HC Deb 18 April 1978 vol 948 cc234-6
6. Mr. Forman

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she is satisfied with the development of national sample testing by her Department's assessment of performance unit.

Mrs. Shirley Williams

Yes.

Mr. Forman

Why have the Government been so slow in acting upon Conservative advice in this area, and why are they so timid and apologetic in their application of objective sampling? Does not the Secretary of State agree that information of this sort is an indispensable basis for raising educational standards?

Mrs. Williams

I do not follow the point made by the hon. Gentleman. The assessment of performance unit was set up in 1975 by a Labour Government after a Conservative Government had been in power for four years and had set up nothing. We are about to proceed this year towards the assessment of mathematics, next year to the assessment of languages and the year after to the assessment of science. Therefore, we are moving with all due speed. I believe that the monitoring suggested is extremely sensible and will be very useful to the educational performances of this country.

Mr. Christopher Price

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that for the raising of standards the methods suggested by the assessment of performance unit are very much preferable to some of the suggestions from the Conservative Party, which is creating a system of competition between individual children with results published at individual schools? Does she also agree that the recent proposals to reintroduce selective education and grammar schools would tend not to raise standards at all?

Mrs. Williams

On the second part of my hon. Friend's question, I can think of nothing that would be more upsetting for education than to go back to the reintroduction of selection. It is astonishing that education spokesmen of the Conservative Party are now suggesting that they should bring back grammar schools when it was the Leader of the Opposition under whom the proportion of children going to comprehensive schools increased from 28 per cent. to 55 per cent. It is hard to tell where the Conservative Party stands.

As to testing, I wholly agree with my hon. Friend. The experience of the United States, which attempted to test every pupil in certain States, led to the following conclusion by the National Education Association, a non-political body: The blanket use of tests … in some state assessment and local testing programmes appears to require inordinate amounts of time and resources on the part of teachers, other personnel involved … and the students themselves. I believe that that experience is wholly borne out by our own experience in the past.

Mr. Raison

Is the Secretary of State prepared to take a less dogmatic view about the question of general testing? It is not a matter of creating competition. Does the right hon. Lady agree that it is a question of finding out what levels of performance exist among children, among schools and among the national system without any element of competition?

Mrs. Williams

That is exactly what the assessment of performance unit is concerned with. It is based upon a light sampling test amounting to 2 per cent. of the children in the country. It is the considered view of those represented on the APU's governing body, which consists of teachers, educationists and a wide range of people, that this is the appropriate way to monitor performance. It is not the Labour Party which is being dogmatic. It is the attempt to return to testing every pupil every year or so that is dogmatic.

Dr. Boyson

We welcome the Secretary of State's statement about the sample testing. However, is she not aware that most parents are concerned about the standard of achievement of their own child and the standards of the schools to which they are going compared with the national standards?

Although we do not want the publication of children's names, many of my hon. Friends and I believe that parents should know the standards achieved by their own children on the accountability talked about by the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Thomas) on the last Question and also the standards of the schools that they are attending compared with the national standards. Parents have a right to have that information if their children are to have a real chance in life.

Mrs. Williams

Of course, we agree that they have a right to that information. That is why this Government have asked all schools to inform parents when they may see the teachers of their children and when they may see the head teachers. In addition to that, it is open to a parent to ask a teacher—indeed, it is a daily experience—how the children are doing. The evidence that I have put before the House based upon the testing in the United States shows that testing of the kind that the hon. Member for Brent, North (Dr. Boyson) continually promotes does absolutely nothing to improve the standards of education in schools—on the contrary.