PARLIAMENTARY REPORT
Education and
Skills Bill
Government
Department: Children, Schools and Families
Liberal Democrats
Spokesperson in the Commons: David
Laws
Liberal Democrats Spokesperson in the Lords: Baroness
Walmsley
Government proposals
· Raise to 18 the minimum age at which young people can leave education
or training, placing a duty on young people to participate, a duty on employers
to release them for regular training or provide structured training in-house,
and a duty on local authorities to ensure that they
participate.
· Proposals on adult basic skills, including making the
Learning and Skills Council responsible for securing proper provision of adult
literacy and numeracy courses.
· Rationalise the registration,
monitoring and categorisation of independent schools and non-maintained special
schools.
Liberal Democrat response
The Liberal
Democrats have attempted to amend the proposal to raise the school leaving age.
The Bill in its current form risks criminalising young people instead of
tackling the reasons why they leave education in the first place. We are seeking
to take out this clunking fist approach in the Bill, replacing it with a better
balance between enablement and compulsion.
By proposing to spend
£600m over a decade on a complex registration system and hiring inspectors to go
around checking on small businesses, ministers are missing the point. There is a
real problem with young people dropping out of education at 16, but the right
approach is surely to tackle poor basic skills at an early age and make the
curriculum more relevant. The Government’s approach risks making employers less
likely to take on 16-18 year olds, which would harm their attempts to deal with
the problem of unemployment amongst young people.
Liberal Democrats
believe that every young person should have an entitlement to free education up
until 18. But for some youngsters it may make more sense to use the last two
‘free’ years when they are ready, which may not be at 17.
We recognise
the importance of encouraging those over 16 to remain in education or
training. The Leitch Review of Skills projects that there will be a sharp
decline in low-skilled jobs up to 2020 and this, along with increased
international competitiveness makes it all the more important that the British
workforce is as highly skilled as possible. 11% of young people aged 16-18 are
currently not in education or training (NEET), although research suggests that
only 1% of these people are NEET throughout this whole
period.
Applicability (e.g. England only)
England and
Wales. The Government will work closely with the devolved administrations on the
responsibilities they have in this area.
Further
Information
Government
note on the Bill
Draft
Bill
Commons
Second Reading debate
Lords
Second Reading Debate
Last updated
14/08/08
