HL Deb 25 November 1987 vol 490 cc599-601

2.55 p.m.

Lord Molloy

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they can confirm that computer and business studies are being removed from (a) the state school syllabus; and (b) the syllabus for city technology colleges.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Education and Science (Baroness Hooper)

My Lords, the Government do not intend that computer or business studies should be excluded from the curriculum either in maintained schools in England and Wales or in city technology colleges. Both subjects may be taught partly through the relevant foundation subjects of the national curriculum and as non-foundation subjects.

Lord Molloy

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that Answer which, on the face of it, seems to be reasonably satisfactory. However, can she state categorically that it is not the intention of the Government to split up the teaching of these subjects and make it part of the responsibility of those who teach mathematics to teach the programming, or of those who teach English to teach word processing? Will physics teachers be teaching electronics? In other words, does this mean that neither business studies nor computer studies will be a subject to be taught separately? I should like to have a quite definite answer to that question. Is it intended to split up those subjects and fragment them, or will they remain as two important subjects of study on their own as hitherto?

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that those subjects will continue to be treated as cross-curricular themes and that initiatives such as the TVEI will continue to have scope to operate. What has happened so far is that of the two groups set up earlier this year, the science curriculum working group has been asked to cover the practical use and application of computers and information technology and the mathematics curriculum working group has been asked to have regard to this and the development of economic understanding. The remaining curriculum working groups when set up will be asked to take account of other relevant subjects and these cross-curricular themes.

Lord Molloy

My Lords, can the noble Baroness tell the House now whether that would in any way affect the future of those people who have devoted their lives to teaching computer studies alone? Are we to follow in the steps of the United States of America, which is top in computer studies? In the USA, computer studies constitute a subject taught by specialist computer teachers. Are we to continue along that line or not?

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, there will be sufficient flexibility in the plans for the national curriculum to allow for both.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour

My Lords. does my noble friend agree that, increasingly, computers are a tool by which pupils learn many subjects which will feature in the core curriculum and that computer studies as a discrete subject are for those who want to specialise in that subject? Is that correct?

Baroness Hooper

Yes, my Lords. The intention is that there will be a continuing use of computers to cover subjects throughout the curriculum but for those students and pupils who wish to make computer studies a specialist subject, there is also scope for that to happen both in normal schools and in the proposed city technology colleges.

Lord Molloy

My Lords, will the Minister accept that the purpose of the Question was not to find out what computers would be teaching, but to discover whether young people are to be taught how to construct and programme computers, so that they can then, later on, teach many other things?

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, I am sure that a subject called computer studies must include some instruction on the method of creating computers.

Baroness Seear

My Lords, did the noble Baroness say that economic understanding should be dealt with by the committee on mathematics? I can well understand that, to an econometrician, this might conceivably be appropriate. But economic understanding could possibly be better developed by people who do not come out of the mathematics faculties.

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, economic understanding is again a cross-curricular theme which will be dealt with by a number of working parties that have been set up. I referred to that as a specific one, where instructions have already been given on those lines.

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