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Education and Skills Bill

I entirely understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. I have experienced similar situations with young students, but I remain convinced that such students would not have been adequately susceptible to the persuasion that he or I—or those who now have these roles in education—could offer them. Only compulsion will make it possible for them to resist the pressures, whether from family or from society more generally, to leave and do something that they might perceive to be more exciting. I entirely take the hon. Gentleman's point, however, about the need to include in the Bill, as the Government have done, the provision for this to be done on a mix-and-match basis, so that it will be possible to tailor what these young students will be compelled to do in order to meet their needs. I listened with interest to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) when he spoke earlier of the need for those involved in education, both in the Government and more generally, to think outside the box. I am sure that other right hon. and hon. Members will have seen that much thinking outside the box is already taking place in education. A lot of groundwork has already been done to enable the realisation of the Government's vision of doing something other than just sitting 16 to 18-year-olds in a classroom for an extra couple of years and forcing them to suffer what many of them have already become disaffected with, even before reaching that age. I want briefly to mention two examples of very good practice in my constituency. The first is Leicester college, in the higher education sector. It is one of the largest further education colleges in the United Kingdom, and it deals with total student numbers of 27,000-plus. It is a good example of the ability of the education sector generally to deal with the diverse needs of its students and with the needs of the community that it serves. It has won many awards, and tailors its courses to include subjects that are relevant to the students and to the local community, including print skills, retail, construction and enterprise. Increasingly, information technology and computing are among its successes. It is also doing an increasing amount with one of the local universities, De Montfort university, and providing a good example of taking forward existing opportunities to meet the challenges that will undoubtedly come from increasing the age of participation in education and training from 16 to 18. I also want to mention Regent college in my constituency. It was set up as a sixth-form college on the premises of a former grammar school. It had a heavy academic bias at its inception, but it has now adapted to the needs of its community in a way that is really quite remarkable, under the impressive leadership of its principal, Eddie Playfair. The college now deals with a very diverse intake of students, including increasing numbers from the newly arrived Somali community in the city, and it is able to offer a varied curriculum—from A-levels and GCSEs to a whole range of vocational courses. It can also support students who would traditionally have looked only to the FE college for courses that interested them. Regent college thrives because its students want to be there, which is the whole point of the proposals in the Bill. As I argued earlier, compulsion needs to be one element, but success will be judged overwhelmingly by whether students want to be in education. It is the case that many education institutions in my constituency and throughout the UK are already thinking outside the box and are already recognising that they need to offer courses that are relevant to the local economy, but relevant above all to their students, so that they will continue to want to be there. I mentioned dealing with ROSLA in my earlier teaching career. Later in my career, I became a special needs teacher, so I am painfully aware that, despite the efforts of me and my colleagues, our successes were often somewhat limited. The UK figures on the number of people who are still functionally illiterate or innumerate present a major challenge to us all and reflect the fact that we were not as successful as we wanted to be when those people first came into education. The Government's targets for increasing literacy by 600,000 and numeracy by 400,000 by 2011 are very ambitious, but are absolutely essential and worth while. I began by talking about my experience of ROSLA. During that year of teaching, I was often asked by those very reluctant students why on earth they were there. My response was that it was for their own good. I tried to explain in a little more detail than that, but that was the essence of it. It is also the answer given to young people in education generally—that they are there for their own good. I believe that the Government are right that we are entitled to say to 16 to 18-year-olds that it is for their own good that they remain in education or training, or in the very flexible range of alternatives offered in the Bill. We are also entitled to say that it is for society's good and for the good of the economy, but the Bill's extension of provision is most fundamentally of all for the good of those participating in 16 to 18 education and training. The Government and the whole education service face the challenge of demonstrating to young people that it is indeed for their own good and ensuring that, when we say that to them, it is really true. I have no doubt that the Government are showing the necessary determination to deliver the quality of education and training that young people of that age deserve. Equally, I have no doubt that the Government and their partners in education more generally are determined to deliver for the benefit of those young people.