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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I support all the sentiments which imply that we must focus on the child as a whole being with many forms of potential, and I certainly support all that leads to the enhancement of that. However, I would regret dropping ““educational”” in Clause 1, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, suggests, for two reasons. The first is that I have a very high view of education and I believe that education properly carried out extends well beyond what we call, I think mistakenly, the ““merely academic””. The second reason I would regret dropping ““educational”” to qualify potential here is that I can recall the case of a schoolboy who, to all intents and purposes, certainly fulfilled the potential that his fellow schoolboys saw in him to the extent of being subject to the detailed attentions of the fraud squad and a period in Barlinnie prison following that. We need to qualify ““potential””, and I cannot think of a better word than ““educational””.