Teaching of English (Hansard, 16 October 1996)

§ The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Lord Henley)
My Lords, maintaining high standards is at the heart of the Government's approach to education. Since this small scale study was conducted, we have further strengthened English standards in our schools. Separate marks are required for spelling, punctuation and grammar in all GCSEs. A revised national curriculum that focuses on the basics and new GCSE syllabuses aligned with that have been introduced from this September. This summer's GCSE certificates show separate grades for spoken English, focusing attention on its importance.

§ Lord Quirk
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that response. Is he aware that many of us have felt for years that the quality of teacher training lies at the heart of our educational problems? We are therefore relieved to know this summer that the Government propose to take action on the matter. As for the University of Cambridge report which I have with me, it is small scale, yes, but any of the mitigating factors that one might think of in countering the report were taken seriously into account by researchers involved. They came to the conclusion that all the mitigating factors had to be rejected. Is not the plain fact that the writing of 16 year olds in 1993 and 1994 was found to be starkly inferior to that of their counterparts in 1980?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, on the noble Lord's first point, he is right to emphasise the importance of teacher training. That is why my right honourable friend the Secretary of State announced this summer that the Teacher Training Agency is developing a new curriculum for initial teacher training, beginning with primary English. We must get that right before we do anything else.
1685 On the noble Lord's second point, I wish to stress that it was a small scale report. As I understand it, the survey was an analysis of just 20 scripts from the three years involved. It examined merely the fourth sentence of each of those scripts, as I understand it. As the report itself made clear, it lacked: sufficient empirical evidence to conclude safely that overall writing in 1980 was better, grade for grade; or that grading standards which involved further judgments about reading and speaking etc. have changed". Nevertheless, having said that, it is important to take note of the report. We have done so and will continue to take note of it.

§ Lord Morris of Castle Morris
My Lords, is it not a fact that this Cambridge report—which is not exactly small-scale, if you have to sit down and read it—plus the Southampton report which came out at about the same time and the Coram report the same year, proved irrefutably that standards of literacy had declined markedly since 1980? Why is it that the Government have stubbornly refused to implement the recommendations of the Kingman report of 1988 which stressed the importance of the teacher training element in reforms in the teaching of the English language? The Kingman report seems entirely to have vanished until this summer when we received the recommendations on teacher training, which appear to have come out of the air, from the Secretary of State. It is all there in the Kingman report. Why has it been ignored?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, I am sorry if the noble Lord rejects my claim that it was a small-scale report. One can only say that it was small-scale since it considered merely one sentence—the fourth sentence in each script—in 20 papers over three different years. I quoted from the report, making it clear that one could not read much into it. Nevertheless, we have done a great deal since the Kingman report and over the past few years. I could run through a whole host of different initiatives, starting with the national curriculum, virtually all of which have been opposed by the party opposite. I went on to emphasise that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State recognised the importance of those matters and of getting right the teaching of English, standards of grammar and so on in schools. That is why she announced that the Teacher Training Agency was developing a new curriculum on such matters which would come forward in due course.

§ Lord Quirk
My Lords, is it not the case that the research report showed repeatedly or at least alleged that grade C in the current GCSE for 1993–94 corresponds to grades D or E in the GCE of the 1980s? Is the Minister concerned about the apparent grade inflation that has occurred?

§ Lord Henley
My Lords, the report makes allegations of that kind. In both GCSEs and A-levels it is important for us to be sure that we have maintained standards over time. That is why, a little under a year ago, my right honourable friend announced that there would be an 1686 inquiry under both SCAA and Ofsted into standards over time. However, it would be wrong to make judgments on the basis of a small scale report of this kind before SCAA and Ofsted have reported, which they are to do later this year. When they report, we shall respond.