HC Deb 17 December 1974 vol 883 cc1341-3
12. Mr. Guy Barnett

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement about his policy on the size of classes in primary and secondary schools.

Mr. Prentice

My aim is to achieve as soon as possible a supply of teachers sufficient to ensure that no class in a maintained primary or secondary school need exceed 30.

Mr. Barnett

I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. However, will he assure us that it will be his policy to outlaw the class of over 30 children? Will he also bear in mind that there are areas of our primary and secondary schools in which there is a need for classes of considerably less than 30? I am thinking particularly of children with educational disadvantage and children with linguistic and language difficulties who need to be taught in much smaller groups. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that in the plans which he is now bringing forward for the future of teacher training and supply he is bearing that factor fully in mind?

Mr. Prentice

Yes, I certainly give that assurance. As my hon. Friend probably knows, I have referred to the Advisory Council on the Supply and Training of Teachers the implications of the recent birth-rate projections in order that we may review our plans for entry into the colleges in the years ahead. But these plans will need to be consistent with an improvement in pupil-teacher ratio, including arriving at a situation—within a very few years, I hope—in which there will be no class of over 30 children and in which there will be much smaller classes in the kind of circumstances that my hon. Friend has described.

Mr. William Shelton

Am I right in believing that last April the right hon. Gentleman agreed with the figure of 510,000—the target set by my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) for 1980–81? Will he say what figure he now has in mind for 1980–81?

Mr. Prentice

Yes, Sir. I accepted the figure of 510,000. It is now clear that we can reach the objectives to which I have been referring with a rather smaller figure. Precisely what that figure will be will have to be announced after the consultations with the advisory council to which I referred.

I should like to explain the reasons why it will be a smaller figure. I have put statistics before the House. They are available in the Library. One statistic is that when the 1972 White Paper was written it was assumed that the school population by 1980-81 would be 96 million. On the latest projections it will be 8.7 million. That is nearly a million children fewer than was supposed to be the case.

Mr. Marks

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he does not accept the criteria laid down in the previous Government's White Paper about the size of classes in future years and that he will accept the recommendations of the advisory council?

Mr. Prentice

I think that I have already said enough in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Barnett) to assure my hon. Friend that I want to see a radical improvement in teacher-pupil ratios and a situation in which there need be no classes of over 30 children anywhere in the country.

Dr. Hampson

The Under-Secretary has just stressed, quite rightly, the importance of the morale of the teaching profession. How can the Secretary of State justify his policies with regard to colleges of education—rushing them into mergers and amalgamations, giving them the chop, and now holding a new axe over their heads by threatening to cut teacher training targets? Tremendous damage is being done. The morale of these colleges and their staffs is being hit. This is quite extraordinary, in the light of what the Labour Party has always said. Would it not be better to stick to the 510,000 target of my right hon. Friend the Member for Finch-ley (Mrs. Thatcher) rather than direct expenditure into the reorganisation of secondary education?

Mr. Prentice

The hon. Member had better be careful that he does not, in fact, campaign for large-scale teacher unemployment. Of course the colleges face uncertainties in a period of reorganisation. I appreciate that it is difficult for them. No one can say that they have been rushed into mergers. Under both the previous Conservative Government and the present Government a great deal of time and care has been taken and is being taken to discuss with them, with local authorities, and with others concerned what is the right pattern for higher education outside the university sector—and this includes the colleges of education in each locality.