FURTHER EDUCATION (DAY RELEASE)

HC Deb 29 July 1964 vol 699 cc1670-86

4.17 a.m.

Mr. James Boyden (Bishop Auckland)

Leaving aside the prejudice which the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of State for Education and Science may have induced in me by his accurate and pleasing reference to my constituency, may I say how much I appreciate his diligence, patience and courtesy on these early-hour occasions. The hour seems in no way to affect those qualities which he shows on so many occasions. But I gather that the Under-Secretary is to reply to me.

It is my intention to raise the Report of the Henniker-Heaton Committee and Government action throughout on the further education of young people and day release. Both the Crowther and the Newsom Committees have done great service to education and politics by emphasising the large numbers of young people who receive no education after leaving school, and this is at a time when all social and political problems become more complicated and those receiving higher education full time have longer and more expensive courses than ever before.

If there were two nations separated by a great social and economic gulf in Disraeli's 1864, there are two worlds today separated by a great educational chasm. On the one hand, there are those, post-graduates seeking refresher courses, those joining actively in the courses provided by extra-mural departments and the W.E.A., who are gluttons for education, and quite rightly—and who are not always encouraged as they should be by the Secretary of State for Education and Science; and on the other hand, there are those referred to in Chapter 35 of the Crowther Report, which opens in this way: An observer of English education can hardly fail to be disturbed by the large number of able boys and girls who lose their intellectual curiosity before they have exhausted their capacity to learn. There are, of course, dull patches in every subject, but the distaste to which we refer goes much deeper than this temporary boredom. It is more akin to accidie, that deep-seated apathy which theologians class as one of the seven deadly sins. It is at the root of a great deal of social disorder as well as being a great loss to the community, as so many of the young people have great capacities which both the Newsom and the Crowther Report have emphasised. One of our tasks is to harness the education and enthusiasm of those with considerable educational qualifications—administrators and industrialists, for example—so that they take much more interest than they take now in the education of those educationally deprived groups who are the subject of this debate. We need a missionary zeal, shown for education generally by many graduates and others, too, in adult education, in the cause of the W.E.A. which Professor Dover Wilson espoused immediately after the 1914–18 war.

The Newsom Report has brought out very well indeed that the potentialites for development exist. I was very struck by its saying that one quarter of the children it was reporting on belonged to school organisations and participated in extramural curricula, and that one-half took part in activties outside the school, and that although a great many of them engaged in paid work, this did not interfere with their work in school, or with their capacity to do these things. This indicates the toughness of our young people, a toughness which is being wasted because of the lack of day release, the lack of further education facilities, to which I shall come in a moment.

I want now to make one further reference to the Crowther Committee, which links up very well with the objectives of the Henniker-Heaton Committee and what, I am sure, will be the objectives of the Department of Education and Science. It is that we are at the point where we need to multiply and develop all sorts of unorthodox approaches and a whole variety of courses in the schools and in further education. On page 394 of that Report, the Crowther Committee says: we feel confident that the 'yield' of the whole educational system could be much increased if there were available a wider variety of forms of education and a wider choice of sequence in learning, so that every young person could find one that was designed to develop his potentialities in the most suitable way. We have made very little progress in this form of further education since the days of the Fisher Act and the experimental establishment of county colleges. One hardly ever hears the words "county colleges" these days, but, instead, the horrible term "day release". I object to the expressin, because it concentrates so much on the physical time of education and not anything like enough on the constructive approach by way of building up institutions and courses. Although I shall fall into the fault of using the term because it is a convention and a shorthand expression, I do so on the understanding that it is jargon which inhibits some of the developments one would like to see in the form of county colleges and further education.

We have made no steady progress in providing young people with opportunities for further education with day release over the last few years at all. There has been some improvement in the last two years. Whether that is due to the pre-electoral boom, or whether it is an accident, I would not know. I do not want to make any party politics out of this occasion, but I think that the hon. Gentleman would agree with me, as certainly Lord Eccles was always saying, that progress in this field of further education by day release of our young people has been very disappointing indeed.

I must say that I find the Henniker-Heaton Report very disappointing, too. It is timid, and it is timid because of the limitation on the Committee by its terms of reference. The suggestions it makes for quantities are not enough, especially in view of the debate which we have just had on SISTERs. Indeed, the Minister of Stale very rightly, drew attention to the large achievements which he hopes will be accomplished as a result of the Robbins Report, and that we should do as much or more in providing further education for 15 to 18 year-olds as we are going to do for flyers.

The figures in the Henniker-Heaton Report show that the progress made has been absolutely bad. I refer to the absolute number of boys and girls between 15 and 17 who have no further education after leaving school. The numbers have absolutely gone on increasing each year from 1956–57 to 1962–63, with one exception, when there was a peak, in 1959–60. In other words, the 496,000 in 1956–57 with no further education went up to 555,000 in 1962–63. That was boys. The position for girls is quite deplorable, of course. In 1956–57, there were 592,000 aged 15 to 17 with no further education. In 1962–63, the number went up to 694,000. There were percentage improvements, but the absolute numbers of those without further education in that age group, 15 to 17, generally went on increasing, and it is higher now than before.

Of those having day release the numbers absolutely deteriorated, while again the percentage showed a trifling improvement. For the boys absolute numbers on day release decreased. In 1956–57 there were 148,000 and not until 1960–61 did the figure go up to 165,000. The percentage for girls fluctuated a little. It stayed around 4½ per cent., but there again the absolute number of girls hav- ing any day release only went up from 36,000 in 1956–57 to 62,000 in 1962–63. The absolute numbers have improved, but the percentages remained stable and the total result is very deplorable.

This makes a sharp contrast between the poor figures for people receiving day release and the relative progress in other fields—boys and girls staying at school voluntarily, the number of sandwich courses, and, although the percentage of the age group attending university has decreased a trifle, the absolute numbers have increased. Although, in other spheres of education, there has been progress in numbers, in this field there has been no progress and sometimes there has been deterioration. If one looks at the further education day release of the 18- to 20-year-olds, the same deterioration is shown. In 1956–57, there were 690,000 without any and in 1962–63 the number had gone up to 747,000. The same applies even more to girls. There the figures are absolutely bad. In 1956–57 there were 797,000 18- to 20-year-old girls without further education and in 1962–63 the number was up to 881,000.

I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to tell us some of the ways in which those industries with particularly bad records in day release for further education may be improved, what discussions the Department might have had with some of them, so that those who are very bad will show signs of repentance and improvement. One of the striking and sad things is that very often the industries which are most affluent are the worst in making provision for day release for either boys or girls, or both. For example, among the bad industries in this respect, the food, drink and tobacco industries release only 16 per cent. of the boys and 7.4 per cent. of the girls. There has been very little improvement since 1959. The bricks, pottery, glass making industries release only 12 per cent. boys and 2.5 per cent. girls.

I sometimes wonder whether the bad export record of that particular group of industries—indeed, whether the crisis in supply which we face today—may be partially due to lack of progressive interest of management in education and that these figures in a subtle way indicate the lack of progressiveness in these industries generally and certainly in relation to care for young people. The distributive trades are quite shocking. In them only 7.6 per cent. of the boys and only 2.3 per cent. of the girls are given day release. Insurance, banking and finance are wealthy industries, but they had a very bad day release record—8.9 per cent. for boys and 1.2 per cent. for girls. They are improving, but very slightly and the whole picture is disappointing.

I have been particularly disappointed with one set of figures in the Henniker-Heaton Report. It appears that the professional and scientific services release only 30.5 per cent. of boys and 20.4 per cent. of girls. This is an occupational group which should be doing much better and I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary will explain why the group's record is so bad.

Among the good industries I find that nearly all the nationalised industries—I would go so far as to say all of them—including local government and the public services, have extremely good records. I have said some harsh things about the public services but, generally speaking, they have good figures on day release, with one exception; the Treasury. I find it odd to learn that the Treasury, which is responsible for training in the Civil Service, should have about the worst statistical record of all. I appreciate that the numbers concerned are small, and that they are mainly girls, but the Treasury's record should be better. I remember the Financial Secretary to the Treasury getting into some difficulty on one occasion when he said that in the matter of day release the Treasury was "different". That remark was not at all well received by hon. Members on this side of the House, although later he wrote me a letter explaining that he had not meant what he said.

The gas, water and electricity industries are particularly good, with the percentage for boys being virtually at maximum and schemes covering about one-third of girls. Public administration has the best record for day release for girls, two-thirds, with somewhat more for boys. The mining industry has a good record, too, even though it is lumped in with quarrying, where day release statistics are poor. For that reason the total result—40 per cent. of boys and 12 per cent. girls—is not striking in appearance, although it actually means that the National Coal Board is extremely progressive. However, the figures for mining show one fly in the ointment; that the industry is not so good in day release for girls as for boys.

Among other good industries are chemicals, engineering, electricity and metal manufacturing. I find it odd that while the metal manufacturing side is releasing half its boys and 16 per cent. of its girls, other manufacturing industries—notably textiles, clothing and leather—have particularly poor records. There appears to be no consistency between one manufacturing industry and another and, in view of the figures achieved by some industries in this group, further attention should be paid to the manufacturing industries.

I urge hon. Members to consider some of the recommendations of the Henniker-Heaton Committee, all of which, I gather the Government accept. How and when do they intend to implement them? Recommendation 2 states: We hope that the industrial training boards will write into their recommendations a requirement for day or block release as a condition for a grant to a firm. The Government lost a good opportunity, when we were discussing the last Industrial Training Measure, to insert a Clause which would have given compulsory powers for this ultimately to be done. Recommendation 3 refers to … a sustained public relations campaign to achieve the required expansion. The Under-Secretary referred the other day to the activities of his Department in relation to public relations. Perhaps tonight he will say how those activities are concerned with day release. As I have said on previous occasions, there seems to have been a decline in public relations work in local authorities compared with the Edwards and Blenkinsop Committees, when the Ministry of Health was responsible for this matter in the 1947–50 period.

Another recommendation—No. 6—is that specific approaches should be made to employers to allow day release to those boys and girls who themselves are pursuing evening courses. A further recommendation—No. 7—is very important; to encourage the development work in the Ministry and with the L.E.A.s. This is for boys in unskilled and semi-skilled occupations. Again, we had discussion of this in the Standing Committee on the Industrial Training Bill. It seems to me that this is one of the very important points of development, and I would very much welcome an indication of what the Ministry has in mind. I would say that one needs to proceed by compulsory powers. I know that this is not possible at the moment, but I should have thought that in the fairly near future one would proceed by compulsory power in relation to day release of large blocks of unskilled and semi-skilled young people.

A further recommendation that I hope will get some notice is No. 9—that release ought not to be terminated because a certain age has been reached.

Then, in this Report—as in almost all reports nowadays—we have criticism of the statistical data of the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labour, because Recommendation No. 12 is that there should be provided additional statistical information in order to plan day release. As I have said on several occasions, I am very worried that the development of industrial training and of day release could lead to overlapping and great confusion if there is not the most accurate statistical planning, and probably a much greater strengthening of the authority and advice of the Ministries of Education and Labour in the regions, in conjunction with the local education authorities.

So much for the main parts of the Henniker-Heaton Report. Perhaps I might now turn to another allied subject about which I have not been able to get much satisfaction from the Department. I refer now to the White Paper, "Better Opportunities in Technical Education", and, in particular, to the extremely distressing failure rate in the technical college field.

I want to refer to two articles that recently appeared in Technical Education. One was written by Mr. Hall, head of the Engineering Department of Bolton Technical College, who did an analysis of the examination results of the G2, or first qualifying level of the diagnostic general course in engineering, held in the summer of 1963. He worked out the results of the seven principal examining unions, and in page 337 of Technical Education showed quite conclusively that only 1 in 4 students passed to the O1 year of the ordinary national course. Mr. Hall summarised his statistical observations by saying: The so-called general course sieve is of very fine mesh and implied that the wastage rates were as serious as they were before the introduction of the White Paper.

He also referred to another set of examinations—the Mechanical Technician examination, Part I and the Electrical Technician examination, Part I, where, although the results were better, he was still of the opinion that the wastage … cannot be considered to be less than in the days preceding the implementation of the new pattern. One other reference, oddly enough, to this same journal was a college I know well, in a line of country with which I am much more familiar than engineering and technical courses. It was an article by the head of the Liberal Studies Department, Stockton and Billingham Technical College. I went to the foundation-stone laying at the opening of the college—I was a member of the board of governors for some time—and I would say that, if anything, it is rather an above-average college. Certainly, the staff are keen and the students are keen and it has had a lot of money devoted to it by the Ministry and Durham County Council.

If the results which I shall give are typical of G.C.E. examinations throughout the country—I hope that they are not, but I have a feeling that they are—the work that is going on is leading to a great deal of frustration among staff and students. The table on page 341 sets out the G.C.E. O-level results for the academic year 1961–62. The writer of the article, the head of the department, says that the students are up against very real difficulties. They are asked to do in a shorter time under much more difficult conditions what the sixth form of the grammar school are asked to do.

I pick out some representative results. In English language, there were 23 on the register, seven completed the course, nine sat the examination and two passed. In English literature, there were 15 on the register, five completed the course, six took the examination and two passed. In German, there were 23 on the register, five completed the course, one sat the examination and nobody passed. In geography, which, I always thought, was a soft option, though perhaps that is the prejudice of a historian, there were 13 on the register, four completed the course, one took the examination and nobody passed. The other results are comparable.

It seems to me that what has to be done is very much strengthening of the staffs of the technical colleges, particularly in providing ancillaries to the teaching staff. The technical colleges need more administrative staff to get into the field to make contact with employers and with the schools, both to see that the courses which they are running are appropriate for industry and also to see that recruitment is kept up among the type of boy and girl who will benefit by the courses which they are preparing. Much more staff is needed. I know that the Department is making a move in this direction with colleges of advanced technology, but it needs to be done throughout the field. Staff is needed for remedial courses, not, of course, called by that name, but one needs supplementary staff to be able to provide tutorials or "counselling" as they say in America, induction courses, and individual attention to individual needs.

Attention needs also to be paid to the teaching of mathematics at technical colleges. Just as schools are now concerned with the teaching of mathematics, rather more fundamentally than perhaps is necessary in technical colleges, so there is need for more practical teaching of mathematics and less of academic teaching at the technical colleges. Therefore there is need for many more members of staff, better trained and better able to do these detailed jobs.

Secondly, there is need for codification and simplification of examinations. The Minister of State was good enough to write to me about one query which I put to him about this, but it is the fundamental principle that needs attention, and attention is not directed sufficiently vigorously to this problem.

Thirdly, though what we want is limited by resources, the more physical resources need to be made more avail- able in terms of libraries, recreational facilities, opportunities for drama, and music, the provision of refectories and residential accommodation. All these need to be seen to so that the actual physical plan of the colleges reaches the level of the best schools and of the universities. I see that the Ministry was able to accept only in a limited way the recommendations of the Libraries Association on library facilities for technical colleges. The number of teacher-training places needs to be increased. There are not enough technical teacher training colleges and there are not enough teachers. The Henniker-Heaton recommendations will require more teachers but already in the colleges there are too many part-time teachers without training and, indeed, full-time teachers without training.

I should like to add this final caveat. Just as the figures for the further education opportunities for girls are most distressing, so we need to have a drive to improve the facilities for girls and to improve their recruitment. There ought to be in every technical college a woman with a staff devoted purely to the welfare and educational interests of girls, to recruit girls and provide them with the sort of attention which is very often missing in technical colleges generally. There ought to be this special attention devoted to the education and welfare interests of girls.

I have covered rather a large field very rapidly, but I hope that there will emerge, as there sometimes does in these duologues between the Under-Secretary and myself, some improvement in the future.

4.46 a.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary for Education and Science (Mr. Christopher Chataway)

I find it in me to congratulate the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden), even at this time of the morning, for raising this subject, the more so because he narrowly missed the opportunity of initiating a debate on technical education earlier this month. I thought that I noticed some contrast in tone between his remarks this evening and the Motion that he put on the Order Paper, a Motion which was so universally gloomy about further education as to make one wonder whether it was intended to be taken seriously.

The hon. Gentleman knows that we share his concern to see the numbers getting the benefit of day release and block release rapidly increased. But I believe that he is taking far too pessimistic a view of developments over these recent years when he extends these criticisms to further education as a whole and when he says, as I believe he did at one point, that very little has happened in the development of further education.

Mr. Boyden

If I did say that, I withdraw it. I was referring to the Henniker-Heaton category. I did not wish my remarks to apply to the whole of further education.

Mr. Chataway

No. I think that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that something of a revolution has been carried through in further education, particularly since the publication of the 1957 White Paper.

I think that in considering the way in which we can now allocate our resources, it is necessary to look at the way in which expenditure has been moving in the field of further education. Whereas, in 1955–56—and this is the year before the White Paper—local education authorities had a current expenditure on further education of nearly £29 million, the figure in 1962–63 is over £80 million, and in that same period capital expenditure on further education has risen from £8,487,000 to £26,018,000.

These are obviously very substantial increases in expenditure and they have, naturally, resulted in a considerable increase in the population at the technical colleges. The number of full-time students in grant-aided institutions has increased from 56.5 thousand in 1955–56 to 140.7 thousand in 1962–63, and there have been large increases also in the numbers of sandwich students and part-time day students over these years.

I take, first, the failure rate in technical examinations. I, too, have some statistics of failure rates in the national certificates and diplomas, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman that some of the figures are disturbing. There is a great variety in the pattern which presents itself, but there can be no doubt that some failure rates on some courses are a cause for concern.

I make three points in this connection. First, I am sure that improved selection of students for courses has a great part to play in reducing failure rates. Second, we need to have a steady and continuing improvement in the opportunities which exist for changing from one course to another when the original course, for one reason or another, proves to be unsuitable to the particular student. Third, I think that we can look forward reasonably to an improvement here as a result of the Industrial Training Act, the implementation of which is likely to have a beneficial effect because industrial training and further education will, as a result of the recommendations of the industrial training boards, be more closely associated in the future than they have often been hitherto.

I think that the stories one hears of firms telling their young workers to go along to the college to take such-and-such a course, for which the young people may be quite unsuited, should become considerably rarer as a result of the implementation of the Act.

It would, of course, be wrong to hold out a low failure rate as the over-riding priority at any stage of education. I know that the hon. Gentleman will agree that it is no more desirable at a further education college than it is at a school that the staff should be concerned principally to see that somewhere near 100 per cent. of their students get through any one course. If 100 per cent. do get through, this suggests that selection has not been good, because some who would have got through the course have probably been excluded in the selection process.

My right hon. Friend is concerned to see that these failure rates are more closely examined. At the moment, I cannot say that we have the means of assessing the true meaning of the failure figures which are available to us. For example, we cannot tell from these figures how many students pass at their second attempt. Taking an examination once as a trial run and then passing on the second occasion is a very different state of affairs from one in which students fail and drop out altogether. We do not have overall figures for the numbers of students who are dropping out before ever taking the examination. We are, therefore, considering the institution of a system so that we may know what the wastage process is from the start of certain courses to the finish and so that we may follow the flow of students through a large number of further education courses.

The hon. Gentleman raised a number of questions on the Henniker-Heaton Committee. As he rightly said, the Government have accepted the Committee's recommendation of an overall target of 250,000 additional young people under 18 in further education courses by 1970. The hon. Gentleman suggested that this was not an ambitious enough target. It is true that a number of individuals and bodies in the education world have said that they would like to see an even more rapid expansion than this, but it will be remembered that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for Education and Science, when he was first appointed Minister of Education, called a representative conference in which there was a fair identity of view that if we were to attempt to move to anything nearer compulsory day release for all, this could be done only at the expense of other more urgent educational projects, and if we are to have an even greater expansion of day release than that proposed by Henniker-Heaton, this will mean that resources, both in the shape of buildings and teachers, will have to be diverted from other educational projects.

My right hon. and learned Friend is not prepared to envisage this. We believe, however, with the Henniker-Heaton Committee, that it should be possible to reach this figure of 250,000 additional day release places without any general compulsion. I see that the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) said only the other day that a Labour Government would give a statutory right to day release to all apprentices, and later to all young workers. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland also argued this evening that there ought to be some statutory right to day release for certain categories of workers.

We believe that the approach of the Henniker-Heaton Committee is more desirable. In effect what the Committee is saying is that, first, priority should be given to young people who are being trained in occupations requiring knowledge and skills with which courses of further education are associated; secondly, that in respect of boys and girls who have shown themselves clearly anxious to take advantage of further education facilities by pursuing evening only vocational classes, a specific attempt ought to be made to give them day release opportunities; and, thirdly, that attention should be paid to providing day release opportunities for boys and girls who wish to pursue non-vocational courses and who in their work receive little educational training.

We would prefer to see that order of priorities rather than, as I believe, the more haphazard concentration on certain sections of society such as apprentices. One of the difficulties about giving compulsory day release to apprentices is the difficulty of definition. Many apprentices are not indentured. They would be hard to define as a class. But more important is the fact that a situation might result in which some young people would be compelled to attend further education courses against their will, and from which they might not derive so much benefit, while less priority was given to the needs of those who were keen on furthering their education and have the backing of their employers to do so. I hope, therefore, that we shall move forward along the lines recommended by Henniker-Heaton towards the additional 250,000 by 1970.

The hon. Member rightly stressed the importance of increasing the numbers of girls receiving day release. I believe that it is not so much a question of the opportunities which are offered to girls as a reluctance on the part of the girls themselves to take advantage of day release and a reluctance on the part of employers to release young women.

Mr. Boyden

This is the argument that one cannot get shorthand typists on day release. But the figures for voluntary attendance by girls at technical colleges show that there are many girls, much more than one would think from the hon. Member's argument, who want education of this sort.

Mr. Chataway

I think that the hon. Member would have difficulty in arguing that it is a shortage of facilities and of courses which in the majority of cases can be held to explain the low figures of day release for girls. A greater cause, I am sure, is reluctance on the part of many girls and, perhaps even more, a reluctance on the part of employers to release girls even when they are prepared to release boys.

Since receiving the Henniker-Heaton Report, my right hon. and learned Friend has received the comments of the National Advisory Council on Education for Industry and Commerce. It has warmly welcomed the Report and has noted with satisfaction that we have accepted the major recommendations. We have heard from most of the national representative bodies covering the local education authorities, industry and the technical teachers which we have consulted. They, too, have welcomed the Report and are in general agreement with it, though some would have liked to go further in the direction of part-time day release for everybody under 18, with some form of limited compulsion. The broad picture is of a general welcome for the Report from all these bodies.

My right hon. and learned Friend intends, therefore, to issue a circular to local education authorities in the autumn after the normal consultations with local authority associations. The major point to be considered at this stage is how best we can translate this national figure of 250,000 into local targets. It must be apparent that dividing the 250,000 between all the local education authorities would be an arbitrary and unsatisfactory way of proceeding. Some local education authorities have considerable industries in their areas and a high rate of day release, and they are unlikely to have the same opportunities for expansion as others. Our present thought, therefore, is that local education authorities should set targets in consultation with the regional advisory councils and that the 250,000 should be split among the 10 advisory councils—including the Welsh Joint Education Committee. These matters are being considered, and the next major step in the implementation of the Henniker-Heaton Report will be the circular which my right hon. and learned Friend hopes to issue in the autumn, after the consultations with the local authority associations to which I have referred.

I hope that I have been able to answer a fair number of the points raised by the hon. Gentleman and that he will gather from my remarks that my right hon. and learned Friend is anxious to take all steps as quickly as he can to see that the Henniker-Heaton recommendations are carried through in the years to 1970.