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Education and Skills Bill

I say hooray to that. I am pleased that the Minister has made a great stride in the right direction and that we are making progress, although resistance still exists. I have heard too many anecdotes—there is not time to tell them all now—of head teachers who would threaten teachers with the sack if they showed any signs of using traditional teaching methods. We hope that that has now passed, but many teachers still feel uncomfortable with those methods, which were thought to be tried and tested before they were kicked out 45 years ago. I shall finish by again making an uncomfortable comparison with other countries in Europe. I am talking about another Sig Prais bit of research, which was shown on television about 15 years ago and which compared kitchen manufacturers in Germany and in Britain. The shop floor workers in Germany would take an order in English and translate it without difficulty into a custom-made kitchen arrangement for an order for Britain, including all the calculating and measuring. They contrasted that with the situation in Britain, where not only did the workers not have a clue about any foreign language, but they did not even do their own calculations. People in the office did the calculations and the workers did the routine cutting. There was a sharp contrast, even among skilled workers, between Germany and Britain. I have spent some time travelling around Europe with the Industry and Parliament Trust to look at industry, and there are marked differences. Things are improving in Britain, but we have some way to go. I may incur the wrath of all primary school teachers if I say that 35 years ago 60 per cent. of primary school teachers in Britain had failed O-level maths, but they were still responsible for teaching the elements of mathematics to all our children. That was very worrying. O-level maths may not be necessary in junior schools, but if teachers are so uncomfortable with mathematics that they cannot pass O-level, they will not be very confident communicating the subject to children in school. I know that we have moved on from there, but this country still has a serious problem with mathematics and basic literacy, and I hope that the Government will address that in future.