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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

I will try to do so, Madam Deputy Speaker. My argument is that our money should be spent on developing the curriculum and on training teachers to deliver it. That is the key to improving teaching and learning. I suggest, for example, that our children should first learn about their own country, its history, traditions and culture. That is easy to say, but it takes a lot of thought and spending to develop that curriculum. If there are two historians in a room, they will have three different views on how to deliver the history curriculum. English teachers will argue for a long time about what children should be reading. I suggest that we need to be guided by two points. First, we need to prepare our children for work, but the second is that we also need to prepare them to live. Education is about living well, and the decisions that we make about the curriculum, and the money that we put into it, should be guided by the desire to ensure that our children have access to the best. We should educate them for leisure, as well as for work. Secondly, children need to learn about at least one other culture. Culture is accessed through language, and we have heard the comments on Lord Dearing’s report on the teaching of languages in primary schools. What he said was largely correct, but it still raises questions about how the money can be provided for developing the materials that will be needed to teach languages in primary schools and to train teachers to deliver that curriculum. There is also a question about which languages should be taught. Traditionally in this country most people have learned French or German at school. If we are to move to teaching other languages, it will have major implications for public policy and finance, in developing the staff to deliver them. It is right that we should do so, but long-term financial decisions have to be made about how to spend our money. The third point is about science education. The Secretary of State said in his opening remarks that we are now getting more maths and physics teachers into our schools and more people are taking those subjects at university. But it is vital that children leave school with some basic scientific literacy—an understanding of scientific methods and of how science has shaped our world. Children also need to leave school with certain skills. When the Education and Skills Committee considered citizenship education, for example, it found that we need to encourage active citizenship in our young people. They need to learn how to take responsibility and about the need to take part in their community. We need to consider whether all young people should undertake some community service as part of their progress towards leaving school. Perhaps an over-arching leaving certificate should include some such service—