HC Deb 25 January 1957 vol 563 cc631-40

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Legh.]

3.58 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Moyle (Oldbury and Halesowen)

Anxious as I am, in conjunction with my colleagues, to get rid of this Government as soon as possible, it would be churlish on my part if I did not wish the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education, who will reply to this debate, well, but for not too long, in his new office. I want to congratulate the hon. Gentleman for personal reasons on his appointment. The only thing I would add is that although the noble Lord the Minister of Education, in another place, and himself, are masters of what I call the gleaming phrase, both the Parliamentary Secretary and the noble Lord will be judged by what they do, and not by what they say, in the new field which they are both entering, education.

May I direct the attention of the Government for a few moments to what I think is an exceedingly important problem at present? It was referred to by the Minister of Labour in the last debate we had in the House on the economic situation, when he spoke about the increasing number of young people of school-leaving age. This year 613,000 will leave school at the age of 15. This number will progressively—

It being Four o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. R. Thompson.]

Mr. Moyle

This number of school leavers will increase progressively until the peak is reached in 1962. Roughly speaking, the increase will be about 50 per cent. between 1957 and 1962. The figures are estimated for 1962 to be 930,000.

We have heard a great deal about the "battle of the bulge," that rather graphic phrase used by the teaching profession in describing the efforts to assimilate the increasing school population, which came, of course, from the rapid rise in the birthrate in the years immediately following the war. The battle was fought in the primary schools, and with some success. It is now being waged in the secondary schools, with what success we do not know, and the final battle of that bulge will be fought for the adolescents in the immediate years to follow, particularly when we reach 1962.

This problem has many facets, and in the short time I have left to me I want to direct the Parliamentary Secretary's attention to what I think is the most important aspect, the school-leaving population of 613,000 this year, most of whom will have been educated in the secondary modern school. Two-thirds of our school population receive their education there. Of those who have left school in recent years the great majority have been lost to education at the age of 15—completely lost, never to return to it.

Of those who find employment the great majority are lost in blind alley occupations which have proved and will prove of little use to themselves and certainly of little economic value to this country. Those are facts which are increasingly disturbing. One in three of our boys finds employment in apprenticeship, or employment involving skilled training. Of the girls the proportion is much less. One in ten of our girls finds employment which involves skilled training.

The nation is being continuously exhorted to become more competitive in the markets of the world. The Chancellor of the Exchequer continually exhorts the nation, and in his most recent speech he deplored the lack of technical skill. We are told that unless we do become more competitive the future is indeed grim. The old saying is exceedingly trite today, that if this country does not export it perishes.

Yet towards this potential labour supply there is manifested by the Government an indifference that is deplorable, if not criminal. It is a vast supply of potential labour, and most of it is virtually running to seed. We have been told recently that 1 per cent. of those who are recruited for National Service are illiterate and 20 per cent. are of a poor standard of literacy. Those are the facts. They are grim. I want to ask the Government what they propose to do about them.

For these youngsters between the ages of 15 and 18 there is a gap in our educational system which nullifies much of what we do in education. We must face up to the need of filling that gap as soon as possible. Otherwise, what kind of human beings will these youngsters grow up to be and what kind of citizens shall we make of them, bearing in mind the facts which I have outlined?

The Education Act, 1944, confers upon the Minister of Education, as it has conferred upon his predecessors, all the powers which are necessary to deal with this problem, but little has been done because of the economy measures imposed by the Government from time to time, which have restricted capital investment and restricted expenditure on educational projects, thus preventing the fulfilment of the purposes of the 1944 Act.

I would suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that our most urgent task is to face up to improving the standards of our secondary modern schools and making it possible for youngsters there to have a continuing interest in education by providing education in the workshops as well as in the classrooms. There are children who can be educated through their hands if I may use that metaphor, much more easily than they can be educated through their heads, and if we can get workshop equipment in our secondary modern schools, as well as the classrooms, with an adequate supply of teachers, we shall begin to tackle the problem and to develop a disposition among young people towards seeking employment in skilled and apprenticeship occupations.

In view of the need for vocational skills, which is referred to briefly as technical education, the time has come—indeed, it is overdue—when the Government should announce their intentions about the establishment of county colleges, a project which has been retarded as a result of the Government's economy measures. I ask the Government to consider two things: the establishment of county colleges throughout the country and the introduction of compulsory part-time education for adolescents. Those two projects must be seriously considered by the Government. The time has come for some advance in that matter.

If we are to direct youth into useful employment, we must have some machinery for their education until such time as we have county colleges and compulsory part-time education. That is the Youth Service. Local authorities have had placed upon them the obligation to provide a Youth Service and fully trained and competent youth organisers qualified to deal with the problems of youth welfare.

However, the fact is that very few colleges devote courses to the training of youth leaders. A few are being trained at Swansea Training College and a few at the Westhill Training College, near Birmingham, but 50 would be a fair estimate of the total number in the last two years from both colleges. Generally speaking, the service, which started with great promise, has virtually shrivelled almost to the point of perishing.

The Minister of Education must now give an impetus to the provision of county colleges and the introduction of compulsory part-time education for adolescents from 15 to 18 and develop the Youth Service, as he has the power to do, and make local authorities the basis for it. The voluntary associations are doing a good job, but they just cannot meet the needs. The development of the service should be placed fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the local authorities, assisted by the voluntary associations.

One reason why local authorities have lost enthusiasm for the Youth Service is that they cannot get competent youth leaders or organisers and are not prepared to develop a service which is manned by what they regard as incompetent personnel. That is the vicious circle and it is time that the Government made a statement which would encourage local authorities on that aspect of the matter. I am not saying that county colleges will completely meet the needs of youth. The aptitudes of youth are as varied as those of adults and the approach to youth must be as varied and diverse as their various aptitudes. Club centres should be developed so that young people can be given a chance of developing not only skills but the character which will stand them in good stead when they come to exercise their rights and duties as citizens.

Finally, I should like to make a plea for equity. At present, two-thirds of the cost of maintaining our universities for those who are academically minded comes from public funds, and the duke's son, as well as the coster's son, who derive their education from those sources, owe a debt to the community as a whole. Do not the Government think that it is about time that what has been done for the academic student should now be seriously attempted for those young people who are not academically minded, but who have a natural bent for useful work in industry, and to see that those young people get a fair deal, so that when they reach citizenship they will not turn round and say, "While we are called upon to pay for the education of others, we never had a fair crack of the whip ourselves"?

4.16 p.m.

Mr. J. C. Jennings (Burton)

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary upon his appointment and wish him every success in his new office. Having spent many years in youth work, I welcome the contribution made by the hon. Member for Oldbury and Halesowen (Mr. Moyle) and concur in almost everything he said.

I want to deal with this subject under two headings, without developing any points in detail. I face the realities and recognise that we cannot have county colleges for a considerable time. Therefore. I want to consider the practical implications of the present set-up in the Youth Service. There are some ways in which we can improve matters. First, we must increase the number of full-time youth leaders. To achieve this we must increase the status of the youth leader, and I suggest that my hon. Friend should now look at the salary scales of these people and at their methods and length of training.

Second—and this is a very grave question in the minds of youth leaders—there must be an increase in the opportunity of youth leaders to move to other educational posts after middle life. If we can get that form of continuous security in the life of the youth leader, in conjunction with the other requisites, we shall vastly improve the Youth Service.

4.18 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Sir Edward Boyle)

I thank the hon. Member for Oldbury and Halesowen (Mr. Moyle) and my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings) most sincerely for all their kind remarks about myself. I can assure the hon. Member for Oldbury and Halesowen that the cause of education in this country matters a very great deal more to me than party scores or the relative distinction of contributions made across the Floor of the House. I am extremely honoured and delighted that I should have been asked to fulfil this highly important post.

The question of youth leaders and the Youth Service greatly interested my predecessor, who is now the Minister of Health. In October, 1956, he addressed a gathering convened by the Standing Conference of National Voluntary Youth Organisations. In his speech to that body he made it quite clear, first, that the Ministry attached great importance to the Youth Service; secondly, that it must continue to be, in the main, a voluntary service and, thirdly, that he was prepared to give further consideration to the question of the proper training for full-time youth leaders.

I quite agree with what has been said about the importance of full-time youth leaders. My hon. Friend the Member for Burton made two most helpful points when he referred to the question of salary scales and security, both of which we have very much in mind. The present Minister of Health followed up his speech by arranging for a discussion with representatives of local authority associations and the Standing Conference of National Voluntary Youth Organisations to consider whether the money now spent on the Youth Service was being spent to the best advantage, and what should be done about the training of full-time leaders.

This conference ought to have taken place in February but, in view of recent events within the Ministry of Education, it has now been postponed, but I should like to make it absolutely clear that it is only a postponement and that there is no question of putting off this conference indefinitely. We will hold it as soon as we reasonably can. I very much agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Burton, who said this was not merely a matter of quantity but one of quality as well.

May I, without wearying the House and in the short time I have available, say that although local education authorities may not be increasing very much the amount of money they spend directly on the Youth Service, none the less provision for the 15.18 age group is being increased in this country in a number of ways. In the first place, as I know all hon. Members will be aware, a larger percentage of students over 15 is staying on at school. I will not give a whole string of figures, but will only say that between 1951 and 1956 the percentage of 15-year-olds has risen from 21.6 to 24.8 per cent., and that the percentage of 16-year-olds has also risen from 9.11 to 11.8 per cent.

This is encouraging, as is also the fact that the number of young people under 21 released by their employers for daytime study has been increasing steadily. In the financial year 1950–51, the number was 230,000, by 1954–55 it had risen to 311,000, and the figure for 1955–56 is estimated at about 334,000. Of course, and this is the most important thing of all, the White Paper on Technical Education published in 1956 aims at doubling the number of students of all ages within the next five years, and certainly we attach great importance to that objective.

Thirdly, it is hoped that further education colleges will develop their own corporate life and that their students will develop leisure activities like those of university students. This is difficult so long as building for further education was confined to bare necessities, but current building policy does allow for the provision of amenities which should enable the local colleges to play their part as centres of informal education. Finally, the Youth Employment Service has been established on a new footing since the war, and its work of guiding people into the right jobs and the right forms of further education is vital for their welfare.

So far as the Youth Service is concerned—and I am sorry to be going so fast, but I know my hon. Friend would have the same objective, and I want to say as much as I can in the time—I might sum up our policy under five heads. First of all, although no more money is available for the time being to help the Youth Service directly, my noble Friend attaches very great importance to the work of voluntary organisations, which has never been more valuable than it is now.

Secondly, it is worth examining whether the money now being spent on the Youth Service is spent to the best advantage, and it will certainly be my own intention to continue the examination of this question which was inaugurated by my predecessor, in consultation with the local authority associations and the Standing Conference of National Voluntary Youth Organisations.

Thirdly, we shall continue the trends I have already mentioned, which will mean that there are more educational facilities for people of the age group 15–18. Fourthly, I do believe that without any appreciable increase in expenditure, local education authorities can do a good deal to help the Youth Service in two or three ways. They can arrange training courses for part-time youth leaders. They can encourage the co-ordination of effort locally through local youth committees so as to eliminate overlapping and waste of effort. They can put their schools and playing fields freely at the disposal of the youth organisations, and as far as possible plan their schools with evening use in mind. Those are three ways in which I think, without any very great increase in expenditure, local authorities can do a good deal to help the Youth Service.

Finally, the Central Advisory Council is at present conducting an inquiry into the education of the age group 15 to 18 which, I hope, will throw a good deal of general light on the problems involved and the best way in which we can deal with them.

Mr. Moyle

lf, in pursuance of this inquiry by the Central Advisory Council, the Council will see whether something can be done to make more employers ready to give more release time to young people without loss of pay so that they can be encouraged to take up this study, that would be a good thing. On the whole, the position is fairly satisfactory at the moment.

Sir E. Boyle

Certainly. I am sure that is a point which the Council will bear in mind, and I am also sure that my noble Friend will agree with the point made by the hon. Gentleman.

The hon. Gentleman referred in his very interesting speech to the question of improving standards generally in secondary modern schools. That is a huge question which we cannot discuss now, but I must say I think that the speech of the former Minister of Education last July showed the real concern he felt on the point, and I have no doubt at all that the views he expressed will represent Government policy generally during the period ahead.

On the subject of compulsory part-time day release, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, the difficulty is really this. Such a policy of compulsory part-time day release would, of course, cost a very great deal. It would probably cost in resources something in the region of £100 million. The real difficulty is here; when we have more resources to devote to education, one has to decide what the priorities are. One would have to consider whether, for example, compulsory part-time day release is really more important than raising the school age to 16. These are obviously very big questions indeed.

I do not in any way underrate the importance of what the hon. Gentleman said, but I think we have to remember that the White Paper on Technical Education envisaged a very big step forward, that we should have a doubling of the number of students of all ages during the next five years. We have, I feel, to interpret the intentions of the 1944 Act in the light of existing conditions and the priorities which seem most urgent today. That is the position as the Government see it.

I am sure that the whole House is grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this matter, and, if I may, I will end as I began, by saying just how I feel the sense of the importance of this subject. Certainly I would not disagree at all with the views expressed by that very eminent writer, Professor Barbara Wootton, when she said that what promotes the physical and mental health of people is the subject that occupies their minds.

Mr. Michael Stewart (Fulham)

I was interested to hear the hon. Gentleman refer to the salary and status of part-time youth workers. We all appreciate the valuable work done in this field, but it cannot be used to best advantage unless there is a sufficient framework of full-time workers. This is not only an important, but an urgent question. If something is not done soon, there is a danger that the service may die from lack of encouragement. I hope the hon. Gentleman will recognise the importance of this.

Sir E. Boyle

Of course, I appreciate the importance of what the hon. Gentleman says.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Four o'clock.