Education and Training (Hansard, 21 May 1991)

§ 7. Mr. Peter Bottomley
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proportion of 16-yearolds leave full-time education or training.

§ Mr. Kenneth Clarke
The latest provisional figures show that the proportion of 16-year-olds leaving full-time education or training after completing their compulsory schooling fell to 41 per cent. last year. That means a fall of 11 percentage points in only the past four years. The great majority of those who leave go into jobs with part-time education or training, or take part in youth training schemes. Contrary to much popular belief, only about 10 per cent. of 16-year-old school leavers in this country drop out of education and training completely and they are people who choose to reject the guaranteed training place on offer to all of them.

§ Mr. Bottomley
Will my right hon. and learned Friend encourage local education authorities, if not schools, to publish their own figures relating to the number of students staying on for full-time or part-time education, so that those who at present are not tempted to do so will realise that they are cheating themselves of opportunities in their future working lives?

§ Mr. Clarke
That is an excellent suggestion. My hon. Friend's original question concerned the proportion of students who leave, but I think that schools should be encouraged to publish their staying-on levels, which are steadily improving across the education system. A written answer to another hon. Member this afternoon will shed further light on the improvements that we are achieving in our schools.

§ Mr. Matthew Taylor
In response to a question from me yesterday, the Secretary of State made it clear that the proposed funding for the increased number of students whom he expected to stay on after the age of 16—and, indeed, to enter higher and further education—would arise naturally out of the increased funding that each individual student attracts for the college or university concerned. On that basis, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that he envisages an overall cut in funding per student during the period of increase and that colleges will therefore be unable to maintain their present standards?

§ Mr. Clarke
No. What I was saying to the hon. Gentleman, and will say again now, was that our funding system was linked to the growth in the number of students. It would be a great mistake for any Secretary of State to abandon a mechanism that linked the increase in funding to the number of students attracted. The financing of our policy will be geared to its success. Our aim is to expand 770 the number of students receiving education and training after the age of 16, but, of course, to achieve that expansion in a cost-effective way.

§ Mr. Butterfill
The proposals that my right hon. and learned Friend announced in the White Papers yesterday will provide considerable encouragement for 16-year-olds to stay on at school. Will he encourage Opposition sceptics to visit Bournemouth polytechnic, which has led the way in the development of vocational degrees and courses? Far from being derided by employers, such courses are now highly regarded internationally and show the way for other similar colleges of learning to develop for the future.

§ Mr. Clarke
I would commend such a visit to any hon. Member who wanted to see what has been achieved by Bournemouth and by many other polytechnics across the country. I have not made such a visit recently; nor, no doubt, has the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw). When I have visited polytechnics, however, I have found that they have all achieved great success since—contrary to the preference of the Labour party—we took them out of local government control. They all expect to make further progress in future.

§ Mr. Andrew Smith
To encourage more 16-year-olds to stay on, will the Secretary of State tell us what his proposed advanced diploma offers young people over and above the A-levels and vocational qualifications which he says that it comprises? If vocational qualifications are truly to be the equivalent of A-levels, why should not the two be combined in the form of a broader advanced certificate, as Labour proposes?
Will the Secretary of State now answer the question that he ducked when it was put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw)? Why should not we introduce credit accumulation as between the different elements of the advanced diploma? Will such credit accumulation be introduced?

§ Mr. Clarke
The diploma answers a valid criticism of the system in this country—the charge that the confusing number of qualifications of all kinds has created a maze through which parents and students must try to find their way. The structure of the advanced diploma will—like that of the baccalaureate in France and the equivalent qualifications in Germany, but, I think, in a better way than either—allow academic and vocational qualifications of the same standard to be recognised as a benchmark for advance into higher education or certain types of employment. We have introduced clarity to our system.
As I said yesterday, the Labour party insists that everybody must have the same qualifications. With the greatest respect, I must point out that it proposes to scrap A-levels and much of our vocational system and to substitute some mishmash qualification that is meant to be put modestly within the ability of everybody. That would not serve the purposes of our students or of the economy.
Credit accumulation is a perfectly sensible suggestion. In my letter to the School Examinations and Assessment Council, I cautiously suggested how we might consider it further for students who want to transfer from an A-level course to a course run by the Business and Technician Education Council.