Robert Flello
Main Page: Robert Flello (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent South)Department Debates - View all Robert Flello's debates with the Department for Education
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman makes a characteristically shrewd point. Professor Alison Wolf argued in her report that we should ensure parity of esteem between teachers in schools and those in further education colleges, that the qualified teacher learning and skills status, or QTLS, qualification should be considered equivalent to qualified teacher status, or QTS, and that the links between schools and FE colleges should be improved in a number of ways. As ever, the hon. Gentleman hits the nail squarely on the head.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
12. What recent representations he has received on the breadth of the curriculum.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
We are currently reviewing the national curriculum. As part of that review, we carried out a call for evidence that attracted nearly 5,800 responses, including many that raised issues about the breadth of the curriculum. The national curriculum sets out the curriculum that all maintained schools must teach, but it is only part of the wider curriculum, which is determined by school themselves. All schools are required to teach a broad and balanced curriculum.
Robert Flello
In considering representations, has the Minister thought about what Barack Obama’s Education Secretary said? He commented:
“U.S. students will need both the hard skills of math and English language arts and science, and the soft employability skills, to thrive in our flattened world.”
Will the Minister perhaps reconsider things such as the E-bac curriculum for a flattened world rather than continuing with the flat earth views he seems to have had until now?