UKPOL.CO.UK

Category: Education

  • Gavin Williamson – 2021 Comments on Schools Teaching Latin

    Gavin Williamson – 2021 Comments on Schools Teaching Latin

    The comments made by Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, on 31 July 2021.

    We know Latin has a reputation as an elitist subject which is only reserved for the privileged few. But the subject can bring so many benefits to young people, so I want to put an end to that divide.

    There should be no difference in what pupils learn at state schools and independent schools, which is why we have a relentless focus on raising school standards and ensuring all pupils study a broad, ambitious curriculum.

    Latin can help pupils with learning modern foreign languages, and bring broader benefits to other subjects, including maths and English.

  • Boris Johnson – 2021 Speech at the Global Education Summit

    Boris Johnson – 2021 Speech at the Global Education Summit

    The speech made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 29 July 2021.

    Well, good evening, good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Thank you and congratulations to you all. Great to see you in person, by the way, isn’t it wonderful that the vaccines have liberated us to be able to come to this conference in London, a wonderful thing.

    Great to see you all, despite your masks, I see some familiar friends in spite of the masks, some of you have taken your masks off in a daring way, but that’s absolutely fine – you’re socially distanced.

    Now listen everybody I want to thank you all for raising your hands, raising your hands high and then thrusting them deep into your pockets in the way that you are, producing this staggering sum of $4 billion going on $5 billion. We often go to summits, we did before COVID struck, and we’d see very often a lot of men in suits, let’s be clear men in suits basically saying that there was a problem before humanity that was so big and so intractable that there was no silver bullet, no quick fix, no simplistic solution. Have you ever been in a meeting like that? Well, this is not that meeting. I want to say this GPE, this Global Partnership for Education, is completely different because this is the silver bullet, this is the magic potion, this is the panacea. This is the universal cure, this is the Swiss Army knife, complete with allen key and screwdriver and everything else that can solve virtually every problem that afflicts humanity.

    And I’m absolutely serious, if you educate the world properly and fairly then of course you end a great natural injustice. But also, if you end the injustice that nine out of ten 10 year olds cannot read a story around the country, 132 million kids aren’t in school or in many of the countries represented here, alas, there are too few girls in school, and there is a gross disparity, a gross disparity in the education of boys and girls. If you end that injustice and you give every girl in the world the same education as every boy, 12 years of quality education, then you perform the most fantastic benefits for humanity- you lift life expectancy, you lift per capita GDP, you deal with infant mortality, and if you educate proper people properly in the way that they deserve then of course you end or you help to end all kinds of ignorance and prejudice and by educating people you help to end all the things that ignorance and prejudice help to create so you deal with terrorism and with war and extremism, and you help people to tackle climate change.

    And so I’m immensely proud of the achievements of this GPE Summit today, I’m proud of what the UK has been able to contribute in spite of the difficult financial circumstances that we’re all going through. We have lashed out 430 million pounds, as Julia rightly pointed out, the biggest sum we’ve ever contributed and I’m proud of the work we do around the world helping to educate young people across our planet, giving lessons in Hauser on the radio in Nigeria, I think it’s amazing to see what we do in South Asia teaching young girls in schools. Now I know, as Uhuru has said, that this pandemic has made things more difficult and we’ve lost ground and we all know the risk that inequality will now be entrenched but now is the time to make up that ground.

    Necessity has been the mother of invention, we’ve all learned how to cope with Zoom, some of us better than others. I think the younger generation probably are getting the hang of this electronic technology perhaps even better than some of us here in this room and they understand how to impart and imbibe information through the internet and I think we’ve got to make sure that we support through our GP, we support Edtech, we support the technical progress that we can make through laptops, through devices of all kinds, we should support the creation of infrastructure of classrooms, of course that’s the right thing to do.

    But never forget fundamentally what this is all about, what is education? Education is the imparting of knowledge of instruction by one human being to another. The people we really need to thank and the people we really need to think about are the teachers across the world. Everybody in this room will probably have somebody that you can think of that was the teacher who made the difference to your life, who encouraged you, who gave you confidence, can you think of one Julia? Mr Crow, there you go, well Julia would not be here without Mr Crow, let’s hear it for Mr crow. Uhuru, I seem to remember that lesson, do you remember that lesson we did with your kids. I owe a lot to all my teachers but I think in particular have a guy called Mr Fox, when I was about, I think about 10 years old, and he took me into the library and I don’t know whether he thought I was in need of remedial help, or whether he thought I had potential, it was never clear to me but he said to me I want you to read these books and it made a fantastic difference and a lasting difference to my life.

    I just want to say the best thing about this summit here today is that we are supporting with huge injections of cash those amazing people across the world who are inspiring young people to think that they can succeed. And they can succeed. And by the way let me give you one idea, someone somewhere, some child somewhere who is being supported by the over 4bn dollars, [what is it? there’s some doubt about this, oh it’s over 4bn dollars but going to be 5bn over 5 years] but some child somewhere may well be the one who goes on to develop the next vaccine to deal with cancer or whatever other problem afflicts humanity. Some kid around the world will absolutely no doubt have their lives transformed, many many kids will have their lives transformed by these funds and that is the objective- to unleash potential across the planet.

    It’s a fantastic thing that you’ve done, I’m very very proud the UK has been able to be part of it and with Uhuru with Julia to offer leadership.

    Thank you for coming to London, thank you for supporting the GPE, thank you for digging into your pockets and thank you for investing in education and young people across our planet, it is the single best investment we can make in the future of humanity. Thank you all.

  • Peter Kyle – 2021 Comments on Ofqual Analysis

    Peter Kyle – 2021 Comments on Ofqual Analysis

    The comments made by Peter Kyle, the Shadow Schools Minister, on 29 July 2021.

    Today’s reports confirm what we already knew – that in amongst the shambles of last year’s examinations, the Conservatives hung state school pupils out to dry.

    Rather than coming forward with a clear plan to ensure fairness in this summer’s results, the Government has been asleep at the wheel. That carelessness is putting young people’s futures at risk.

    With exam results coming in just a fortnight’s time, the Government must urgently lay out what support will be available to pupils, parents and teachers on Results Day to ensure every child can progress in education or employment. A repeat of last year’s fiasco cannot, and will not, be tolerated.

  • Kate Green – 2021 Comments on Vaccinating Students

    Kate Green – 2021 Comments on Vaccinating Students

    The comments made by Kate Green, the Shadow Secretary of State for Education, on 27 July 2021.

    It is essential that all eligible adults get their vaccine. Instead of criticising young people, the Conservatives must get a grip and help them to get their jabs, including by setting-up vaccine centres on university campuses.

    The chaos, delay and incompetence at the heart of Boris Johnson’s government is costing lives and has cost thousands of students their university experiences.

    Supporting all students to get double jabbed ahead of winter will help reduce disruption on campus and limit the spread of the virus, helping to protect the NHS as we head towards winter.

  • Kate Green – 2021 Comments on Children Missing School

    Kate Green – 2021 Comments on Children Missing School

    The comments made by Kate Green, the Shadow Secretary of State for Education, on 20 July 2021.

    The Conservatives have abandoned the nation’s children with no action taken to turn the tide on rising cases in schools.

    Parents and schools have been crying out for help, but the Conservatives have washed their hands of their responsibility to keep children learning.

    The Government must take action to keep children learning for the last week of term, and ensure that by September schools have the support they need to avoid further disruption to children’s education.’

  • Gillian Keegan – 2021 Statement on Level 3 Qualifications Reform

    Gillian Keegan – 2021 Statement on Level 3 Qualifications Reform

    The statement made by Gillian Keegan, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education, in the House of Commons on 14 July 2021.

    Today, I am pleased to announce the next stage of the Government’s reforms of post-16 qualifications at level 3 in England.

    Reforming post-16 education and skills is at the heart of our plan to build back better and level up the country by ensuring that students everywhere have access to qualifications that will give them the skills to succeed. We have already improved the quality of level 3 study by reforming A-levels, redeveloping apprenticeship standards and introducing T-levels. This work is vital to the reforms and will create a coherent system in which all classroom based qualifications that sit alongside A-levels and T-levels are good quality.

    These reforms build on the Skills for Jobs White Paper, which set out our ambition to improve the opportunities for young people and adults to progress into skilled employment by linking technical qualifications to employer-led occupational standards. These standards form the core of new T-levels and the reforms published today will ensure that this will also be the case for other technical qualifications on offer at level 3.

    High-quality qualifications are essential to helping everyone, whatever their age, to get good jobs and realise their ambitions. Whether they want to go into skilled employment or into higher education (HE), achieving a level 3 qualification will be an important stepping stone. The system also needs to be adaptable, so that we train people for the jobs of the future.

    We are grateful for the thoughtful contributions to our second-stage consultation on level 3 qualifications, and for the high level of interest in these important issues. Though our goal of a slimmed-down, higher-quality system remains the same, we have listened carefully to feedback on the range of qualifications that are needed. Our policy statement sets out where we see the value in qualifications that can be taken as part of mixed study programmes alongside A-levels, as well as the limited range of subjects where it is justified to take specialist alternatives, such as in performing and creative arts.

    Our reforms are bold and will lead to significant change from the current system. We continue to be unapologetic about both the need and our commitment to raise standards in technical education, as we have already done for GCSEs, A-levels and apprenticeships. It is vital that in a fast moving and high-tech economy technical education closes the gap between what people study and the needs of employers. We are proposing to put many of these changes into law through the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill.

    We will streamline and improve the quality of the level 3 system. We are strengthening the pathways to progression, creating clearly defined academic and technical routes with qualifications leading to academic study, and/or skilled employment. This clarity of purpose will allow students to see more easily how their study will help them to progress.

    We will ensure that all qualifications sitting alongside A-levels and T-levels provide progression for learners, respond to the needs of employers and meet rigorous quality standards. Funding approval will be removed for technical qualifications overlapping with wave 1 and 2 T-levels from 2023, and with wave 3 and 4 T-levels from 2024. We have listened carefully to feedback on the pace of implementation of these reforms and will phase the introduction of reformed qualifications, starting with a digital pathfinder for introduction from 2023, scaling up in the following year and completing the reforms by 2025.

    The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (the institute) and Ofqual will work to ensure that qualifications approved for funding are high-quality, meet the needs of employers, and stay up to date with our evolving economy. The Education and Skills Funding Agency will continue to have overall responsibility for funding decisions.

    We also recognise that getting a quality offer at level 2 and below is key to making sure that students have clear lines of sight to level 3, apprenticeships, traineeships, and directly into employment. As a result, we want to improve study at level 2 and below alongside our reforms to level 3 qualifications. We are considering feedback to the call for evidence which ran from 10 November to 14 February and will consult on proposals for reform later this year.

  • Caroline Dinenage – 2021 Statement on the Online Media Literacy Strategy

    Caroline Dinenage – 2021 Statement on the Online Media Literacy Strategy

    The statement made by Caroline Dinenage, the Minister for Digital and Culture, in the House of Commons on 14 July 2021.

    I am pleased to inform the House that the Government are today publishing our “Online Media Literacy Strategy”. This strategy is a complementary measure to the proposed Online Safety Bill and will play a critical role in allowing us to meet our ambition of making the UK the safest place in the world to be online.

    Through this strategy, we want to improve media literacy across the country by providing direction to the sector. We also seek to highlight the challenges that all citizens face in navigating an increasingly complex media landscape, with an amplified focus on vulnerable and disabled users.

    The strategy sets out our plans to ensure a co-ordinated approach to online media literacy education. We have established a media literacy framework that enumerates the skills we want citizens young and old to learn in order to navigate the online media landscape safely. We set out the key user groups on which we will direct particular focus to ensure an inclusive approach to media literacy. We lay out six media literacy challenges to provide direction to the media literacy sector. We also highlight the specific issue of misinformation and disinformation, and the potential for media literacy by design to assist media literate online behaviour.

    We have engaged with a broad range of stakeholders from academia, regulators, civil society and industry, drawing upon their expertise to inform the strategy. This is only the beginning of our engagement with the sector, and we will look to work even more closely with these organisations and more to ensure the maximum possible impact from media literacy activity.

    As our attention turns to delivery of the strategy, we will focus on taking forward a number of different initiatives. Alongside the strategy we are publishing the first annual Online Media Literacy Action Plan for the Financial Year 2021-22. The action plan sets out a number of initiatives to enact the strategy, from establishing a cross-sector media literacy taskforce, to working with teachers to help embed media literacy in schools, to collaborating with the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Administrations through a UK media literacy forum.

    It will be important that we work productively with other key stakeholders across the sector. Ofcom has an existing statutory duty to promote media literacy. The Government’s efforts in the media literacy landscape will play a supportive and complementary role to that of Ofcom, by providing focus for organisations across the sector. We will continue to engage closely with Ofcom where there is a potential to increase the impact of our efforts.

    Media literacy is a devolved policy and so the initiatives contained in the strategy will only apply directly to England. However, we are working closely with the devolved Administrations and intend to establish a UK media literacy forum to engage with our counterparts in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast and ensure we are achieving the greatest possible impact across the whole UK.

    A copy of the strategy will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

  • Anne-Marie Trevelyan – 2021 Statement on a Green Workforce

    Anne-Marie Trevelyan – 2021 Statement on a Green Workforce

    The statement made by Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth, in the House of Commons on 14 July 2021.

    As we look ahead to publishing our comprehensive net zero strategy and hosting COP26 in the autumn, we must focus on how we invest in the UK’s most important asset—our workforce—so that people have the right skills to deliver the net zero transition and thrive in the jobs it will create. This builds on the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution set out in November 2020—the first step in capturing the once in a lifetime opportunity to lead the charge and pursue a global green recovery, level up the country, and support jobs throughout the UK as we accelerate on our path to reach net zero by 2050.

    Today, together with the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), we welcome the publication of the independent Green Jobs Taskforce’s report. The report brings together evidence on the skills needed in the green economy and sets out their independent recommendations for how the Government, industry and a wide range of stakeholders can work together to meet the important challenges and grasp the opportunities they have identified.

    We are also pleased to announce the formation of a cross-cutting delivery group to maintain the momentum generated by the taskforce and drive action across the green skills agenda.

    BEIS and DFE convened this taskforce of 17 individuals from diverse backgrounds in industry, academia, unions, and the education and skills sector to come together to advise the Government, industry and the education sector. The Government will now consider the taskforce’s rich evidence base and comprehensive recommendations ahead of setting out, later in the year, our net zero strategy.

    But we are taking the first steps to ensure that green jobs are good quality, that they can be accessed by people of all backgrounds and in all parts of the country, and that workers in sectors and industries undergoing change can reapply their skills and expertise towards this new challenge.

    In England, the reforms to the skills system set out in the recently published Skills for Jobs White Paper provide the foundation on which we can build. This programme of reform, which placed employers at the centre of our technical education system, includes the introduction of new T-levels, flexible apprenticeships, skills bootcamps and occupational traineeships. Earlier in the year, we marked a major milestone in the lifetime skills guarantee, with the roll-out of almost 400 qualifications which are now available and fully funded for any adult who has not already achieved a level 3 (A-level equivalent) qualification.

    We will ensure that these programmes are directed to support more people to get the skills they need to move into green jobs, and consider where we might need to go further or faster to fill skills gaps identified by the taskforce. We are already making progress—skills bootcamps will, from July this year, support flexible training in key green sectors such as construction and nuclear; a green apprenticeship advisory panel is identifying existing apprenticeships that best support green career pathways; our free courses for jobs offer is supporting more adults to study fully funded qualifications in subject areas crucial for green jobs, such as construction, forestry and engineering; and a new emerging skills electrification project will identify cutting-edge skills in the battery/electrification sector, develop short, modular content to meet the needs of employers, and upskill the teaching workforce.

    This report also highlights how supporting people to develop the right skills to thrive in this transition cannot be the responsibility of the Government alone. We want to see businesses step up and invest in training the green workforce, and so we urge them to reflect on the taskforce’s work and use it to inform how they can benefit from and contribute to the green industrial revolution.

    The Government will continue to work closely with industry to ensure the employer-led skills system we are building through our ongoing reforms meets employers’ needs and reflects the fast changing shape of the UK labour market.

  • Matt Western – 2021 Comments on the National Student Survey Results

    Matt Western – 2021 Comments on the National Student Survey Results

    The comments made by Matt Western, the Shadow Universities Minister, on 15 July 2021.

    The Conservatives’ failure to control the spread of Covid and in letting successive variants into the UK has denied students the university experience they deserve.

    Universities have worked tirelessly to protect students learning throughout the pandemic, but the Government has let them down with late and inadequate guidance and pitiful student hardship support which has trailed far behind the Welsh Labour Government.

    Instead of supporting students and creating the opportunities young people need, the Conservatives are wasting time on unnecessary legal protections which would enable Holocaust Deniers and anti-vaxxers to sue universities if they are denied a platform to spread their ideas across campuses. These are clearly the wrong priorities.

  • Nick Gibb – 2021 Statement on Education Update

    Nick Gibb – 2021 Statement on Education Update

    The statement made by Nick Gibb, the Minister for School Standards, in the House of Commons on 12 July 2021.

    Today, Ofqual and the Department for Education published joint consultations outlining detailed proposals for alternative arrangements for awarding general qualifications in 2022 and vocational and technical qualifications in academic year 2021-22.

    These consultations, outlined in “Proposed changes to the assessment of GCSEs, AS and A levels in 2022” and “Arrangements for the assessment and awarding of Vocational and Technical Qualifications and Other General Qualifications in 2021 to 2022”, will end on 1 August for GCSEs, AS and A levels and on 26 July for vocational and technical and other general qualifications. These changes will be for one year only.

    The Government have made clear its intention that exams and other assessments should go ahead in the academic year 2021-22. In order to ensure that they can go ahead fairly, however, we must recognise that students in the 2021-22 cohort have experienced significant disruption to their education, and we are proposing that exams and assessments in 2021-22 should be adapted to take this into account.

    For GCSEs, AS and A levels we are proposing a package of measures that includes four elements: in those GCSE subjects where it is possible to do so without undermining the assessment, a choice of topics on which students will be assessed; advance information about how exams will be focused for the majority of GCSE, AS and A level subjects; reducing the burden of non-exam assessment in some subjects; and allowing students to have access to support materials in the exam room in a small number of subjects.

    For vocational and technical qualifications and other general qualifications, the consultation sets out a suite of proposed measures for those qualifications that are included in performance tables including adaptions such as streamlining assessment, early banking of assessments and providing revision guidance. The consultation focuses on the impact of the measures proposed and updating the existing vocational and technical qualifications contingency regulatory framework to reflect our aim that exams and assessments should go ahead in 2021-22.

    The consultation seeks the views of students, parents and carers, teachers, school and college leaders, FE colleges and universities, employers and others before decisions are made on final arrangements. We intend to announce decisions for GCSEs, AS and A levels early in the autumn term and for vocational and technical qualifications and other general qualifications in early August.

    As well as these proposed adaptations, Ofqual is considering how best to grade qualifications in 2022 in a way that is as fair as possible to students in that year, those who took qualifications in previous years, and those who will take them in future. Ofqual has statutory responsibility for the maintenance of standards and for public confidence in qualifications, while taking account of Government policy. Ofqual will make a decision once 2021 results are known, and will announce its decisions in the autumn.

    We are also continuing to work with Ofqual on contingency plans in case it does not prove possible for exams to go ahead safely and fairly in 2021-22.