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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I should like to add one or two points. I agree with quite a lot of the discussion that has been put forward today. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, that we need the type of course being suggested. Having looked into this—not in detail, I must admit—and having spent the past 40 years involved in syllabus corrections and curricula dealings in chemistry, I can look at it with a degree of objectivity. One problem is quite simple: we have two different sections of the community, as we have heard. We need to recognise that there is a need within the public to understand science. However, my experience has been that the correlation between that course and the A-level is a big step. A big difficulty that we face is that if we are to do this course as well, we should reconsider the A-level. This cannot be dealt with in a piecemeal fashion. In response to a question earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, the Minister said that a larger number of people are taking AS level, but those people do not necessarily go on to take A-level. They are encouraged to take AS level because, say, chemistry attracts them. When they start AS-level or A-level chemistry, they find that it is not the same animal at all and that it is a much more difficult animal to deal with, so they very often drop it like a hot potato at that stage. We cannot consider the curricula in bits, as we do. There is a continuum that must go from GCSE to AS-level to A-level and, perhaps I may dare say, to universities. In many ways, universities are the culprits in this because they set the standards of entry. Very often, they set the standards by saying, ““We want the old A-level type of result”” and do not recognisethe problems which have now become inherent in the whole concept of modern day society; namely, that we must educate people in a general way and then allow for specialisation to come forward. I have great sympathy with the suggestion being made. I believe that the only way we will deal with the present AS/A-level is by having specialisation at earlier stages. In my mind, the correct answer is to look now at the AS and the A-level.