: Further education in England: intervention
Amendment 76A
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, on Thursday—day 2 of Committee—I asked the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, about the need for the new section to be introduced by Clause 5. It states:
“The governing body of an institution in England … must … from time to time review how well the education or training provided by the institution meets local needs, and … consider what action the institution might take … in order to meet those needs better.”
I said that I did not think this necessary because, to me, it is self-evident; that is what local further education colleges are about. I asked on what basis the Government felt it necessary to draft Clause 5 if there were many failing FE colleges. The noble Baroness made it clear to me that that was not case.
I feel the same about Clause 22 because, again, it seems to be based on the assumption that, for some reason, a number of colleges are operating on a day-to-day basis oblivious to what is happening in their own back yard. I just do not think that is the case. I repeat what I said on Thursday: not every further education college is perfect, does everything it has to do and does everything well, but there seems to be an impression by the Government that there is an attempt to undermine what the FE sector does—quite apart from the fact that, as we heard in the debate on the previous group of amendments, that sector has been seriously and serially underfunded, which can only inhibit what it is able to deliver for its local area.
I find myself a bit uncomfortable with this clause because, if a further education college does not ensure that there are no gaps in the local provision, as this amendment seeks to ensure, then what does it do? I cannot believe that such colleges just turn a blind eye. I cannot argue with Amendment 76A but I must say something to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. He used the example of Eastbourne, which he mentions, along with its 130,000 inhabitants, often. I must visit it some time; it must be a very attractive place. However, even in that local example—and, by all means, use local examples in these debates—I do not think he made the case for there being widespread failure. I repeat the point I made on Thursday: the vast majority of FE colleges know what they need to do for their locality and do it well.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, before I call the Minister, I remind Members that, for this week at least, they should send an email to the Table if they wish to speak after the Minister.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, we now come to the group beginning with Amendment 76B. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Amendment 76B
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
We now come to the group consisting of Amendment 77. Anyone wishing to press this to a Division must make that clear in the debate.
Amendment 77
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, my noble friend—despite the fact that he has been defeated by the wonders of technology—here addresses one of the other problems we have. Something went from students who knew certain essays would come up in certain courses at certain times, and vaguely plagiarising them—that went on just about everywhere—to an industry that means students can gain a qualification. Continuous assessment is reckoned to be quite a good way of learning or of assessing somebody’s ability, or has been in many cases. That is particularly vulnerable to some of these services. The sums of money involved are considerable, because people are paying for it. Furthermore, a student who does this is then open to blackmail for the rest of their professional career. Their qualification, which is the way they make their living for the rest of their life, could be invalidated or they could have a black mark against them. They might not have to pay just a few hundred pounds but could end up paying tens of thousands over the course of their lifetime.
I hope that the Minister will give us a positive answer. My noble friend is quite assiduous on this—he has a Private Member’s Bill going through. If I may appeal to those who are planning government business, it might be a quicker and easier way to accept this amendment or one like it than to have to have an entire Bill go through Parliament. There is not much hope of that but let us try.
Can we find out what the Government are planning to do about this? Technical checking of every essay might be possible—I do not know the state of play of the technology—but everything will have to be entered to be assessed by it, and I am not sure how long that takes. We will have to look at this and at things such as dissertations, or studying by oneself, which are a traditional part of long-term studies in further and higher education. These cannot really be done in any other way than a person working independently, unless there is a lot more monitoring or a lot more time spent on it by staff.
We will have to deal with this problem, or at least learn to live with it and minimise its impact. I hope that the Minister can tell us that there is a coherent plan to at least display the dangers of blackmail and coercion that people are exposed to throughout the rest of an academic career. This is a real problem, and if we can solve it or at least make it slightly better now, surely we should.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has withdrawn from this group so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, for stepping into the breach and introducing this amendment and thank all noble Lords who have spoken. I may try to fill in some of the gaps left by the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Storey. I should say at the start that we fully support the outlawing of cheating services.
The Minister needs to address three questions: is there a problem, is it getting worse, and what is the right policy response? I think we now all agree there is a problem. We discussed this recently at the Second Reading of the Private Member’s Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Storey. In responding to that debate, the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay—acknowledged the growing availability of cheating services and said that this
“puts vulnerable students at risk and threatens the reputation of our world-class higher education sector … it is reprehensible for essay mill companies to profit from a dishonest business that exploits young people’s anxiety and can undermine our world-class institutions.”
Yes, we have a problem. Is it growing? Again, yes, it is. The QAA believes there are now over 1,000 essay mills in operation.
In that debate, the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, told me that he had not read the paper by Lancaster and Cotarlan published this year in the International Journal for Educational Integrity. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, has read it or that at least she has been given a summary in her brief. It cites the 2015 work by Ardid et al which found no difference in the results students got when they took exams in person or online, provided that both types of exams were supervised. But when students took an exam online and it was not supervised, they got higher marks. That raised the obvious question as to whether students were using contract cheating in online exams. Lancaster and Cotarlan took up the challenge raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and analysed how one website, Chegg, was used during the pandemic by students in five STEM subjects.
They found that students were using it to request answers to exam-style questions and that these could be put live and answered within the duration of an exam. The number of student requests posted for those five subjects increased by almost 200% between April and August last year compared with the same period the year before. Of course, that was exactly the time when many courses moved to being delivered and assessed online. They conclude that
“students are using Chegg for assessment and exam help frequently and in a way that is not considered permissible by universities.”
In 2016, the QAA said it that would approach the main search engine companies and ask them not to accept adverts for essay mills and to block them from search engines. That does not work. This week I did a search, and loads of them appeared. I visited the Chegg website today and it still says:
“Ask an expert anytime. Take a photo of your question and get an answer in as little as 30 mins.”
There is even a website which acts as a comparison site for essay mills. I went mystery shopping on one website before the Second Reading of the Private Member’s Bill, and last week I tried another one. This time round I priced up an undergraduate essay on Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God, with three sources and Chicago referencing. With a new customer’s discount, I could have had 750 words in just three hours for £72. A full 2,500-word essay could be mine in 12 hours for £193. I did not even have to subscribe to find that out.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, is quite right: if I were a student and I succumbed to this, as well as risking my academic career, I could be putting myself at risk of being blackmailed. The HE blog wonkhe.com has given examples of students who had problems either because they felt the quality of the work was not good enough or they got cold feet, and were told that if they did not pay the fee, and sometimes pay more money, the site would tell the university that they had used an essay mill.
We accept that we have a problem and that it is growing. What is the policy solution? In the past, Ministers have insisted that legislation was not needed, and they would get sector bodies to get tough and issue guidance and penalties. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, said that the Government have been working with the HE sector and tech companies but concluded:
“Despite that work, cheating services remain prevalent.”
That takes us to legislation. It is now three years since 46 vice-chancellors wrote a joint letter calling for these websites to be banned. Meanwhile, other countries have banned essay mills, including New Zealand, South Africa and, most recently, Australia and Ireland.
On 25 June, the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, mentioned emerging evidence from Ireland and Australia which
“suggests that those laws are deterring essay mills from providing services to students, and regulators there have reported that having the legislation has provided them with more tools to engage students, higher education providers and cheating services”.—[Official Report, 25/6/21; cols. 536-37.]
Can the Minister tell the Committee why the Government do not think British students deserve the same protection from being preyed on as students in those countries? Contract cheating is a growing problem which puts students at risk and threatens academic integrity. If it keeps growing, it will start to disadvantage students who will not cheat, and that is a problem for all of us. We need to know that our doctors, engineers and lawyers have qualified based on their own merits, not on those of strangers on the internet.
So when will the Government act? If the Minister does not like this amendment, fine: she can bring her own back on Report. But if she does not, how long will we have to wait for another legislative opportunity to deal with a problem which even Ministers acknowledge is real and growing? I look forward to hearing her reply.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 78. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Amendment 78
Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]
Lord Faulkner of Worcester ExcerptsTuesday 15th June 2021
(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, it may be worth noting that the Back-Bench advisory limit of six minutes per speaker will allow us to finish at around 8 pm this evening.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox of Soho, is appearing remotely. We can see her but we cannot hear her.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
We will go to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
I hope that I can call the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox of Soho.
Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(3 years ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, I have received a request to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, from the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for doing as she typically does by responding in considered and detailed form to many of my questions and those of other noble Lords. I wonder whether she would elaborate on one point on school clothing grants; I mentioned that the guidance refers to it. Although she said the Government’s emphasis was on keeping down the price of uniforms themselves—I welcome that, of course—short of nationalising the Schoolwear Association and making it the single supplier for the whole country, I am not quite sure how the Government could achieve such an aim.
I am concerned that cash-strapped local authorities—and multi-academy trusts, which are also not exactly well off—will struggle to cope with the many responses from parents to schools in the wake of the Bill’s enactment, and with the highlighting of the availability of the grants. Will the Minister again consider providing additional resources to make sure that local authorities and MATs can meet the demands that come their way after the Bill is enacted? I am happy for her to write to me about this.
Education: The Holocaust
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, as I have outlined, the Government fund several initiatives to ensure that that testimony is available to future generations, and I will ensure that providers of apprenticeships and other courses are made aware of the work that we fund for the Holocaust Education Trust.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed and I apologise to the three noble Lords who were unable to ask their questions.
Education (Exemption from School and Further Education Institutions Inspections) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2020
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
I remind Members to sanitise their desks and chairs before leaving the Room.
Social Mobility
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, the report was co-commissioned by the department and uses the longitudinal educational outcomes data the department has been collecting. Yes, in addition to skills, social mobility obviously does not end at the age of 18. That is why we have made level 3 qualifications fully funded from April next year—available to everyone, regardless of age. We are looking at digital training and digital boot camps in areas of the country. There is a whole effort in reskilling at the moment.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
The noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Singh of Wimbledon.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, I am sure that the noble Viscount is aware that, even before this current situation, the Government had a specific initiative in relation to their workforce in Whitehall to look at moving as much as possible of the government function outside London. Around half the Department for Education’s workforce is outside London, and we are major employers in places such as Darlington. In relation to opportunity areas, teaching is obviously not a work-from-home job, but this has been about attracting teachers to those opportunity areas, and in many of them it has been successful.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the fourth Oral Question.
Education Settings: Autumn Opening
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords for welcoming, as we all do, the fact that children will return to school in September. It is the case that many children have been in school during the period of lockdown. With about 20% of vulnerable children in school, there are over 1.6 million children in school. In relation to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, we share his concerns about the progress made over many years on the attainment gap between those children on free school meals and their peers. That is why the £350 million section of the £1 billion catch-up premium is for tutoring directed to disadvantaged children.
On the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, the guidance strikes a balance between giving schools a framework in which to operate, which has been set in collaboration with Public Health England, and providing school leaders with the flexibility they need, given the multiplicity of school buildings around the country. The overarching principle in the guidance is that schools should seek to reduce the number of contacts between children and staff. It refers to achieving this through keeping groups separate in bubbles and maintaining distance between individuals. It is anticipated that the main thing that will reduce the risk for primary school children—who, of course, will not maintain social distance—is keeping groups separate. For older children, it is about maintaining distance between individuals; a year group can be the bubble for older children who, hopefully, will comply more readily with the instructions from their school leaders.
We appreciate that transport will be an issue in this regard, particularly in rural areas. The Government are advising cycling and walking and have invested £2 billion to promote this as a means to get to school and otherwise, but we recognise that it is a challenge. The guidance has therefore drawn a distinction between public transport and dedicated school transport. The most significant difference is that, while the current guidance is that the one metre-plus rule applies on public transport, it will not apply on school transport. The recommendations are that—if possible and within reason—the bubbles of pupils within school should be maintained on the school vehicle, and there should be queuing, cleaning and hand sanitisation.
As the noble Lord outlined, we recognise that there are particular issues relating to siblings and school transport, and further guidance will be published on this. However, I think it is widely recognised that the balance now is very strongly in favour of the need for children to be back in school for the sake of their health and well-being. We have carefully considered the risk of transmission of the disease—we know that, thankfully, most children are less susceptible to serious symptoms—and the balance is overwhelmingly in favour of most children returning to school.
On reorganisation, to which the noble Lord referred, class sizes can now return to normal, as I have outlined, and spaces used by more than one class can be cleaned. Until the end of the summer term, in addition to other funding we have made available exceptional funding to cover costs of up to £75,000 per school. This is to cover such things as being open during the holidays, providing vouchers other than through the central system and, of course, cleaning costs. Of the £14.4 billion extra cash over the next three years that was announced, £2.6 billion will be made available this September through the dedicated schools grant. That is in addition to the £1 billion catch-up premium.
We are, of course, concerned, as are many parents, about lost education, particularly for those children who will sit their main examinations—GCSEs and A-levels—next year. As of 2 July, Ofqual has published consultation proposals on a range of possible changes which we realise may have to be made to next year’s examinations. The overriding aim, as with this year’s examination results, is that the arrangements are as fair as possible and give appropriate recognition to children’s achievements. I invite the noble Lord, Lord Watson, to respond to this consultation, which contains a raft of different options to ensure that students can be confident in their results.
On track and trace, there is confidence that this system is up and running. Tests will be available for staff, pupils and their households and, obviously, local health teams should be notified where people test positive. We are distributing a small number of home kits, as the Secretary of State for Education outlined, which people can take home if they develop symptoms on school premises. I am happy to confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that there are no grounds for his suspicion that the £1 billion is not new money: it will be in addition to the core schools budget. The year seven premium to which he referred is not relevant to the £1 billion, because that is now included in the national funding formula. The £1 billion is in addition to the national funding formula money that I have outlined.
The questions from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, on children’s attendance in school are incredibly important. All the statutory obligations on schools to record attendance and any authorised or unauthorised absences will be in force as of September. It is important that we have that information; during this period we have published the statistics on how many children have been in school. As regards the broad, ambitious and balanced curriculum that we have outlined in the guidance, we believe that it is feasible for schools to look at how they will alter the priorities with which they will teach certain aspects of the curriculum. For instance, in maths, it is more important that young people get arithmetic skills than that they potentially learn Roman numerals. Therefore we leave it to schools to do that. We anticipate that the schools will be teaching to the curriculum by the summer of next year, but we have allowed them that flexibility.
Indeed, the statistic in terms of catch-up through the tutoring service—six to 12 weeks—is evidence-based and, as regards the catch-up premium, we have made available information from the Education Endowment Foundation to help schools use that money wisely. I can reassure the noble Lord that we have published guidance for special schools. Of course, they have to do many more individual risk assessments for pupils, but they have the benefit of smaller groups, and they will potentially be impacted by the changes to the shielding guidance that will happen on 1 August.
However, I share the noble Lord’s concerns about any children missing from our schools. He will be aware that the department carried out a consultation on proposals to introduce a registration scheme for children who are home educated. I assure him that we will publish that consultation response soon and that during this period, as well as Ofsted’s obligations to investigate safeguarding, it has also been acting on any intelligence it has received about any unregistered settings. It is supported by us to conduct such visits if it believes that there is an unregistered setting, and it continues to act on that intelligence. The noble Lord is probably aware that in recent years there have been a number of successful prosecutions. The department takes it very seriously, particularly in terms of safeguarding and the provision of education, if anyone is operating an unregistered educational setting.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, we now come to the 30 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. Can questions and answers please be brief, so that I can call the maximum number of speakers?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, in relation to the funding that is needed, as I have outlined, there are many pots of money. There is of course the regular £2.4 billion of the pupil premium.
Over 200,000 laptops were ordered because we need to be flexible in these coming circumstances, and eventually we purchased 230,000 in order to have that flexibility.
In relation to excluded children, AP settings are expected to be open and have been open because we have wanted them to have some face-to-face contact with all their students. I pay tribute to those settings, many of which have kept in touch with those vulnerable children during this time.
The Deputy Speaker
The noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, has withdrawn his name, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, will my noble friend join me in sincerely thanking all those teachers who have worked, many of them solidly since the February half-term, through the Easter holidays, not least to teach the children of front-line workers and those with special needs? On the subject of laptops, of those 230,000 how many have actually been delivered and how many are being effectively used right now by students?