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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, Amendment No. 98 would give governing bodies the power to introduce IGCSE courses in English, maths and science and add the IGCSE to the list of qualifications acceptable for the achievement and attainment tables. This issue has been raised on several occasions during debates on the Bill in this House and in another place. We have given it a great deal of thought. The IGCSE is a reputable qualification which some schools in this country clearly regard as beneficial to their students. However, we have a national statutory curriculum in place to ensure that all pupils receive a broad and rich curriculum. The Government must stand by the requirements of that curriculum. We would need to be sure, before we could allow the IGCSE to be used in state schools, that it met essential requirements in this regard. In order to take that forward, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State asked the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority to study the IGCSE and to give us its advice. We have now received its report. My right honourable friend proposes to ask the QCA—with the agreement of Cambridge Assessment and Edexcel, the two awarding bodies offering the IGCSE—to publish its report so that the Government can invite a wider consultation within the education community and beyond on the IGCSE’s use in the maintained sector. We will then look at the results of that consultation with an open mind. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, will find this a constructive way forward and that she, her party and other noble Lords who have expressed an interest will contribute to the consultation. At the end of that consultation, my right honourable friend and I will look at this issue to see whether it would be appropriate to allow the IGCSE to be offered in state schools. Amendment No. 99, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, seeks to ensure that all young people, whatever their level of ability, have access to courses in which they can succeed and to which they are suited. I broadly agreed with the noble Lord’s remarks. In the past our curriculum has not been sufficiently flexible or rich to offer students opportunities of the kind that the noble Lord described. We accept that we must do a great deal more to meet their needs and to ensure that they have a successful experience of education so that they can leave school with skills they can apply in the workplace and are not held back by an unduly rigid curriculum and set of opportunities in school. I believe that the reforms we are putting in place will substantially, although perhaps not entirely, meet the points that the noble Lord raised. We probably part company only on the issue of continuing entitlements. Perhaps I may say to him in passing that not all entitlements are statutory. If they were, we would not have the problem that we now have in modern languages and we would not be inviting the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, to issue his report. That is a classic area, and there are many others, where we have entitlements to provision within the curriculum that are not mandatory. They sometimes cause us difficulties because they lead students to choose not to follow those courses. In respect of modern languages, which is a pertinent issue, it was precisely with the group of students which the noble Lord mentioned in mind—those who are under-motivated by the current curriculum and need more flexibility as they come up to GCSE—that we were influenced to give more flexibility, to allow more opportunities for particularly work-related learning, and not to oblige students who have ceased to be motivated by particular subjects to continue all the way to 16. That comes at a price, though, and our debates on modern languages during the Bill’s passage show that the price can be a serious one where students choose not to follow courses that we regard as worth while. But we have been prepared to go down that road. The issue of some difficulty is the core subjects, which the noble Lord mentioned and the House would not wish to see unstudied in state schools up to the age of 16. Even here, however, I suspect that the difference between the noble Lord and myself is more apparent than real. He said that he would wish functional English and mathematics to continue to be taught, and so do we. The introduction of diplomas will give more flexibility on that. The foundation level of the diploma—which is geared at students who currently achieve between grades D and G at GCSE, precisely the group that the noble Lord mentioned—will offer those students the opportunity to succeed with a worthwhile qualification. That will include, in its generic components, English and mathematics of a functional nature and not the whole programme leading to the current GCSE. Equally, we recognise the larger role that work-related learning can play. From September we have introduced the key stage 4 engagement programme, with precisely the sorts of students that the noble Lord mentioned in mind. It is designed to offer a motivating and engaging route for 14 to 16 year-olds at risk of disaffection, has a significant work focus of up to two days a week and is tailored to individual circumstances. From September, 21 schemes began for up to 5,000 young people. We shall study the experience of those schemes with care to see whether they are capable of wider application. I will see that the noble Lord has full details of them and can contribute to the ongoing debate about how we take this part of curriculum development forward. Amendment No. 100, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, seeks to allow all young people to choose to study both a specialised diploma and a course of study in one or more of the four entitlement areas of the arts, humanities, design and technology and modern foreign languages. The noble Baroness described this as a probing amendment, to understand more what our thinking was. I believe that her objectives are met by the design of the diploma as it is being taken forward by the sector skills councils, the departments and the QCA. At each of the three levels—level 1, the foundation level; level 2, which is equivalent to GCSEs; andlevel 3, which is equivalent to A-levels—the specialised diplomas will have three components: a generic component—English, maths and ICT; a principal learning component that will be sector-related to the area of the diploma; and, crucially, an additional specialist learning component. That additional specialist learning component may be further intensive study in the specialist area of the diploma—for example, a student studying engineering might study mechanical engineering in greater depth as part of his additional specialist learning—or it may involve taking additional subjects within the scope of the diploma, which would, for example, enable students in any of the diploma lines to study modern foreign languages as part of their additional learning. At level 2, the entire diploma will be equivalent to approximately six GCSEs. We have not finally decided the number, but it is likely to be in that area. That will give students the opportunity to study the equivalent of two to three GCSEs in their additional learning component. The areas in which students will be able to engage in additional learning will include the four areas specified in the noble Baroness’s amendment: the arts, humanities, design and technology and modern foreign languages. I understand the point that the noble Baroness made, but we are not seeking to introduce new rigidities into the system. The whole purpose of the diploma is to significantly enlarge opportunities and make it much more possible for students to match theoretical and applied learning. We do not believe that it will be difficult for students to change diploma lines between levels 2 and 3. Students are not being required at the age of 14 to take a decision about their diploma line that will bind them until they finish school or college at the age of 18. On the contrary, the level 2 diploma, which is likely to be equivalent to six GCSEs at grades A* to C, will take students to the age of 16 when they will decide whether to take A-levels or to follow a diploma line at level 3, in exactly the same way as students who have gone down the conventional GCSE route decide at the end of their GCSEs. We are not in the business of introducing new rigidities.