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Higher Education

We should congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister for Higher Education and Lifelong Learning on his role in initiating this debate on widening access. It is high time that we debated the subject in the House. The Select Committee on Education and Skills has just embarked on a major inquiry into the sustainable university and the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson) is welcome to participate in any of our sessions. I am sure that some of the distinguished people who will give evidence over the next few weeks will be of great interest to him. We must look seriously at the progress report on higher education. Much of what the Minister said is right and should be welcomed. I hope I shall not be castigated by anyone in the university world if some of my remarks are a little uncomplimentary about the higher education sector’s timidity in meeting some of the challenges. I think all parties agree that getting less-privileged young people into higher education is a difficult job, and that although all the statistics show that there has been gradual improvement, it has not been fast enough for most of us. What should we do about that? We know that more than 90 per cent. of 18-year-olds with the appropriate qualifications go into higher education. Most young people who remain in education after the age of 17 go on to higher education, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly), who has left the Chamber, suggested. That is to be celebrated, but those figures do not include enough kids from poorer backgrounds. We need to raise both our aspirations for those young people and their achievements. Can I have my cake and eat it? What irritates me about some of our colleagues—not just Opposition Members, but Labour Members too—and many media commentators is that they pontificate about what goes on in our schools but do not actually visit them. In my job, I make sure that I get a strike record of visiting two or three schools a week. That means piling in an awful lot during term time. However, there is nothing like it. If you, Madam Deputy Speaker, picked up The Sunday Times and read the education stories and finished with the last page and an article by the former chief inspector of schools, that would almost drive you to suicide. The only thing that prevents a suicidal act in my case is the prospect of visiting a real school on the Monday or Tuesday. If we go to a school, we see the good teaching, great learning and the highly motivated staff. The best teachers that I have seen in my lifetime are now coming through. The new generation of teachers make wonderful school leaders. Indeed, last week, I spoke at the national college for school leadership in Nottingham and saw how many new young heads are coming through aided by inspirational new programmes such as ““fast track”” that identify early on the young teachers who have the potential to become heads. I met two only last week. They are aged 29 and they are heads of their schools. That is truly inspirational.