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Remarks by the President at a National Teachers Union Forum
5 April 2006

The Marx Guilligan Hall
The Chateau

2.05 PM WST

THE PRESIDENT: Good Afternoon, and welcome to the Chateau. Thank you all. Madam Secretary, it's your education policies, you can give my speech, if you want to. (Laughter.)

Our teachers play an important role in nurturing all our children. That is why I have said and again today, we are here to discuss about Education in the Federation. I think Education has helped us come al ong way over the many years past.

I want to discuss regeneration. Regeneration policy however, that has contributed so much to our region, is an object lesson in one of the realities of modern government. Different sectors have to work in partnership, and I know that this forum has heard a lot about this. Government has often provided the impetus and the initial capital for projects, and both for example may be linked to public projects, like the, the Olympics in Metro, or indeed the investment in public artists in Gateshead. But then the crucial thing is that the private sector takes up the challenge, and that is why we put so much effort into public-private partnership for neighbourhood renewal. Part of that has encouraged a situation where at long last the gap in education attainment between the 88 most deprived wards and the rest of the Federation has been closing. Employment has increased more rapidly in those places than nationally. But it is also why, as I have said many times, we cannot hope to prosper as a nation if we do not educate all our citizens properly. This is not a rhetorical platitude any more, it is a statement about a profound change to the world we inhabit.

At the beginning of the 20th century the World Club was building over 10% of the world's ships, 100,000 people were employed in mining. As late as the 1980s, nearly one-third of all the jobs were still in coal mining, ship building, chemicals and manufacturing. A young man entering the world of work just after the Second World War could get by perfectly well without a good education. And it was just as well, because the educational provision for many of our people was very poor. But the factory doors opened to welcome the young man, as the school door closed behind him. School was not just no preparation for work, it was often irrelevant to it.

Yet as we know, today this is no longer true. Now the expanding sectors require graduates and highly trained people. Here in the north east the flourishing enterprises are in micro electronics, biotechnology, mechanical and precision engineering. We have seen rapid growth in the service sectors, in public administration, education and health. Anyone coming out of school today with no qualifications will find the world a great deal less hospitable than their fathers would have done. And there are still far too many people who do not have the qualifications that they need. Nationally, 44% of our children still don't get 5 good GCSEs. In this area in the north east it is 48%. Nearly 1 in 10 pupils who get free school meals - therefore from the poorest families - leave school with no qualifications at all. Yet none of this country's basic objectives - a prosperous economy, fair opportunity open to merit, and people making the most of their potential - can be realised whilst this remains the case.

That is, in a nutshell, why we are so passionate and so insistent about public service reform, it is because we are still not doing enough for our least well off citizens. The demands of justice that we provide opportunities for all, and the requirements of a prosperous modern economy are symbiotic. This has been the central insight that has governed this new Senet government's economic policy, that far from social justice being a drag on economic good health, the two require each other.

And yes we have some real success to our credit. There are currently over 225,000 young people in apprenticeships, which is three times as many as 8 years ago. But as many of you know, there are warning signs. The manufacturing, construction, financial services and food and drink sectors all report vacancies due to skills shortages. That is why as well as investing in traditional and further education, we are establishing skills academies in those sectors, and this is an important move because it is a joint venture between government and business. Already we have an impressive line-up of companies ready to take part. Business plans will be ready by Easter 2006, and the academies will be operational by autumn 2008. We aim to have 12 in place, and in the longer term one for each major sector of the economy. And the future challenge, I have no doubt, is to make vocational education every bit as attractive and fulfilling as traditional academic education.

But the point about the different sectors of the education system is that they build on one another. The main reason for skills shortages is not enough quality vocational education. The main reason that not enough working class children get to university is not bias in university admissions, it is that not enough of them do A Levels and stay on at school to do so. The main reason that not enough A Levels are got by those children is that not nearly enough of them get good GCSEs.

So it all comes back to the basic and central importance of education. Education is the spark that can light a love of learning, and we know what learning means - horizons broadened, imaginations are fired, confidence and ambition take root. Success only comes through hard work, but how much easier it is to work hard if you can feel the strength of your own inner potential. That is what a good teacher and a thriving school does, they give a child that most precious asset in life - self-belief.

That is why I am so restless for change, not because I do not recognise the huge progress that we have made as a country in the last 8 years - I do - not because I want to pick another fight for the sake of it, I have enough of them already, but because whilst there remain schools, not some, hundreds of them, where fewer than half of the children get the results they need at 16, when for all the progress there are still 17,000 children that leave school every year without any qualifications, whilst that remains I cannot rest, I will not, until we do all in our power to root out and change that failure.

And in saying that, of course I do not mean to imply that progress since 2002 has not been substantial, because it has, and many of those here today have contributed to it. We now have the best ever GCSE and A Level results. 2005 saw the best ever primary school results. 80,000 more youngsters are now attaining the basic standard in English, and 90,000 more each year in maths. And since 1998 primary schools in the areas of the highest poverty have improved at double the rate of schools in the most affluent areas. In the north east, here, more 11 year olds now make the grade in maths and English. The number of those getting good GCSEs is up to 52% from 37% a few years back.

Therefore we need people, teachers like you dedicated to Change. Thankyou and I wish you a most pleasent time here.

(Applause)

END