The Education Secretary Replies

Kenneth Baker

What response have you received to your consultations on the national curriculum, testing, and schools opting out of local authority control from those concerned with special educational needs?

I have received a massive number of papers, very many on the national curriculum, a lot from local education authorities, from governing bodies, from the teacher unions, from the professional interests of teachers, not just the unions, and we’ve also had a lot from individuals. With nearly all of these, questions about special education arise in one way or another - questions which I’m fairly clear we can resolve.

1 would just say that the national curriculum is not only for the brightest children. The whole purpose of the national curriculum is to lever up the standards of the average and below average children. We have to deal with those because, in most education systems, the bright children manage to get through somehow, that’s a general pattern across the world. The problem is with the average and below average, and, of course, our Lower Attaining Pupils Programme -which was unhappily named - was addressing the problems of those pupils.

Morale in the teaching profession is being damaged by recent government policies and proposals which seem to neglect the interests of children with special educational needs. Has the response encouraged you to take more account of children with learning difficulties in the drafting of the new Education Bill?

I am not so sure there is low morale among teachers in special education. When I go round the special schools, I find first, as one has always found in these schools, really tremendous dedication, and tremendous devotion, and usually quite a high involvement of parents as well. What I’m also seeing is the implementation of the 1981 Act. I see quite commonly in ordinary schools children who have got physical or mental handicaps of one sort or another. That is obviously good policy, because I think the involvement of the children with special needs in the schools is good both for those children and for the rest of the children in the class. I’m glad we’ve seen progress on those lines.

In view of the response you’ve had, and the misgivings which must have been voiced about the national curriculum, testing and opting out, will this encourage you to take more account of children with learning difficulties when drafting the new Education Bill?

Well certainly, they must be taken into account. We’ve never considered leaving them out of our consideration. Let me say that at once

On the question of the national curriculum and testing statemented children will not automatically be exempted, though it will be possible for statements of special educational needs to specify any national curriculum requirements which should be modified in some way. The regulations in individual subjects will also be able to specify circumstances in which they may be modified, for example, for pupils with severe language problems in the case of an additional foreign language, or a foreign language at all. So I don’t expect real problems over statementing, indeed our aim is that all children should gain the maximum possible benefit from the national curriculum while due account is taken of special needs.

Different education authorities have differing rates of statementing children with special educational needs. For instance, Avon had 4.2 per cent of children with statements, Hereford and Worcester had 0.4 per cent in January 1986 according to Hansard. It suggests that children with comparable levels of learning difficulties could in one LEA have statements of needs and could be exempted and in other LEA areas would not have statements to exempt them from certain national curriculum and testing requirements. That seems to be a problem that has yet to be resolved?

Yes, but when you say subject to the national testing, do bear in mind that there will be a range of ability at each level of assessment and testing. It’s an assessment and testing and I’m quite sure that we must depend a great deal upon the sensitivity of individual teachers in this area.

Does that mean that if the child is not on a Statement - although in another LEA he or she might have been on one - and the teacher feels that the child should not . . . Now that’s too difficult to answer, because that shows the differences between various education authorities. That difference exists now of course. doesn’t it?

The demands of the proposed national curriculum with its subject emphasis, national testing and 80 to 90 per cent time allocation in years 4 and 5 seem to conflict with other initiatives - TVEI, for instance. TVEI frequently has a cross-curricular, vocational emphasis, and work experience, and in some schools takes up 40 per cent or more of the timetable. Even allowing for some curricular overlap, how can the tensions between the national curriculum and TVEI be reconciled?

Experience has shown that TVEI can operate effectively within a national curriculum, which is what Scotland has. I’ve been

156 British Journal of Special Education, Volume 14, No.4 December 1987

encouraged by the welcome the Training Commission [MSC], which is responsible for the TVEI, has given to my proposals. They’ve welcomed them. The TVEI is about delivery and management of the curriculum and relating learning more closely to the individual’s particular need - that’s the particular advantage of it. Within the foundation curriculum it is perfectly possible to teach subjects to different groups of pupils with different needs in different ways. So there is scope for exciting curriculum developments funded through TVEI to make their way within the foundation curriculum. It’s really very important to do that, because TVEI has been a tremendous success story, particularly the emphasis upon the vocational side of it.

There is also a potential conflict between the long-term aims of the national curriculum to cover 80-90 per cent of the 15-16 age range, and the Lower Attaining Pupils Programmes designed - earlier - for the 40 per cent of children not previously taking public examinations. How do you see the future of LAPP?

As you know, LAPP was set up well before the GCSE. I visited some of the conferences they do, and there are very interesting lessons to learn from it. There’s no question about that. An amount of good practice is being identified which will be valuable in the out-working of more recent initiatives, so LAPP is not being overtaken, not in a negative sense. It has matured to the point where it can offer a very real contribution to the debates now in train.

What will the government do to ensure that the old divide between the 60 per cent taking GCE and CSE and the 40 per cent not taking these examinations will not be replicated in an actual divide between 60 per cent taking GCSE and the remaining 40 per cent taking LAPP and other lower status courses?

There should not be a 60/40 per cent divide between GCSE and the rest. The GCSE national criteria state that the GCSE is not for a pre-determined percentage of the age group. Unlike the old 0 Levels and the CSE, which said in effect that they were for a group, the GCSE is designed for all and any candidates able to reach the standards required for particular grades. The GCSE, with its national criteria for all main subjects, sets out clear learning goals for teachers and pupils. These should help to raise standards and bring the lower GCSE grades, in particular F and G, into the reach of nearly all pupils in the range of subjects. The lessons from LAPP are that it is not the syllabus that is necessarily too hard for some pupils, but the teaching/learning strategies have to be carefully tailored to pupils’ needs.

Under the national curriculum we want to see virtually all 16-year-olds’ achievement, particularly in the core subjects English, maths and science, assessed through the GCSE. There will be no division between exam sheep and LAPP goats, or vice versa. The GCSE criteria for syllabuses will be amended as necessary to incorporate attainment targets in programmes of study. If these attainment targets challenge the full ability range - and the subject working parties have been asked to make sure they do - then by definition the GCSE exam will also. There’s a long way to go here, we do have to lever up the quality. You know, in the German equivalent exam, 91 per cent in the hauptschuIe, which is a technical school, get an exam which is equivalent to our English CSE grade 4, which only 37 per cent of our children pass each year.

In addition to uncertainty about LAPP, there is also a question mark hanging over the future of CPVE. What are the government’s intentions for the future of this programme?

I don’t see any uncertainty about them. What we have learnt from LAPP I want to try to implant into the rest of the system because there are some very good lessons to be learnt.

When it comes to CPVE, I hope there is no uncertainty, it has established itself very well. In the first year there were 18,000 enrolments for 85/86, in 86/87 36,000, and this year we estimate 40,000. The classes that I’ve gone into, teaching CPVE in the sixth form, or occasionally in colleges of further education or tertiary colleges, are very positive indeed. This has all happened against the background of the introduction in further education colleges of B.Tec’s new First Diploma whose target group overlaps that of CPVE, the establishment of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications, the development of two-year YTS, and other developments such as the national curriculum, the extension of the TVEI, and GCSE. So CPVE is well established. Clearly it must adapt to changes, and we are studying at the moment the impact of the introduction of the First Diploma on CPVE, about to be completed, and a major evaluation of CPVE is just beginning, but recognises the need to take stock and adapt.

However, we remain convinced that CPVE can provide a valuable framework for a significant proportion of the 16 to 17-year-olds, as they move from school to adult working life. When I ask CPVE students what they get out of it, theanswer usually comes back very quickly, ‘Confidence’.

CPVE is competing with YTS for clientele. There seems to be a south-eastern bias in CPVE, progression is unclear and students who take it are not paid, whereas those who go on YTS are. Perhaps it is in an unfavourable position to compete for take up?

It’s doing jolly well - 40,000 this year. And, of course, CPVE is particularly well suited to special needs students. It’s a very valuable basic vocational year. Rumours of its death are much exaggerated!

Certificates, profiles, records of achievement, and duplications in course content are proliferating among the new initiatives. Does the government intend to rationalise the variety of 14-19 curriculum and training initiatives and, if so, how?

I agree that it is vital to secure a coherent pattern of qualifications from which young people can choose what best suits their needs. That is why part of our national curriculum proposals is the planned statutory control over qualifications and subjects offered to those in compulsory schooling and similar reserve powers over qualifications for 16 to 19-year- olds.

We want to reduce the plethora of qualifications and we see the national School Examinations and Assessment Council as playing a key part in that. The rationalisation of vocational qualifications through the National Council for Vocational Qualifications should help also. The aim is to provide the right building blocks which LEAS, schools, colleges -and students themselves -can put together to meet individual needs. The secondpart of Margaret Peter’s interview with the Education Secretary is scheduled to amear in the M a d 1988 issue. ..

British Journal of Special Education, Volume 14, N0.4 December 1987 157

158

YTS: Ladder to Progress or Merely a Maze?

Dermot Dick

The background The Youth Training Scheme was introduced in 1982, the product of 18 months’ deliberation by a Youth Task Group consisting of educationists, employers, trades unionists, careers officers and officials of the Manpower Services Commission (MSC). In recommending a one-year, integrated programme of work experience coupled with off-the-job training, the Youth Task Group was building upon the best features of the Youth Opportunities Programme, then five years old, and the Work Experience Programme which had preceded it. Four years later, in January 1986, came the launch of a new improved two-year ‘Training for Skills - YTS Programme’, including a guaranteed 20 weeks’ off-the-job training, improved allowances and certification.

This emphasis on preparation for work is reflected also in the MSC’s definition of young disabled people, contained in a guidance note to their field staff (1987), as ‘those who suffer from physical, mental or sensory handicap and/or who have moderate or severe learning difficulties which put them at a

substantial disadvantage in the labour market’. This definition appears helpful by including in principle pupils with both moderate and severe learning difficulties and encompassing all pupils with disabilities regardless of whether they have attended special schools or units or received special support in secondary schools. But how have they fared in practice?

A major difficulty confronting the researcher is the lack of detailed and reliable statistics relating to entry of the client group into the YTS and their subsequent destinations. The

MSC began to collect statistics for disabled entrants in 1984 but warned that they were based on declaration of disability on the start certificates of trainees and were not totally accurate.

In an effort to find out more about the characteristics of YTS entrants and their subsequent destinations, the Institute of Careers Officers and The Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation (RADAR) carried out a national survey of principal careers officers in all education authorities between November 1985 and January 1986. An 82 per cent response was obtained, which adds credence to the survey’s findings. The questionnaire responses showed a total of 4,699 school leavers in the client group entering the YTS in 1983 a n d a total of 5,415 school leavers in 1984. The 1984 figure if projected slightly is in line with the MSC intake figures for 1985-6 which show 5,794 young disabled people beginning training between April 1985 and February 1986.

The projected figure for 1984 represents about 1.5 per cent of 811 school leaver entrants to the programme that year and one in three of the 16,900 disabled 15-year-olds in special schools. Using broad definitions to identify the larger groups, an analysis of the 1984 entrants identified in the survey, and the types of schemes entered, reveals the following figures for 1984 (Table 1) a t a time when the YTS was still a one-year scheme and the former funding modes still applied.

Table 1 Disabled Leavers entering YTS Schemes, 1984

Mode A Mode B1 Mode 82 Total % Physical disability 236 256 84 576 10.63 Sensory impairment 137 149 78 364 6.72 Emotionallbehavioural

difficulties 271 761 158 1190 21.95 Learning difficulties 403 1746 906 3055 56.41 Multiple disabilities 42 137 51 230 4.24

5415 99.95

Trainees’ perceptions of the YTS as reported by careers officers

Mode A: employer-based training Mode 81:

Mode 82:

community project. training workshops and information technology centres usually in further education colleges.

It is clear from the above that a pecking order emerges for acceptability to employers of particular categories of special need. Thus some 40 per cent of young people with physical disability and a similar proportion - 37 per cent of young people with hearing or vision defects - gained access to employer-based training. Young people with emotional or behavioural difficulties fared less well, with 23 per cent gaining employer places. Only 18 per cent of those with multiple disabilities were employer-based, while those young people with learning difficulties fared worst of all, with only 13 per cent achieving employer-based training.

These last three groups were very heavily dependent on Mode B1 provision (average 60 per cent) with colleges of further education providing nearly 30 per cent of places for those with learning difficulties. For these groups, access to employers’ premises was entirely dependent on the capacity of their managing agent to arrange work placements and sometimes this proved an insuperable problem. Clearly, with these groups, employers tended to equate ‘disability’ with ‘inability’.

The question of access to employers loomed large in determining young people’s attitudes towards the YTS.

British Journal of Special Education, Volume 14, No. 4 - .

December 1987