Category: Education

The comments made by Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Education, on 14 July 2021.

As we recover from the pandemic, there can be no room in our education system for second rate qualifications.

Great qualifications are essential to helping everyone – no matter their age or background – to get good jobs and realise their ambitions.

These reforms will simplify and streamline the current system, ensuring that whatever qualification a young person or an adult chooses they can be confident that it will be high-quality and will lead to good outcomes.

The speech made by Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Education, on 24 June 2021.

Hello, it is a such pleasure to be joining you today for this conference and I am honoured to open the debates, which I know are going to give us all a great deal of valuable insight.

You couldn’t have chosen a more vital theme than learning from the Covid crisis and before I go any further, I want to take this opportunity to thank those of you from our universities and the wider higher education sector for all that you have done.

The way you have made sure students were able to carry on with their studies, the way you harnessed cutting edge resources and research to tackle the virus. It has been an outstanding effort and is one the entire country is extremely proud of.

I know this innovation and resilience is not going to be wasted as we prepare to put the worst of the pandemic behind us. It is something that will undoubtedly shape learning for the future.

And this is what I would like to talk to you about today. How do we future-proof this most vital jewel in our education crown and strengthen our national recovery at the same time. The two, I would suggest, very much go hand in hand.

An independent panel chaired by Sir Philip Augar made recommendations on the reform of both further and higher education. This has given us an excellent starting point and we have already addressed many of the recommendations that Sir Philip put in his report.

Despite the uncertainty of the past 18 months, there is much to be cheered by in our higher education sector. We continue to see fierce competition for places on undergraduate courses; our world-leading research, led to that incredible vaccine breakthrough in the battle against Covid.

Our universities provide the world with Nobel-winning scientists, innovators, engineers and creative artists. All of this is a sign of a sector in great health.

But we cannot and must not be complacent.

As the Augar report noted, the post-18 provision has not been delivering enough of the kind of opportunities we need, for the society that we want.

That society will increasingly expect more flexible ways to learn, including more modular, technical, and part-time learning, just as after the pandemic, it expects more flexible ways to work. This is a challenge that the government and the sector must rise to.

Last autumn the Prime Minister announced the Lifetime Loan Entitlement as part of the Lifetime Skills Guarantee. This recognises the realities of a fast-moving economy and the changing world of work. People need and want to be able to study and train in different ways and at different times of their lives.

This will give people a loan entitlement to the equivalent of four years of post-18 education to use over their lifetime and will make it easier for students to access courses more flexibly. It will enable people to study in a modular way or in full years of study, and fit study around work, family and personal commitments, or equally, to retrain and upskill as both their circumstances, but also the economy changes.

This is an opportunity for colleges and universities to reconsider how they can work much more closely together – to work with employers to create course content that responds to gaps in our labour market, to deliver the technical and academic skills our society so desperately needs.

I do not believe this can be done just by recycling existing approaches, and it will require a fundamental rethink of how institutions approach further and higher education provision, building on the approach some providers are already offering.

Delivering this vision is going to need action from both government and the sector to adapt to this new model, but it is a change we must make to bring true flexibility to lifelong learning.

We have already been rolling out new employer-led apprenticeships and T levels, our new technical qualifications, while our Skills for Jobs White Paper will change the entire landscape of post-16 education. Because we must never forget that the purpose of education is to give people the skills that will lead to a fulfilling working life.

The Augar report looked at how we can give our employers the skilled workforce they and our economy need and at the same time provide good value for money. As a Government, we have begun to take steps to remove perverse incentives, such as the bizarre circumstances whereby media studies is funded at a higher rate than mathematics.

The Augar panel was clear about the need for universities to increase the number of courses which are aligned with the economy’s needs. And in this respect, we need universities to go further and to act faster.

They must support and drive regional growth and productivity, particularly where that is weak. And to do this, they’ll need to change, and we will not be slow to step in if those changes are not happening.

But so often we see universities around the country doing this, but we need more of you to do this more regularly. It is time for universities to follow the lead of Further Education college and look beyond what has worked in the past.

Increasingly they will need to offer more higher technical qualifications and apprenticeships. These should be geared to real jobs and the actual skills needs of local employers and the economy.

I am sure you are all familiar with the Office for Students’ Proceed statistics which were published for the first-time last month. These project the likelihood new students will find some kind of professional employment or take up further study in the year after they graduate.

And while higher education remains a good investment for most, at 25 higher education institutions, fewer than half the students who begin a degree will go on to graduate employment or further study.

I want to be clear that this is not an attack on the arts. Many of our arts institutions are world leaders and every subject can be taught well, and so many universities do teach it well, and every subject can lead to good outcomes. But this is not always the case.

For example, while there are many are many good psychology courses, at one university only 39% of those who enrol in psychology go on to graduate employment or further study. This is not good enough.

While there are many good bio-science courses, at one university only 38% of those who enrol in bioscience go on to graduate employment or further study. This is not good enough.

While there are many good computing courses, at one university only 35% of those who enrol in computing go on to graduate employment or further study. Again, this is just not good enough.

This is clearly not providing the kind of outcomes that students and taxpayers would expect.

We want every student, particularly the most disadvantaged, to know that when they undertake a higher education course, they can be confident that it has a strong chance of improving their life outcomes.

As I have said, our universities are already a byword for excellence around the world. Where we lead, others follow, but the challenge for us is to make sure that no one starts overtaking us.

I welcome the Office for Students’ consultation on regulating quality and standards in higher education which sets out clear foundations for driving up quality. And I expect it to lead to real results.

I want to be clear that certain practices, such as the lowering of literacy standards in degree assessments, are unacceptable and must come to an end. If a graduate begins a job without basic literacy, this serves no-one – not them, not their peers, not the employer and not the nation. It undermines the value of the British honours degree. High standards are the bedrock on which our universities’ reputation rests, and they must be maintained.

We owe it to all our students, whatever their background, that at the very least they can expect a minimum standard of excellence that is going to lead to a qualification that will improve their future prospects and help them achieve their life goals.

We know this can be done because of the sheer number of providers who are already doing it and delivering high-quality courses to students from disadvantaged backgrounds with results that are far above minimum standards.

But the same cannot be said of all providers and not all students will be able to say at the end of their course that that was time and money that was well spent.

We continue to work closely with the Office for Students on ensuring that standards remain high.

I also welcome Lord Storey’s Private Member’s Bill that seeks to put an end to the scourge of essay mills, and we would like to work with Lord Storey to see if we can deliver it.

We expect the same rigour in admissions as we do in every other aspect of the higher education experience. Is it really in anyone’s interests if entry requirements are relaxed so much that an 18-year-old who has not yet passed their English or maths GCSEs should progress straight to an honours degree?

We have to make sure that those with an ability can go to university if they have the desire and application to do so, as long as they can prove they are up to it.

In recent years, we have seen far too many unconditional offers and other practices which undermine the reputation of some of our institutions.

Which brings me to schools. One way which universities can better support their community is to work with schools, whether that’s by sponsoring schools, or supporting a robust curriculum, or running summer camps.

Genuine social mobility, the ability to break away from the restrictions of social or geographical disadvantage, doesn’t just begin and end with helping students get the grades they need to get into university, but by inspiring them to want to go in the first place, by inspiring them to achieve so much more for themselves and then by giving them much more support when they’re there.

I know that some universities already do this, but we want it to become the norm, the default setting for every university.

We have seen some fantastic initiatives from universities to drive up opportunity, from Cambridge’s new foundation year to Nottingham Trent’s outreach initiative in Mansfield. But there is still a widely held view that our current admissions system is not working as well as it should and could.

What we need is equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. As the Chair of the Office for Students said in a recent speech, widening admissions is never an excuse for lowering standards. And I have been clear in the job advert for the new Director for Fair Access and Participation that a key priority for them will be to challenge courses not delivering positive outcomes for students.

I have spoken about the fact that our universities justifiably have a reputation for excellence around the world. Our academics deliver for us on so many levels, whether that’s in their research, their teaching or their innovation. But I want to make sure that they are not struggling to do all this with one hand tied behind their backs.

Universities need to constantly question the way they do things, especially if processes are starting to make life more complicated rather than the reverse.

So, I want you to be ruthless in your housekeeping: let us do away with the monitoring and form filling, the targets, the processes, the endless external schemes, the creeping managerialism.

Let us free academics to do what they do best – world-class teaching and world class research.

I’ve made clear to the OfS that I want them to be doing the same thing in their work, and I know that Lord Wharton is absolutely committed to doing so.

Despite all that, despite all that has happened over the past year, we are as committed as ever to our manifesto pledges and are determined to support and improve an excellent education system to help level up society, right across the country.

For me universities play such a vital and pivotal role in achieving that aim. We need to be changing what we did before. We need to adapt and to embrace new ways of working. We are going to ensure the global prestige of our universities will continue to shine undimmed throughout the world. You are so important to our nation, to our future, to the delivery of the government aims, and I know that working together we can rise to that challenge. Thank you.

The speech made by Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Education, on 16 June 2021.

Good afternoon. It is a great pleasure to be opening this wonderful festival. I am especially delighted considering how many festivals have been cancelled this year. So I’d like to congratulate the organisers for going ahead and assembling such a wide range of inspiring speakers. I shall be following as many of the debates as I can over the next two weeks.

There has never been a more crucial time for us to focus on education and how we build back better after the past 18 months.

For many of us the focus has understandably had to be on the Covid challenges.

But I would like to assure you that we have never taken our eyes off the bigger picture. We are just as determined as ever to make sure that every child gets the world-class start in life that we expect and that they deserve.

Last month I set out an ambitious vision for our country’s schools. Today I want to expand a little more on that and explain how our approach is informed – at every stage – by the evidence of what works to raise standards and the things we know will improve outcomes for pupils.

Because I want to be clear – improving outcomes for pupils is our number one priority and as we build back better from Covid, it is more critical than it has ever been before.

Alastair Campbell would probably have called the school that I went to a ‘bog standard comprehensive’. Now, personally, I think it was a pretty good school. But if we’re honest, it’s true that most state schools at the time didn’t provide the teaching or opportunities that were available to the most privileged in society.

Thanks to the school reforms that we’ve put in place since 2010, we have started to really change that.

Our leading academy trusts and free schools now deliver an unrivalled education, whether that is in the curriculum, the quality of teaching or instilling character and aspiration. Whether it is getting bright children to Oxford and Cambridge – where our best state schools have now outstripped Eton – or opening up routes to apprenticeships with blue-chip firms or securing unprecedented numbers of children on free school meals a good set of GCSEs, our best state schools are second to none.

Michael Gove once said that our aim is to make state schools so good that putting children into private schools would be considered an eccentric choice. I agree with him and for me that means continuing to give parents more choice.

From Harris Academies in London to Outwood Grange in the North, from the Shireland Academies Trust in the West Midlands, to the Inspiration Trust in East Anglia, we are transforming education. You are transforming education. But we must go further and faster if we are to complete the revolution, end the postcode lottery and truly level up the whole nation.

I have said before that I want to see every school as part of a family of schools in a strong multi-academy trust. This is because I truly believe multi-academy trusts are the best way to advance education for the greatest good and because they can deliver clear benefits for teaching and pupil outcomes.

So what makes the best multi-academy trusts stand out? They tend to share a broad and balanced, knowledge-rich curriculum; they have a relentless focus on good behaviour and discipline; they develop and invest in their teachers, and of course they have a robust approach to strong financial management and clear governance.

Good financial management is something no school can afford to overlook. Nothing will undermine great teaching quicker than mismanagement.

This year we are publishing a new edition of the Academies Financial Handbook. This will not just be a routine annual update. We are making significant improvements and changes to the Handbook, to make it a manual that brings together the key things that trust boards and leaders need to know. This will help to ensure that they will be spending the money given to them by the taxpayer, in the best way possible. It also makes clear some of the important duties that Trusts already have in safeguarding the pupils in their care and making sure that parents and carers have roles on trust or individual academy boards.

To properly reflect this important purpose, the handbook will be renamed the Academy Trust Handbook and we’re aiming to publish this shortly.

We all know that you don’t get a great school without great teachers. A good teacher can make an enormous difference to our children and can have an even greater impact on pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. As Education Secretary, I could not be more grateful or more proud of the way teachers have responded to the extraordinary demands of the pandemic, particularly for those children who don’t have all the advantages of their peers.

Every child deserves to have brilliant teachers and I know that many of them do. But it’s not a given. And I know that every teacher is capable of the best.

This is why we are backing teachers with one of our biggest ever investments in teacher training and development to make sure every teacher and every leader gets high-quality professional development to support them to become great teachers and great leaders.

As part of our Covid recovery plans, we are investing £400 million to provide 500,000 teacher training opportunities across the country, alongside professional development for those working in early years settings. This includes £69 million of new funding to extend the Early Career Framework reforms which are providing all new teachers with three years of structured support at the start of their careers.

We are also investing £184m to treble the numbers of funded training places available for National Professional Qualifications – up from 50,000 to 150,000 places over the next four years.

World-class teacher development requires world-class delivery. That is why we are creating a new national infrastructure, for designing and delivering training to schools.

As well as introducing a new network of Teaching School Hubs from September, we are also going to support a new flagship teacher development provider – the Institute of Teaching.

The Institute will deliver training to at least 5,000 teachers each year, who will be able to take the most up-to-date aspects of teaching back to their schools, giving future generations of teachers and leaders a fantastic resource for improving quality.

All schools have been impacted by lockdowns. And these in turn have affected children in different ways. The evidence we have shows that disadvantaged children and those who live in areas that were particularly hard hit by high Covid rates, such as the North East and Yorkshire, are among those whose learning is most likely to have been affected.

To give them the support they need we have just announced a massive expansion to tutoring. This is going to provide up to 100 million hours of tuition for 5-19 year-olds by 2024.

Evidence shows us that just one course of high-quality tutoring has been proven to boost attainment by three to five months, so additional tutoring will be vital for our young people in recovering the teaching hours lost in the past year.

It takes the money we’ve pledged to help young people make up for the time they’ve lost to more than £3 billion.

The next stage of our recovery plan will include a review of time spent in school and college and the impact this could have on helping children and young people to catch up.

Schools already have the power to set the length of the school day but we know it varies from school to school – some close at 2:45, some are open until 4:00. I think it is important to ask if this matters, if it’s fair and it if affects outcomes. The findings of the review will be set out later in the year to inform the Spending Review. I have spoken before about how important behaviour and discipline is in the classroom is and this continues to be a priority for me.

Every school should be a safe and wholesome environment where children don’t just learn, they can play and have fun too. But there have to be boundaries.

For a start, we need mobile phones to be out of the school day because they can have such a damaging impact on children’s mental health and wellbeing.

We will be consulting on banning mobile phones from the school day, alongside other revisions to the behaviour and discipline and exclusions guidance, later this year.

This will follow on from the major improvements we are already making to ensure all new teachers receive brilliant behaviour management training as part of the Early Career Framework in their first two years in the profession from September 2021. This all sits alongside our £10m investment in the Behaviour Hubs programme.

We are looking at how we can improve outcomes in alternative provision as part of the ongoing SEND Review because we know the vast majority of pupils in alternative provision have special educational needs.

I know many of you will have been working so hard to ensure students get the grades they deserve this year. But like all of you, I’m aware of some speculation suggesting that grades this year will not be an accurate reflection of students’ abilities.

I want you to know that I completely reject these views. I back teachers – they know their students’ capabilities and the quality of work they are able to produce. With thorough guidance and a robust quality assurance process, I know teachers have been doing their utmost to ensure that every student gets the grade they deserve.

Many of you will be keen to know about next year’s exams. I can confirm that it is our intention that exams and other formal assessments go ahead next year for GCSEs, A levels and vocational and technical qualifications.

We are working with Ofqual and others to consider what we need to do to make sure grades are fair, even if there is further disruption ahead.

Just as for older pupils, we continue to plan for a full programme of primary assessments in the 2021/22 academic year, including the introduction of the statutory Reception Baseline Assessment and the Multiplication Tables Check, and we will confirm full details in due course. Like last year, we’ll be running phonics screening checks in the autumn so that any year 2 pupils who need support with phonics are spotted early.

I would like to finish by saying that all good festivals are at heart a celebration and I am sure this one is going to be no different.

Covid has set the most unprecedented challenges but I do feel that despite all that it has thrown at us, our teaching communities have come through with great heart, spirit and determination.

This is because I know in this country we have the finest teachers in the world.

Since 2010 we have been driving a revolution to make world-class education a reality for every child wherever they live.

I know there is still ground to make up, I know that we will not accomplish all that we want right away, but I am confident that we now have the measures in place to make the progress we need to make.

Thank you.