Asked by The Earl of Clancarty To ask Her Majesty’s
Government what steps they intend to take to encourage the study of
design subjects in schools. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of
State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) My Lords, the
Government believe that all pupils should have access to an
excellent and well-rounded education. Art and...Request free trial
Asked by
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The
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they intend to
take to encourage the study of design subjects in schools.
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education (Lord Nash)
My Lords, the Government believe that all pupils should
have access to an excellent and well-rounded education. Art
and design and design and technology are essential to that,
and they are compulsory subjects in the national curriculum
at key stages 1 to 3. We have reformed the D&T and art
and design GCSEs and A-levels in response to feedback from
experts such as the Royal Academy of Engineering and the
James Dyson Foundation to make them more rigorous,
contemporary and of greater appeal to students.
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The (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that skilled design is
essential for our technical trades and creative industries?
As the Government are correctly putting an emphasis on
technical education, are they not concerned about the
significant fall in take-up of GCSE and A-level design
subjects, with a recent Association of School and College
Leaders survey showing a drop of 44% over the past year
alone in the number of schools offering GCSE design and
technology? Will the Government address these concerns, and
if so, how?
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My Lords, the figures for pupil number decline in D&T
GCSE have fallen less in the past six years than in the
three previous years up until 2010, so we have arrested the
decline. We have introduced computer science for the first
time. The number interested in that subject last year along
with a substantial increase in IT entries considerably more
than make up for the decline in D&T. Of course, as the
noble Earl has mentioned, I do not think that anyone can
doubt our commitment to technical education given the
passing in your Lordships’ House yesterday of the Technical
and Further Education Bill. New courses will be based on
groups of occupations within the 15 framework routes, which
will include creative and design.
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(LD)
My Lords, a look at the Government’s website shows the
importance of design to our economy, yet since it became a
subject that is no longer compulsory in secondary schools
we have seen a 50% reduction in the number of young people
taking it. Added to that, there will be some 2,000 fewer
teachers for the subject by this coming September and half
the number of new trainee teachers that are needed for it.
This is a real crisis. I agree with the Minister about the
importance of this subject, but we need to fix these
problems and make design part of a celebration in our
education service.
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I agree entirely on the importance of design, and of course
we have a number of free schools that are particularly
focused on this area. We offer a £12,000 bursary for new
teachers coming into the sector to teach design and
technology, and as I have said, we are making our D&T
courses much more contemporary. Previously, they were very
material focused, but now they are more context driven. We
are particularly keen to reform them so that we can address
the gender imbalance in D&T and attract more girls to
study the appropriate STEM subjects. For instance, under
the existing D&T syllabus, 96% of the participants in
textiles are girls whereas only 7% are studying electronic
products. We are keen to address this.
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(Lab)
My Lords, there is a bigger picture here because design is
one of the subjects that some head teachers will be unable
to afford to provide if a Tory Government are re-elected
and cuts to the schools budget are given free rein. The
Minister and his department like to repeat the meaningless
soundbite that more money than ever is going into schools.
Of course it is, because there are more pupils than ever in
our schools; the point is the funding per pupil. Last month
the Education Policy Institute reported that by 2020 not a
single school in England would be able to report that they
had had no real cuts in funding per pupil. That is in
direct contradiction of the 2015 Tory manifesto. Can the
Minister assure the House that this year’s version of the
manifesto will tell parents the truth about education
funding plans?
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I know that the noble Lord always likes to look at the
bigger picture, but as we all know, and as the National
Audit Office and the IFS have told us, the increase in
funding per pupil between 2000 and 2020 is 50%. As I have
said previously, particularly when I answered a Question
and invited the noble Lord to visit the government website,
it is quite clear that many of our best-performing schools
are also the most efficient schools financially. We have a
great deal of advice, toolkits and benchmarks available to
advise schools on how to manage their finances more
effectively.
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(Con)
My Lords, last July take-up of design and technology fell
by 10% for the seventh year. That subject and others are
being squeezed out of the curriculum as a result of the
EBacc. Yet, the artistic, creative and technical side of
our economy is worth £500 billion a year. Many companies
are finding it quite impossible to employ youngsters
leaving school at the age of 16 or 18 because they do not
have the skills the industries want. This will get much
worse after Brexit. There must be fundamental change to the
EBacc to allow a broader curriculum to serve the British
economy.
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I pay tribute to my noble friend’s support for technical
education. In fact, there is no evidence that the EBacc has
had a direct effect on the number of pupils taking arts
subjects. In fact, the number of pupils taking at least one
arts subject has increased since the introduction of the
EBacc. As I have already mentioned, it is quite clear that
modern pupils, in addition to being interested in design, are
also interested in things such as coding.
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(Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister admit that it is shameful that
the Government are wasting money on creating new free schools
where school places are not needed and cutting the funding
for pupils in adjacent schools where the money is needed? The
Minister is presiding over a system that is depriving pupils
in general because of his and his colleagues’ pet theory
about independence.
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I am delighted that the noble Baroness has given me the
opportunity to answer that question. Since I have been a
Minister for the last four-and-a-half years, 93% of free
schools have been created in areas where there is a
recognised need for new places. We are spending our money far
more efficiently than the previous Labour Government. Despite
inflation, we are building schools at least a third more
cheaply than Labour’s profligate Building Schools for the
Future programme. I constantly face bills from schools built
quite recently under that programme, where I have to spend
millions rectifying their very poor design.
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(Con)
My Lords, drawing attention to my interest as chairman of the
William Morris craft fellowships, can I ask what my noble
friend can do to encourage young people in our schools to
follow the traditional crafts and to have more, proper
apprenticeships available to them thereafter?
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My noble friend makes a very good point. We have a wide range
of new apprenticeships. Employers will be at the heart of our
design of these apprenticeships. We are keen that these lead
to jobs. I will certainly take his point back and discuss
what we are doing in this area.
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