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Michael Gove condemns Ed Balls' incompetence

Highlights of Michael Gove's questioning of Ed Balls' competence after the SATs fiasco.

Incompetence, year after year: "Under the American contractor ETS, there have been chronic delays in getting all papers marked, the marking itself has been flawed, with reports of teenagers and cocktail waitresses being approached to help meet deadlines, and papers of widely differing quality being given the same mark. The Secretary of State says that it is no worse than every year. Does not that just underline the incompetence at the heart of this Government when it comes to education?"

Someone needs to take responsibility: "The Secretary of State rightly acknowledges that this situation is unacceptable, but what parents and teachers want to know is whether he will take responsibility. He has consistently argued that responsibility for this affair rests in hands other than his—at arm’s length. But can he confirm that civil servants from his Department—specifically, the director general of schools—were there at the meeting when the contract was awarded to ETS? Can the Secretary of State tell us what, if anything, civil servants told him about that procurement process? Can he tell us what action, if any, he then took to ensure the safe delivery of testing?"

Marking has lost credibility: "As soon as ETS took up its contract, examiners started to register their concerns. The standardisation process, which ensures consistent marking, was flawed, with highly experienced markers being failed and other, much weaker candidates, being passed despite registering a worryingly high number of mistakes. Worse, the failsafe system to deal with bad marking—the borderline process which allows for papers to be remarked—was scrapped. Given the high number of complaints of inconsistent and error-strewn marking in this year’s tests, how can the Secretary of State have confidence in the quality of marking?"

Ed Balls has failed basic standards of competence: "We all await Lord Sutherland’s report with interest, but when the Secretary of State’s predecessor Estelle Morris ran into trouble with a marking fiasco, she commissioned a former chief inspector to issue an interim report within a week. Why is the Secretary of State not insisting on similar urgency even now? Is he afraid of the results? Has not his behaviour throughout this affair been characterised by indifference, high-handedness and inattention? Is it not the case that his Department failed to ensure that contracts had been awarded properly, failed to heed warning signs and failed to act quickly to avert a fiasco that every teacher in the land could see coming? Do not pupils, parents and teachers deserve better than a Secretary of State who fails the most basic test of all—competence in office?"

Michael Gove MP on the benefits of education

Michael Gove speaking yesterday in the commons (Hansard):

"Some people argue that the goal of ever-higher participation in education is wrong, and object to extending educational opportunity. I accept that the Secretary of State is legitimately concerned about those views, and I, too, want to explain why I think that they are wrong. The first argument that I would deploy is unashamedly personal. No one in my family had gone to university, and both my parents left school early. I know how education can transform opportunities. I would never want any child to lose out on opportunity through a lack of parental resources...

My second argument involves social justice. We know that access to educational opportunity is a critical determinant of future earnings and of well-being. At the moment, educational opportunity is unequally distributed. Contrary to the impression given by the Secretary of State in his speech, figures that we excavated over the Christmas period show that the gap between the academic performance in the most advantaged 10 per cent. of schools and that in the least advantaged 10 per cent. has grown and is growing. It is a source of deep concern to us that that should be so. Work by the Sutton Trust and others has confirmed the melancholy correlation between deprivation and academic achievement. We believe that there needs to be a concerted drive to tackle that unfairness and to extend opportunity. We can do that by tackling illiteracy and innumeracy in the earliest years. That, once again, will open up the prospect of academic excellence to many, many more.

If the drive succeeds and the number of individuals from poorer backgrounds staying on to 18 in education increases and if the number going on to university or equivalent institutions begins to catch up with the equivalent number for those from more fortunate backgrounds who are already enjoying such opportunity, the university population will clearly increase. That is our aim. To those who say that that is idealistic, I plead guilty, and I ask those who say that it is impossible to spend a little time looking at geography and then history.

Michael Gove highlights Labour's education failings

Extracts from the response of Michael Gove MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Schools, Children and Families, to Ed Balls' "Children Plan."

Labour's approach has failed Britain's children: "The Secretary of State is right that our children face a world that is full of greater opportunities and greater risks than ever before. However, the background to the children’s plan, sadly, is a world in which our children are falling behind those of other nations. Last week, we discovered that we have fallen from fourth to 14th in the international league tables for science, from seventh to 17th for reading, and from eighth to 24th for maths. How does the Secretary of State explain why we were in the top 10 for all those subjects when the children sitting the tests had the majority of their education under a Conservative Government, whereas we plummeted down the rankings, relegated to the second division, when those sitting the tests had all their education under a Labour Government? Is not every external audit of our education system a story of Labour failure? Is not it time to acknowledge the limitations of the top-down micro-management and political interference of the old Labour approach and embrace genuine reform?"

Today's statement is a missed opportunity: "I fear that today will be remembered as a great missed opportunity for the Government. Instead of a clear picture for our children’s future, we have an underwhelming collage, with items stuck on any old how and no underlying vision. Why are there no proposals to give parents the right to take their children from a failing school and place them in a good new school? Why is there no determination to give teachers the power to impose effective discipline by excluding disruptive pupils without having teachers second-guessed by those outside the school? Why, instead of giving more schools academy-style freedoms to innovate and drive up standards, is the Secretary of State still restricting the freedoms of existing academies?  Is not it the case that, ultimately, instead of a broad and deep vision, we have a disappointingly hesitant and patchy programme, which betrays an itch to intervene but no grasp of the genuine problems? Is not it clear that, unless we learn from abroad and reform our education system to meet the challenge of global competition, we will fall further behind and the Government will fail future generations?"

More from Hansard here.

Michael Gove and Paul Goodman call for film-maker Ayaan Hirsi Ali to enjoy continuing protection

"This House, recognising that freedom of speech within the law and freedom from violence and intimidation are indispensable preconditions of a free society, deeply regrets the decision of the Dutch Parliament and Government to withdraw protection abroad from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the author, film-maker and former politician, and urges both bodies to reverse this decision forthwith."

James Forsyth has more over at The Spectator.