§ 3. Mr. CallaghanTo ask the Secretary of State for Education whether he has any proposals to reintroduce selection at 11 years throughout the country.
§ Mr. PattenWe have consistently made it clear that the Government do not intend to impose any particular 123 organisational pattern for schools. It is, in the first instance, for local education authorities and school governors to establish the organisation most appropriate for their area, in the light of local needs and the wishes of parents and the community. That is why today there are, for example, at least 117 grammar schools maintained by 24 of the 109 LEAs in England, with a further 40 grammar schools in the grant-maintained sector. There are some 30 so-called bilateral schools in the country, which operate a mixed pattern of selective and non-selective admissions arrangements, as well as three technical schools and 13 city technology colleges. There are also comprehensive schools that select some pupils suited to particular specialisms offered by those schools.
§ Mr. CallaghanI listened with great interest to that statement about the 11-plus. Given that the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor stated on the BBC "On the Record" programme that he would be delighted to see grammar schools flourishing, and given what is happening with the 11-plus in the Wandsworth area, does the Secretary of State intend to reintroduce the selective process by stealth through the schools opt-out system?
§ Mr. PattenMany schools in the maintained and grant-maintained system are considering or developing specialisms in particular areas. That should be welcomed, because it liberates the talents of all our children. The hon. Gentleman should recognise that the antediluvian, neo-clause 4 arguments of the late 1960s which he has just raised from the grave are wholly unsuitable for purposes of comparison with the early 1990s. We have as a guarantee of good-quality education the national curriculum, nationally assessed and inspected, for all our children. There will be no second-tier schools in this country by the time we have finished.
Mr. BowlsDoes my right hon. Friend agree that selection is wilfully misunderstood by some Opposition Members and that if there is no selection there is no way to match pupils and their abilities to the courses available in the students' best interests? Will he therefore warmly endorse the selection by aptitude which is the basis of Wandsworth's selection process?
§ Mr. PattenI am extremely interested in what is going on in Wandsworth, as all of us in the Conservative party always are. I must not fetter my discretion for a later stage when these proposals for a change of character come before me, but it is open to maintained schools—grant-maintained or local education authority-maintained —to introduce a large measure of specialism without having to come to the Secretary of State for permission to do so—just as comprehensive schools throughout the country can, I am advised, if they so wish, select small numbers of pupils by aptitude for particular subjects if that is what the local community wants. There is a rich diversity of provision, and so there should be.
§ Mr. FatchettThe Secretary of State would do well to learn an original script between one Question Time and another. May I remind him that he criticised my views on selection on the last occasion? May I congratulate him on his decision not to introduce selection at the Castle Hall school in Mirfield and ask him to resist both proposals from the right-wing extremists behind him and all attempts to introduce selection by the back door in grant-maintained schools? The arguments are known; selection 124 is wasteful and divisive, and the improvement in our staying-on rates and in the additional numbers in higher education have derived from a predominantly comprehen-sive system. Why does not the right hon. Gentleman recognise that and drop this 19th century idea of selection?
§ Mr. PattenAs for the Castle Hall school decision, it is open to the school to re-apply at an early stage, having reconsidered the basis of its first application.
I have visited many of our excellent comprehensive schools and I am extremely grateful to the teachers and other staff in them for the good quality of education that they provide. I have found time and again when visiting comprehensive schools that the staff are selecting children for streaming because of their particular aptitudes. Selection is part and parcel of what goes on within much of the comprehensive system. It would do the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) well to recognise that.