Cockcroft Report (Hansard, 15 November 1982)

§ Sir Keith Joseph

The Cockcroft report has been warmly welcomed across the whole of the education service. That response was to be expected: the report has set out an analysis of the purposes of mathematics education in schools which is striking in its realism and lucidity. It has put forward recommendations for improving the teaching of mathematics which call for early action by all involved. The Government is ready to play its part in taking that action.

Our first priority has been to secure the widest possible dissemination of the conclusions and recommendations of the report. Her Majesty's Inspectors have been active in this respect, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for wales and I are grateful to the members of the Cockcroft committee who have accepted invitations to speak about their work to a wide variety of audiences. Much of the task of dissemination falls on the local education authorities: many have taken steps to draw the report to the attention of at least their secondary schools, but we hope that all authorities will consider what more they can do within the resources available to them to disseminate the report's findings and to stimulate the necessary follow-up at the local level.

Awareness of the report is increasing in many secondary schools; its conclusions are not yet so well known in primary schools and among employers of school leavers. My Department is accordingly preparing a booklet for primary school teachers, drawing their attention to the report and its relevance to their work. I have in addition invited Dr. P. G. Wakely, a member of the Cockcroft 20W committee and formerly chairman and managing director of Associated Engineering Developments Ltd. to prepare a short guide to the report for the industrial and commercial audience. Both of these should be available early in the new year.

The report identifies six agencies whose active response the committee believed to be essential if changes in mathematical education are to be brought about. The Government accepts that, among these agencies, they should take the lead. Activities at national level will have little effect unless they are matched by complementary action on the part of local education authorities, the examination boards, training institutions, those who fund and carry out curriculum development and educational research, and especially teachers themselves. I and my colleagues intend to invite representatives of each of these groups to meet us to discuss their response to the report and the action they intend to take.

The committee placed special emphasis on the importance of in-service support for teachers of mathematics in primary and secondary schools as a necessary condition of improvement. I accept the case it has made. The local authorities have and will retain the dominant responsibility for ensuring adequate programmes of in-service training for their teachers. On 1 September I announced my intention to introduce a scheme for in-service training grants in a small number of selected sectors of the curriculum which should have national priority. Mathematics will be one of those. The emphasis in this scheme will be on the release of teachers to attend a limited range of designated courses. The Cockcroft committee was also concerned with the wider issue of the support provided for mathematics teachers and I expect that local education authorities, who have the main responsibility in these matters, will take particular note of the relevant recommendations in planning their policy for advisory and support services.

The committee made a number of recommendations on the supply and training of mathematics teachers. It was concerned with increasing supply so as to make good shortages. At present the supply position looks more favourable, with healthy recruitment to the postgraduate certificate in education in mathematics. Within the current restructuring of initial teacher training my objective has been to maintain the number of secondary training places in mathematics, and I expect enrolments to continue at their existing high level. I expect that falling pupil numbers in secondary schools in the remainder of this decade will reduce the overall demand for secondary teachers, including mathematicians. Buoyant recruitment to training coupled with the prospect of falling demand casts doubt on the immediate need for new measures to boost supply. I shall however continue to monitor the position—at present the increased numbers of newly trained mathematics specialists leaving colleges are obtaining teaching posts—and will give further consideration to the need for additional measures to increase the supply of mathematics teachers.

The committee drew attention to the influence which examinations exert on the secondary curriculum and rightly emphasised the need for examinations to support and encourage good teaching practice. The working party on mathematics of the joint council of GCE and CSE Boards is currently preparing draft criteria for examinations at 16+ for submission to my right hon. Friend and 21W me later this year. Before we approve the criteria we shall want to be satisfied that they take account of the analysis and recommendations of the Cockcroft committee.

The committee was also concerned, as I am, about the needs of those pupils for whom public examinations at 16+ are not designed. The introduction of graded tests, based on the foundation list developed by the committee, is likely to prove to be the right way forward; and I have already announced the Government's intention to fund a feasibility study of means of providing evidence of achievement in mathematics for lower attaining pupils as recommended in the report. The Government proposes to make available up to £0.5 million in total over the next three years for this study and for complementary research and curriculum development relating to the foundation list of mathematical topics, bids for this work will shortly be invited. Steps are also being taken to implement the committee's recommendation that an appraisal should be made of the educational implications—for all pupils—of the mathematics testing which has been carried out by the assessment of performance unit.

Our task is to build on the foundations which the Cockcroft committee has laid: there is much that can be achieved even at a time when resources are necessarily constrained, and I am confident that the education service as a whole will capitalise on the unique opportunity which the report gives us to rethink and improve the teaching of a subject which is vital to us all.