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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 28.4.96
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. When Gillian Shephard
became the Education Secretary she promised a period of stability for the
schools. But now it seems she's under pressure to embark on what could be the
most radical shake up of Education for thirty years. I'll be talking to Mrs
Shephard after the News read by Chris Lowe.
NEWS
HUMPHRYS: But first Education - the third in our
series in which we've been looking at the policies on schools of each of the
three main parties. Today: the Tories. After years of reform and upheaval
teachers have been giving thanks because things have more or less settled
down. But now Mr Major has let it be known that he wants to see a grammar
school in every town in the land. If that happens the effect on comprehensive
education could be dramatic. I'll be talking to Gillian Shephard, the Education
Secretary, after this report from Jo-Anne Nadler.
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Well, Gillian Shephard can we begin at
the beginning as it were. Do you accept that the standard of education in our
schools is still not high enough?
GILLIAN SHEPHARD: I think that we've made enormous strides
in raising standards over the last, particularly four to five years, as a
result of the reforms that the government's put in place. But I do know and
indeed have frequently said, both publicly and in private, that standards have
got to be pushed much higher.
HUMPHRYS: So let's look at what should perhaps be
done. Let's look at what the critics say. Resources first of all. We are
still not spending enough in our schools they say. Do you accept that?
SHEPHARD: I really do not accept that. We're
spending record amounts of money on education now at every level. We've just
put in three-quarters of a billion pounds in to nursery education to give
children a flying start at the beginning of their school careers, and we're
spending more than we have ever spend of the school sector on colleges and on
universities, an enormous amount. What I think we now need to focus on more
closely is the way that the money is being spent. It shook everyone I think
when I was obliged to close the Hackney Downs School in London under the
Labour-controlled Hackney local education authority, where the inspectors said
that the level of education was so deplorable that the school needed to be
closed, that it was incapable of improvement. And in that school there was one
teacher for every eight pupils, and two-and-a-half times the national average
was being spent on each and every pupil, so there is no correlation between
what you spend and what you get. There is of course a correlation between the
quality of the teacher and the head, and what you get with that is where we've
got to put our effort.
HUMPHRYS: Let me come back to that question of a
correlation between what you spend and what you get. But you say we're a
spending record amount. Yes of course we are because spending goes up as the
national wealth goes up, so you would expect us to be spending a record amount,
but what matters is how much we're spending as a proportion of our national
wealth, our national income, and the fact is that we were actually spending the
same amount in 1979. It hasn't gone up.
SHEPHARD: What matters is the use that we make of
the money. That obviously matters...
HUMPHRYS: No what matters is how much we're
spending as well, the total amount matters.
SHEPHARD: We are still spending a record amount,
and what matters is the use that we are making of the money. I have to say to
you that this country has wasted arguably two-and-half to three decades
discussing the wrong things in education. In the 1940s we were talking about
buildings. In the 1950s we were talking about roofs over heads. In the 1960s
and '70s we were talking about using education as a tool of social
engineering. At no stage were we spending enough attention on what education
does and how well it does it. That is equipping children with the knowledge
and skills to make them fulfilled individuals and to enable them to earn their
own livings and contribute to the economy. Now those things were neglected.
The government had a huge amount to put right when it got in in 1979. That's
why we've seen such a very very comprehensive package of reforms.
HUMPHRYS: But you're actually telling me this
morning are you, that you wouldn't want to spend more money on education
because there's no need to?.
SHEPHARD: I am saying that we are spending record
amounts and ....
HUMPHRYS: Of course, we've dealt with that. You
would be spending a record amount wouldn't you?
SHEPHARD: What I'm saying to you is that it is at
least as important to consider and examine the way that you are spending that
money, and that is what we're engaged on.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, class sizes, the correlation
you say between spending and results. Class sizes - you have to spend more
money if you are to reduce class sizes. That goes without saying. Teachers
are the most expensive part of the whole process obviously and rightly too.
Would you prefer class sizes to be smaller?
SHEPHARD: Not necessarily because what matters
again, much more than the number of children in the class, provided it is
within sensible bounds, is the quality of the teaching. That has been
emphasised by the Chief Inspector of Schools in this year's annual report, in
last year's annual report. Of course it is more difficult for any teacher as
one of the pupils said on the film to do a very good job with a huge class, but
the fact is it is the quality of the teacher that counts. It's also the case
that there are about sixteen different factors which affect class size other
than resources. For example the school's admissions policy - whether the head
teaches - whether the senior staff teach, whether there are classroom
assistants within the class. I mean there are a whole range of factors quite
apart from resources. So it's a very very much less black and white question
than you're putting.
HUMPHRYS: Well not me; the people in our film of
course made it....
SHEPHARD: That is being put shall I say.
HUMPHRYS: Quite so, and that's important who is
putting this question, and you said huge classes - the gentleman on the film
said thirty-five. Is that a huge class?
SHEPHARD: I wouldn't say so in certain
circumstances. Certainly I would expect a teacher with a class of thirty-five
children to be supported at certain times of the day with teaching assistance,
possibly with help from students, from parents. It's very rare you know, that
you go into a classroom and you find the teacher on his or her own, especially
in primary school. There is more often than not support from other adults, but
there is another point here, and it's a very important point, and it's to do
with teaching method. Now, the Chief Inspector in his last annual report made
great play, quite correctly, of the importance of pedagogy, of the way that you
teach, of the effectiveness of whole class teaching particularly, at the
primary stage. He doesn't of course, and it would be wrong if he had, say that
all classes should be taught with children in rows facing the front, but he
does say that in certain areas of the curriculum that is the most effective way
to teach, and you know that also has to be looked at, and it is clearly much
easier if you have quite a large class to teach in that way and effectively
too. So there are other questions as well.
HUMPHRYS: But the reality is that what has been
happening is that class sizes have been getting bigger. Now you seem to be
unconcerned with that, if I read you correctly. Perhaps I'm not, because you
do use this expression "within sensible bounds". I'm not sure what you mean by
that.
SHEPHARD: Yes of course. Well I'm explaining to
you why I am more concerned about the quality of teaching and about the quality
of teaching methods, than I am about class sizes because...
HUMPHRYS: ...but the one doesn't rule out the
other does it, you can be concerned about the one and also concerned about the
other.
SHEPHARD: You could, if it were the case for
example that teachers were not helped with other adults in the classroom.And if
it were not the case that the way that children are taught these days involves
some being withdrawn from the class to undertake another activity, for several
classes to be brought together, for example for drama, for art, for physical
education or whatever. It isn't a fixed picture and there are a lot of
elements in it but the key thing is the quality of the teacher.
HUMPHRYS: Well, that's a slightly different
message to that which we've been getting from your party in the past in your
manifestos of '83 and 1987. You boasted, made a great thing out of the fact
that there were fewer pupils per teacher than they'd ever been. No mention of
it in your manifesto in '92 and one of your ministers said: "no proof or
connection between class size and quality of eduction."
Now it seems to be shifting doesn't it.
As the class size increases you seem to be attaching less importance to it.
SHEPHARD: Let me just say to you that the
pupil-teacher ratio is still lower than it was in 1979 and there is no question
that the Chief Inspector and he's underlined it a number of times, both in
individual reports and in his annual reports, makes no connection between
children's achievement and class size and I agree with that.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, let's look at another area
where prudence in standards can be affected and that is in terms of selection.
Critics say that even more - you heard some of them in that film - even more
radical changes are necessary and one way to do that - one of those changes
that's needed is to increase the amount of selection in schools..the level of
selection. Do you agree with that?
SHEPHARD: Well can I just settle this debate into
context. I said the government had undertaken a huge programme of reform and
that is the case and the reform really has been three fold: the content of
education, the process (that is teacher training, inspection, testing and all
of that) and then the structure. And what we've sought to do is to introduce
into the structure of schools a wide range of different sorts of schools. Thus
we have local education authority schools, selective, non-selective,
comprehensive. We have grant maintained schools, city technology colleges,
specialist colleges, church schools. What we have sought to do is to have a
range of different kinds of schools, among which selective schools play an
important part because they achieve good results, they are popular and they
help lever up standards which of course is the whole point of reforms.
Now, if I might just continue. What the
Prime Minister and I - and there is not a cigarette paper between us on this
matter - is this: that selective schools have an important part to play within
that whole diversity. That we would not wish to return to a wholesale system
of grammar schools and secondary moderns because that would actually be to
strike at the heart of the diversity that we have achieved and in June I shall
be launching a White Paper which will put forward proposals to enable more
schools if their governors, their local communities, parents, staff, head and
so on agree, to become selective more easily.
HUMPHRYS: You have said, or you're going to say as
I understand it in that White Paper, that you will introduce permission for
schools to select fifteen per cent. Now you've also said - of their pupils that
is - you've also said, you raise the possibility that they might be able to
select one hundred per cent of their pupils, now is that going to be in the
White Paper?
SHEPHARD: You're confusing two things. We've
recently completed a consultation on allowing schools to select up to fifteen
per cent of their intake, without recourse to the department, that is one
exercise. The next exercise is going to propose ways in which it would
be...make it more easy for all schools - if that is their wish - to select
indeed up to fifty per..one hundred of their pupils and that will be part of
the White Paper and it will come out in June.
HUMPHRYS: That's what I think I said. But now,
are you interested in the idea of increasing that fifteen per cent to a hundred
per cent?
SHEPHARD: I'm sorry, you still are confusing the
two ideas. The fifteen per cent is one exercise which is completed. The White
Paper will canvass a much broader range for selection if that is the wish of
schools and their governors. There are two exercises, one is completed, one is
to take place in June.
HUMPHRYS: So what about whether these schools
should be allowed to make that decision for themselves, I mean that is what
you're suggesting at the moment, that they should be allowed to decide for
themselves what they do. Might you consider forcing them to go down the
selection route?
SHEPHARD: I think not forcing them. But I think
that what we want to do is to make it very much easier in this particular area
as we already have in the area of specialist schools, technology colleges and
grant maintained status for schools to decide their own future.
HUMPHRYS: You said "I think not", you don't sound
terribly certain about that?
SHEPHARD: I'm perfectly certain about what is
going to be in the White Paper but I'm not actually going to disclose it this
minute on this programme.
HUMPHRYS: Well, but let's see if we can get some
sense of where you are heading towards. I mean what's your general philosophy
on this? At the moment we have a tiny number of schools who have chosen any
kind of selection at all.
SHEPHARD: About a hundred and sixty out of a total
of five thousand or so.
HUMPHRYS: Right and that's a very tiny proportion
clearly. If that remains the case and you believe that selection is important
and you've made that point that you do believe that selection is important, is
part of the overall picture, that's just too small a proportion to be
significant isn't it?
SHEPHARD: I think not. You see what we're
concerned with is to retain the diversity of the system, as I made clear at the
beginning of this particular question, we value that diversity because we
believe that it increases choice, that it allows different kinds of schools to
offer different sorts of education to different kinds of children, and useful
choice for their parents and we believe that selective schools play an
important part in that overall diversity.
HUMPHRYS: Not really...such a tiny proportion.
SHEPHARD: Ah, but exactly. You're ignoring the
full diversity which is grant maintained, city technology colleges, specialist
schools, language colleges, technology schools, church schools and so on and we
believe that selective schools play an important part in that whole range but
as I have made clear and as the Prime Minister has also made clear we do not
envisage a return to a two-type of school system, namely grammar and secondary
modern. That is not what we want because it would be returning to two kinds of
schools and striking at the very heart of the diversity of a range of different
sorts of schools which the government reforms have, somewhat painfully, put in
place since 1988.
HUMPHRYS: Well, the Prime Minister seems to want a
Grammar School in every town. Do you?
SHEPHARD: That might well be the result of the
proposals that we put in the White Paper, because it could well be that that
number of schools will want to take up that option. That we shall have to see
and it could well be the outcome of the proposals that we put forward.
HUMPHRYS: Is that what you would like see happen,
is that the desirable outcome as far as you are concerned?
SHEPHARD: I certainly like the contribution that
selective schools make to driving up standards. Only yesterday, the Chief
Inspector produced a report which pointed out the excellence of the sixth form
results from Grammar Schools. We need excellence in our system. We need
schools which provide standards to which others can aspire and we do need
choice, we do need diversity, and there's something else we need. We need to
stretch the brightest of our children. I'm very struck by something that I
was told years ago by someone who was and extremely senior Schools
Inspector. And she said "I would really welcome seeing children tired by
their experience at school and with their homeword. You see it in France,
you see it in Germany. I believe we're beginning to see it here now. But I
want to see the brightest stretched to the very limits of what they're
capable". You see, it's not just for them, this isn't in a vacuum. We
need those young people to help our economic efforts.
HUMPHRYS: So you would like to make it easier for
schools to become Grammar Schools, as well as to make it easier for them to
select more pupils?
SHEPHARD: That will be one of the points the White
Paper will actually put in with other proposals.
HUMPHRYS: So we are going to have then this
two-tier system that you've already said you're opposed to?
SHEPHARD: No, not at all. And you are
deliberately misunderstanding.
HUMPHRYS: No I assure you I am doing nothing of
the sort.
SHEPHARD: I have already said...
HUMPHRYS: If you have a system of Grammar Schools
alongside a system a Comprehensive Schools, which by definition, presumably are
going to remain non selective, you have two tiers?
SHEPHARD: Yes you would...
HUMPHRYS: The brighest kids go to the Grammar
Schools, the less bright kids go to the other schools.
SHEPHARD: Now look, you're falling into your very
worst habits. You are not only asking the questions, but also answering them
as well. I seek to answer them, you are interrupting.
HUMPHRYS: Oh, I think I've given you a very very
reasonable time. I mean, come on, you've explained in great detail what
you are proposing to do. I am trying now to elucidate it a bit. You say you
do not like the two-tier system. If you have a system of Grammar Schools, to
which the brightest of the children go, and if you have a sytem of
Comprehensive Schools which are non selective, then you have two tiers, do you
not?
SHEPHARD: Well, I will seek to elucidate, if you
will allow me to do so. And I will say again that I think that one of the
major achievements of the Government's education reforms has been to create a
diverse system of schools. I have already enumerated what they are, I won't
do it again. As part of that diversity, selective schools have an important
place. What we don't want to do is to force schools to go selective, but we
do want to allow them to go selective if that is the wish of their Governors,
of the parents, of the Heads and that would be the purpose of the White Paper
that we put forward in June. But what I don't expect is that it will result in
a diminution of the diversity which exists in the system because I believe that
that diversity, as it stands, is already very popular. We want to make it
easier for those schools to go selective that wish to do so, and I don't
imagine it will be all.
HUMPHRYS: Bob Dunn said in that film that he wants
to get shot of the LEAs altogether, do you?
SHEPHARD: I noticed that he said that and
certainly one of the other proposals in the White Paper in June, will be to
extend more self government to all schools. Now grant-maintained schools, of
course, already enjoy complete self government, and LEA schools manage a large
part of their own budget, but there really is an inexplicably wide variation
between what some local education authorities allow their schools to spend,
ninety-five per cent of the total amount available, and others say eighty-five
per cent. Now there's no doubt that this independence - managing your own
budget, managing your own affairs - releases an incredible energy and
initiative and innovative spirit in grant-maintained schools and indeed in
those schools that handle the most of their budget and we want to develop that.
HUMPHRYS: How does that and a lot else of what
you've said here this morning fit in with your desire for stability and
recognition that what education needs now is a period of stability. It seems
pretty radical, some of this.
SHEPHARD: Some of it is pretty radical. And
certainly, I did want to achieve consolidation when I was first appointed.
You have to remember that I've been in this job, although it's changed beneath
my feet, for nearly two years now. I wanted to achieve a period of
consolidation and stability within the national curriculum. We have, of
course, introduced testing now, we are just looking again at the framework for
inspection. But you do actually have to develop policy, you have to look at
what is successful, you have to look at the aims which are to increase choice
and diversity to push up standards. That's what I'm doing.
HUMPHRYS: Gillian Shephard, thank you very much.
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