HC Deb 13 March 1991 vol 187 cc956-8

4.6 pm

Mr. Andrew Mitchell (Gedling)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require schools and certain further and higher education establishments to make available for publication in common form all public examination results. I have much pleasure in moving this ten-minute Bill, which will require schools to make available for publication in common form all public examination results. It is a modest measure which, if passed by the House, would make a further contribution to the Government's successful step-by-step approach to the reform of education in Britain.

One of the most important aspects of those reforms has been to help switch the emphasis of education away from the providers, the educationists and education authorities, towards the consumers—the parents and children. That important change is at the heart of our reforms. It is noticeable how often outright provider resistance to change has softened as public support and approval has grown. The Bill takes that reform process one small step further forward. It will lead to local papers publishing some form of league table to show that some schools have better academic and vocational results than others.

Before I explore the reason why opposition to the proposal among some educationists is bogus, wrong and thoroughly patronising to the vast majority of parents, I shall give the central reasons why the full publication of exam results in schools is necessary and will be welcomed. First, the chances in life for children—what they do and what they achieve—are, in considerable part, determined by their academic and vocational results. Their GCSE and A-level results determine whether they go on to further and higher education. Academic and vocational achievement opens doors to opportunity, the lack of it closes those same doors. Parents and children have a right to know what sort of results a school achieves in comparison to other schools in the district.

While individual testing gives a parent an objective answer to the question, "How is my child doing?", the publication of examination results gives an objective answer to the question to which every parent should receive an answer and which he or she has an absolute right to ask: "How good are the academic and vocational results achieved by this school?".

A further reason for publishing in aggregate the examination results of each school is that we need to go back to the first purpose of education in our schools—academic and vocational education, literacy and numeracy. Schools may have different values and emphases. Some may place particular emphasis on music or art, but their first purpose must be academic and vocational education.—[Interruption.] This emphasis on standards is important to us, but clearly it is of no interest to Opposition Members who are muttering.

To deny such education is a betrayal of the opportunities that our children deserve to receive arid which they need to equip themselves for the real world after they leave school. Such a transparently obvious truth may have been descredited during the pink liberal fads and fashions of the 1960s, but mercifully that is no longer so.

The first argument against the Bill is that parents cannot be trusted with such information. That argument is advanced by some academics and educationists lurking in their ivory towers. More recently, it was advanced by the chairman of the education committee, in a letter to the Nottinghamshire Evening Post which covers my constituency. We are fortunate that many of our schools in Nottinghamshire are of a high quality. That has everything to do with the hard work and commitment of the vast majority of our teachers, staff and parents, and rather less to do with Nottinghamshire education authority.

In his letter, the chairman of the education committee states: Raw exam results unrefined for socio-economic factors give a false impression of performance. That is absolute nonsense. The whole point is that they do give a precise impression of performance. As I have said, the argument has been advanced that parents cannot be trusted to interpret examination results. Most parents do not want excuses for under-performance. They do not want to know why the socio-economic make-up of their school means that it is not as good as a neighbouring one. They want the best for their children.

If a school is under-performing, we need to look at ways of improving it, not at ways of excusing it. The argument that parents cannot be trusted to read examination results aright, to place them in their correct context and to weigh up school's academic merit alongside its other achievements in sport or art or whatever, is complete nonsense. It is also odiously patronising to the good sense and concern of parents for their children's success at school, qualities which characterise the vast majority of parents whom I meet and speak to in my constituency.

The second argument against the Bill is that downtown areas cannot compete with better areas, that low socio-economic grouping must mean under-achievement in class. Of course, in some inner-city areas, teachers face desperately difficult problems in educating children, but equally, there is no correlation between home background and intelligence. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson) has made clear, the Gujerati community in this country achieves higher academic results than practically any other group in the host community. Social mobility follows educational mobility, and we must promote and extend opportunity for as many children as possible, rather than looking for excuses to explain bad education.

When we ask an educationist whether standards in our schools are rising or falling, we tend to receive a witheringly patronising reply. We are told that that is a naive or simplistic question. But it is a most important question, and it should be at the centre of our national debate on education. The claims by some people that examinations and testing are divisive are simply wrong. Such tests identify children who may have fallen short of an acceptable educational standard, so that prompt action can be taken where it is needed and before it is too late.

I hope that the House will accept the Bill as a minor but helpful measure, which will assist in identifying schools that need help. It will give to parents and local communities further useful and additional information by which to judge how schools are doing and it will help to extend choice and opportunity by leading to an improvement in standards in all our schools.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Andrew Mitchell, Sir Rhodes Boyson, Sir Giles Shaw, Mr. Julian Critchley, Mr. George Walden, Mr. James Pawsey, Mr. Robert G. Hughes, Mr. Anthony Coombs, Mr. Dudley Fishburn, Mr. John Bowis, Mr. Michael Brown and Mr. William Hague.