§ 5. Mr. Ian BruceTo ask the Secretary of State for Education what representations he has received about the drop-out rate of students on full-time courses after the age of 16 years.
§ 8. Mr. RaynsfordTo ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make a statement on the proportion of students in full-time education post-16 who are failing to complete their course of studies.
§ Mr. PattenI am very concerned by the recent report from the Audit Commission and the Office for Standards in Education, which identified unacceptably high drop-out rates among 16 to 19-year-olds. Schools and colleges should tackle that urgently. Our policies of improving the information and qualifications available to young people will help them make better choices and strengthen their motivation to succeed. We will publish information about vocational examination results of schools and colleges to encourage that.
§ Mr. BruceDoes my right hon. Friend agree that students sometimes experience great difficulty in transferring to not only sixth forms but universities? As someone who lasted only six months at university, I understand those difficulties. Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that his Department will carefully examine the way in which universities and sixth-form colleges approach that aspect? I pay tribute to Bournemouth university and to Weymouth sixth-form college for the way in which they help students to select relevant courses and to make a successful transition. Will my right hon. Friend consider publishing college and university drop-out rates, so that students—such as my own four children, who are all receiving a state education—will be able to make sensible decisions on their choice of university education?
§ Mr. PattenI join my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce) in paying tribute to the university and sixth-form college in his constituency, both of which are excellent. I agree also that the drop-out rate should cause us concern. I believe that it is partly due to young people making the wrong career choice—to which my hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) referred earlier—and partly to young people not receiving closer supervision at school and closer instruction at college. That is one reason why we shall make in the next three years a 25 per cent. increase in the number of students entering further education colleges. As young people make decisions about which career path to follow in vocational or academic education, it is critically important that they have the information that they need. I said in my original answer that we will publish the results of vocational examinations. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset is on to something good, and perhaps we should publish drop-out rates as well. They might tell us something about not only young people but colleges.
§ Mr. RaynsfordI am sure that the House agrees that the present drop-out rate of one in three among students over 127 16 is unacceptable, as the Secretary of State said. Does the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the Government must take a major share of the responsibility for that? It is not just a question involving colleges and universities—though they have a role. The Government's responsibility is in respect of poverty. Do the Government realise that until they reverse their mistaken decision to freeze the student grant and to enable students to have an adequate standard of living, drop-outs will continue at an unacceptably high level?
§ Mr. PattenIt is not for me to say whether the hon. Gentleman's question relates directly to the question on the Order Paper. I can say, however, that there is no evidence of any fall in the number of people—from all social and economic backgrounds—who enter further and higher education.
The hon. Gentleman could usefully talk to councils such as—to name but a few—Knowsley, Derbyshire, Camden, Islington and Hammersmith and Fulham, where the hon. Gentleman was in a previous incarnation. Those councils have a lamentable record, keeping students waiting for mandatory grants that they should have received many weeks ago.
§ Mr. FormanNotwithstanding the difficulties identified in this and earlier questions, does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government's record, and the prospects for further education, are exemplary? It is important that the expansion mentioned by my right hon. Friend, and by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Further and Higher Education, enables us to tackle more effectively both the problems of the juvenile unemployed and some of the law-and-order problems to which our right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary will refer in his statement later this afternoon.
§ Mr. PattenMy hon. Friend is absolutely right. He is, in large part, the architect of the recent expansion in further education—480 colleges are involved and there will be one in or near the constituency of every hon. Member in the House—and I pay tribute to him for that.
Over the past 14 years, Conservative Governments have introduced mass education for all—not only for those under 16, but for people aged up to 18 or 19. I agree with my hon. Friend that that expansion is a great tribute to the Government. We have now achieved the staying-on levels of many of our west European counterparts, and I believe that that will affect not only the country's education, but its social stability—including the crime rate, to which my hon. Friend referred.
§ Madam SpeakerOrder. These answers are much too long.
§ Mr. Tony LloydThe Audit Commission has revealed that 150,000 young people are leaving full-time courses without the qualifications for which those courses were designed. Does the Secretary of State accept that, after 14 years of Conservative government, that is a scandal? Does he accept that it is not the fault of the schools and colleges that he would seek to blame, but the Government's fault? Does he also accept that the Government's mindless view that the way in which to resolve the unemployment problem for young people is simply to get them into the colleges—again, without any recognition of the importance of quality and qualifications—gives neither the students nor the country any hope, or anything else?
128 The Secretary of State says—
§ Madam SpeakerOrder. Questions are proceeding far too slowly. We want brisker questions, and I certainly want brisker answers.
§ Mr. LloydI shall put my question very simply. After 14 years, what do the Government now intend to do about the problem?
§ Mr. PattenWe intend to do what I have been saying in my "much too long" answers. My replies to the hon. Gentleman's first two questions are, respectively, no and no.
§ Madam SpeakerThat is the sort of answer that I like.