HC Deb 29 November 1982 vol 33 cc14-6
14. Mr. Colvin

asked the Secretary of State for Industry how many schools were visited by his Department's industry education unit during the last 12 months.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin

About 15. School visits are not the most effective way of using the time of this small but very important unit in my Department.

Mr. Colvin

Does my right hon. Friend agree that Britain has been somewhat backward in business and industrial education? Does he agree also that it would not be unrealistic to imagine that if the gap were filled—his remarks seem to imply that the Government are doing that—youngsters might be persuaded to set up in business on their own rather than wait for someone to employ them?

Mr. Jenkin

I am sure that my hon. Friend will applaud what the small unit in my Department is doing. It is supporting the Schools Council's industry project, which is precisely designed the help schools to set up their own companies. It supports the "Young Engineer of Britain" project. Youngsters are producing some staggering inventions. Recently we have made and are now circulating the film made by Anthony Jay, one of the authors of "Yes Minister", to demonstrate the value of youngsters setting up in business on their own. Already 2,000 secondary schools have requested and received copies of the film, which stars John Cleese. That is very good progress.

Mr. Christopher Price

I welcome the very good work of the unit and the fact that the Department is putting useful equipment into schools, but will the Secretary of State co-ordinate a little more with the local education authorities and the Department of Education and Science? There is a danger of putting equipment into schools when the schools are not able to meet the costs involved in making proper use of it.

Mr. Jenkin

I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but there is already close co-ordination on these matters with the Department of Education and Science. Obviously, there is no point in providing schools with equipment if the teachers are not trained in how to use it and teach with it. The Department is running its own programmes of in-service training so that those who are involved, particularly with the micros in schools programme, have the means with which to teach the subject properly.

Mr. Greenway

Does my right hon. Friend agree that most school courses concerned with this subject start in the fourth year and continue in the years above this? Would my right hon. Friend like to see technical courses of this kind starting much earlier, say in the first year of secondary education, and continuing into the second, third and fourth years?

Mr. Jenkin

With regard to micros, there is everything to be said for primary school children having such courses. There is a remarkable picture in The Times this morning of children of six and seven. Recently at a secondary school I said to the head boy "You know all about this", and he said "Oh no, I am far too old".

Mr. John Garrett

How can Labour Members help the Minister in his continuing struggle with the Department of Education and Science—a matter that is becoming increasingly public? Everybody knows that the micros in schools programme is being undermined by that Department's refusal to provide extra funds to enable schools to buy software. We all know that the strategy for information technology in Britain is being undermined by massive cuts in universities and in higher and further education. How can we help the Minister defeat the Department of Education and Science in this crucial battle?

Mr. Jenkin

The hon. Gentleman is being wildly unfair to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. My right hon. Friend is showing the maximum co-operation with the programme, which he launched when he was Secretary of State for Industry. It is absurd to imagine that a distinguished Cabinet Minister would, in his new Department, work against what he started in his old Department.

The hon. Gentleman knows—if he does not, he should—that under the recent allocations by the University Grants Committee there is a 2 per cent. increase in places for engineering students and, indeed, extra money for what my right hon. Friend refers to as "new blood".