argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Technical and Further Education Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-27
Topic: Education
Ralph Matthew Palmer (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I would certainly like an apprentice who is having a hard time getting what they want or a proper education, particularly in an SME, to be able to communicate that, and unless there is an established route for them to do so, as described in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, it will be very difficult to ask someone to invent one. There needs to be someone the apprentice can talk to first; otherwise, it will be just too difficult and we will never get to know the quality of the apprenticeship. Anything that became a regular reporting mechanism might well take up a lot of time but not produce any good. However, something should be in place so that, when things are really going wrong, the person at the wrong end of that can have a voice. It seems to me that that is worth including.
Technical and Further Education Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-27
Topic: Education
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): Unfortunately, I am unable to clarify that at the moment, but I will write to the noble Lord. I will also unfortunately have to write to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, on his point about the Consumer Rights Act As a requirement of the Skills Funding Agency funding rules, the training provider must ensure that a commitment statement and the apprenticeship agreement are in place before funding is released, which implies that these things are happening—otherwise, funding would not be released—but I will confirm that. This is monitored by the SFA, and duplication by the institute is therefore not necessary. I hope that noble Lords will feel reassured enough on the basis of my explanation not to press these amendments.
Technical and Further Education Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-27
Topic: Education
John Nash (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Young, for tabling this amendment. I fully understand their concerns and hope that I might be able to provide an explanation that will put their minds at rest. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, for his kind comments about our branding as T-levels We know that colleges, students and awarding organisations will need to know in good time the arrangements for existing qualifications as the new qualifications are introduced. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has just said, we plan for the first new technical routes to be introduced in autumn 2019, with the full range of programmes coming on stream soon after. Additional hours will be available for the new programmes as they become available and we will announce further details in due course following further engagement with employers, colleges and other key stakeholders In implementing the reforms, the Government will consider in consultation with the institute how best to manage the transition from legacy qualifications to new technical qualifications approved by the institute and intend to involve stakeholders and set out plans for this in due course Given that the new technical education routes will be subject to phased introduction, it would not be sensible or appropriate to commit to a fixed timescale for publishing detailed proposals for transition. I reassure the noble Lords, however, that once the institute has approved a new qualification, the Department for Education will consider future funding for the current, similar qualifications on a case-by-case basis. We will not withdraw funding for a student who is part way through their course. I therefore hope that the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Young, will be sufficiently reassured to consider not pressing their amendment.
Technical and Further Education Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-27
Topic: Education
Ralph Matthew Palmer (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I add my support to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden. If I remember rightly, in Committee the noble Baroness, Lady Cohen of Pimlico, asked whether the word "professional" might be added to "technical" in the Bill to provide a broader and more prestigious view of what was covered. I think "professional" has a lot of attractions to it in bridging the divide between academic and vocational qualifications. "Technical" gets some of the way but not all the way. I thought it was a good suggestion. The Minister said that he would take it away and think about it. I am sorry if I have missed the results of those deliberations in the letters that have been sent out. But if I have not missed them and we have not had them, could we have them now, please?
Technical and Further Education Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-27
Topic: Education
Charlotte Vere (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to debate the amendments in this group. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions I fully understand why the noble Baroness and the noble Lord have tabled Amendment 6, which seeks to define technical education qualifications as, "the full range of work-based qualifications" I reassure them that all relevant and appropriate occupations in the economy will be covered within the technical education routes. What is important is that there is good provision for everyone and that the reformed technical education system focuses on occupations for which skilled technical training is a requirement The Sainsbury panel report has already provided a clear definition: "Technical education must require the acquisition of both a substantial body of technical knowledge and a set of practical skills valued by industry" Trying to define these qualifications in this manner could restrict the scope of technical education qualifications, both now and in the future. In practice, technical education qualifications will be defined by the coverage of the 15 technical education routes. Each route will provide a framework for grouping together occupations where there are shared training requirements. An occupational map will identify all the occupations within the scope of each route When defining the coverage of the 15 technical education routes, it is important to highlight that not all occupations will be included. The Sainsbury panel was clear that unskilled and low-skilled occupations that do not have sufficient knowledge requirements would not warrant a technical education route. Rather, these occupations can be learned entirely on the job, often within a matter of weeks. For these occupations, it would not be appropriate to offer technical education qualifications. I reassure the noble Baroness and the noble Lord that within the technical education routes there will be comprehensive coverage of the skilled occupations that are vital to the success—
Technical and Further Education Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-27
Topic: Education
Kenneth Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I warmly support what the noble Baroness is saying. It is not only lower-level qualifications; there are existing upper-level qualifications, for example, at level 4, which are very well regarded by industry and which are progression courses from level 3 to level 5 and a degree. We do not want them to disappear. They are a very important part of the technical education system of our country.
Technical and Further Education Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-27
Topic: Education
Ralph Matthew Palmer (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 9. These amendments are very simple. They pick up on my noble friend Lord Baker’s excellent amendment, which was accepted in Committee, to point out that it is not just the local FE college or other major provider that wants to get into schools. There are a lot of excellent organisations which need to get into schools. Women in Construction is one. In needs to get the message through that there are a lot of very good jobs for women in construction. There are similar efforts going on about women in engineering and women in computing. They are not education providers. They have been funded by education providers and employers to produce a flow of students to education providers in general. Those organisations need to get into schools just as much as individual providers, if not more, because in many cases they have a level of prestige and glamour which the local FE college lacks. I beg to move.
Technical and Further Education Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-27
Topic: Education
Kenneth Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend Lord Lucas’s amendments are an addition to the clause that I introduced in Committee, but quite a useful one. The purpose of the clause is to ensure that schools have a duty to accept—and cannot reject—various people going in and talking to students at the ages of 13, 16, and 18 about the various types of training and education they provide, which is the most effective way to improve careers advice. I have sat through several Governments who have tried to create careers advice by legislation, and it just does not work. You cannot expect many teachers to know a great deal about life outside because they leave school, go to a teacher training college and then go back to school. You have to have real, live people going into schools and talking about what life is like in a factory or a business complex and offering the opportunities—and we will now have this In September this year, for the first time, not only the heads of university technical colleges but those of studio schools, career colleges and FE colleges, as well as apprenticeship providers, will have a right to go and speak to 13, 16 and 18 year-olds and explain to them the opportunities that are available to them other than just getting three A-levels and going to university. That is a major change. I strongly support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas. Groups such as Women in Engineering spend a lot time trying to persuade more women to get into engineering. We have courses in the UTC movement to persuade more girls to go into engineering, and the numbers are going up all the time: we sometimes get over 20% or 30% girls. We like that because when a girl decides to be an engineer, she is usually very determined and confident, and in many cases the brightest member of the team. This will help in all of that, so I support it. Careers advice in FE colleges is largely an unknown area, frankly, and they should certainly improve their advice. But they have the advantage of being able to go in and talk to schools from September of this year.
Technical and Further Education Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-27
Topic: Education
John Nash (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful for these amendments. I have made it clear that our priority in introducing the special administration regime is to ensure that the interests of students are safeguarded as far as possible. That is the purpose of the special objective, which places an overriding obligation on the education administrator to take the action that best avoids or minimises disruption to the studies of existing students. I am pleased that noble Lords recognise, and share, that objective I understand the noble Lord’s concern about the drafting of subsection (2), that the inclusion of the words "if possible" may be considered to cast doubt on the special objective. As he indicated, I can assure noble Lords that is not our intention. I have reflected on the noble Lord’s amendment. The regime that we are introducing is one which places students at the heart of further education, but does not demand that the education administrator achieves the impossible; nor does it disregard the interests of creditors. The words "if possible" in Clause 24(2) were intended to clarify this position, but I understand the noble Lord’s concerns that they might have the opposite effect. Let me be clear that our position remains unchanged and I am satisfied, on the advice of my lawyers, that their deletion would have no substantive effect on the application of the regime. I am therefore delighted to accept the amendment As for the noble Lord’s kind offer not to move Amendments 11, 12 and 13, I am delighted that he has been reassured by the letter from my noble friend Lady Vere. I assure him that the normal insolvency procedures would be followed and that there is no intention to disrupt those, apart from the overriding special objective.
Technical and Further Education Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-27
Topic: Education
Ralph Matthew Palmer (Conservative, Centre-right): There has been a problem with apprenticeships, at least historically, where people have wanted to include qualifications within them. I would be very grateful if my noble friend would make it clear that this has now passed and that the idea of including qualifications within apprenticeship qualifications, or indeed within qualifications at FE colleges, is now fully accepted. Generally, this is to the advantage of the learner. If I am doing a qualification within one of the 15 proposed Sainsbury routes, and that apprenticeship involves getting to know cybersecurity, I do not want to have a haberdasher’s qualification in cybersecurity: I want to have something which will be recognised in every single industry which might require that skill. The same applies to accountancy, marketing and other skills which are common across the routes, where these are things that you might wish an apprentice to learn in the course of their apprenticeship, or have experience of. It also applies particularly to technical qualifications in IT, where you would expect an apprentice to follow one or more international qualifications produced by the likes of Microsoft because that is what the industry as a whole demands and that is what produces a young person who can move from job to job because they have the qualifications that are recognised in their next job and not just those which are appropriate for the particular patch where they did their apprenticeship It is also important in this context that the specifications for apprenticeship should recognise that there are alternative qualifications in some circumstances. You may want your young person to be familiar with computer networking but there are two, maybe three, top-quality international qualifications in computer networking. Which one do you want to use? It will be the one that works with your business. However, the people in charge of the apprenticeship will recognise that these are equivalent and that either one can count and fit in place. I think this has been accepted now. There seems to be some residual difficulty reported to me. However, I would be very grateful for my noble friend’s assurance that the concept of embedding qualifications in apprenticeships or in further education courses is now fully accepted. I beg to move.
Technical and Further Education Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-27
Topic: Education
Kenneth Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I support my noble friend’s amendment. I suspect that individual apprentices will work on the basis that he mentioned as certain qualifications in certain industries are not in the regular run of FE colleges, or universities for that matter, but have been accepted by the industry as the accepted standard. My noble friend mentioned Microsoft. Cisco does this as well. It is particularly the case in the whole area of computing, where various companies have established qualifications which have become the standard. In fact, the Cisco qualification for schools is more demanding than GCSE computing, and many people work towards that. We have to make sure that these qualifications do not disappear when the Institute for Apprenticeships clears out a lot of valueless qualifications. These are not valueless, particularly the international ones. Given that the digital revolution is happening so suddenly, a huge variety of examinations and qualifications in artificial intelligence may come our way. Each area will want to protect its own interest. I would hope that the Institute for Apprenticeships would take this message on board. I do not know whether a statutory measure is required.
Technical and Further Education Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-27
Topic: Education
John Nash (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Lucas for this amendment, the effect of which would be to require each group of persons who develop a standard to consider whether an existing qualification ought to be included within it. Occupational standards will form the basis of both apprenticeships and technical education qualifications, and need to be suitable for each of them. The standard should include the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed to form the basis of either an apprenticeship or a technical education qualification. Including existing qualifications in addition to the knowledge, skills and behaviours would cause complications when technical education qualifications are being developed using the standard One of the core principles of the apprenticeship reforms is to move away from qualifications. Under the framework model, apprentices collect a number of small, often low-quality, qualifications throughout their apprenticeship which often do not give employers much reassurance about apprentices’ ability to do the job. By moving to a single end-point assessment, the apprentice will be tested on the knowledge, skills and behaviours set out in the standard and their occupational competence to do the whole job, not just a small section of it This amendment does not require the inclusion of qualifications in standards but it is moving the approach back towards the system that we are moving away from. Although it is no doubt something that the awarding bodies would welcome, it could actively encourage employer groups to include qualifications where they may otherwise not have done so. That is likely to be contrary to the Government’s strategic guidance for the institute. However, I can reassure my noble friend and the House that in occupations where there is a qualification that is needed for an apprenticeship—for example, to achieve a professional status—they will not need to be prompted by this Bill to consider its inclusion in the standard, which is permissible as long as they meet set criteria for an exception. This is in line with the employer-led nature of the reforms. We therefore believe that this kind of direction is not needed in such a system. I hope that my noble friend will feel reassured enough on the basis of my explanation to withdraw this amendment.
Technical and Further Education Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-27
Topic: Labor
Ralph Matthew Palmer (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am mostly comforted by my noble friend’s reference to employer-led matters. If that indicates that if employers want a qualification and fight hard enough they will get it, that seems to me satisfactory. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Technical and Further Education Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-27
Topic: Education
John Nash (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to discuss Amendment 23, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, which would require all apprenticeship assessment plans to include continuous assessment Reviewing the role of continuous assessment in apprenticeships has been a very important part of the apprenticeship reforms following the 2012 Richard review of apprenticeships. It concluded that continuous assessment throughout an apprenticeship tested only incremental progress, not whether the apprentice is fully competent at the time of completing their apprenticeship. This approach also undermines our principle of ensuring that assessment is delivered by an independent third party with nothing to gain from the outcome of the assessment. The continuous assessment model often means that the same individual trains and assesses an apprentice—a conflict of interest we have sought to avoid An important feature of approved English apprenticeship standards and plans is therefore the move away from this reliance on a series of small and pre-existing qualifications making up an apprenticeship, and the move instead towards a single, independent end-point assessment, which tests the apprentice in a holistic and robust way. This test at the end of the apprenticeship proves genuine employability by demonstrating that the apprentice has acquired the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed to be fully competent in their occupation. The requirements for the end-point assessment of each standard are developed by employer groups and approved by the institute to ensure that it meets the needs for that specific occupation. In view of this, I hope the noble Baroness feels reassured enough to withdraw her amendment.
Broadcasting (Radio Multiplex Services) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-02-24
Topic: Technology
David Trefgarne (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I apologise that I did not appreciate that the Bill was coming before your Lordships until the last minute, and it is for that reason that I do not have my name on the speakers list I have a long-standing interest, particularly in the technical aspects of local broadcasting. I therefore warmly support the Bill and very much hope that it will soon find its way on to the statute book.
Parking Places (Variation of Charges) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-02-24
Topic: Transportation
Elizabeth Redfern (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I too have sympathy with the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, regarding fairness to disabled people in private car parks. I also take this opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his comments, particularly about not wanting too much bureaucracy when we consult people. I thank the Minister for his constructive comments and support The Bill recognises that councils need not only to have flexibilities but to involve local communities in their decision-making process. It offers a real opportunity for a small but sensible reform to local authority car parks and will give the Government powers to scrap the bureaucratic requirements on local authorities, if they wish to lower their parking charges, and to react more quickly to market changes and allow for greater flexibility. It also offers a real opportunity for councils to take a flexible approach to supporting their high streets. That is what the Bill seeks to achieve and I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
Abortion (Disability Equality) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-02-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Rodney Elton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, after that intervention I need say very little indeed. I share with everyone else my admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Winston, as I have for my noble friend Lord Shinkwin. However, while it would be helpful to have the noble Lord’s assurance as to what is meant by these terms, that is not sufficient. It has to be on the face of the Bill because that is what the law will be. Otherwise it will be decided by the courts, which would mean there is no certainty. The purpose of good legislation is bring certainty, not doubt.
English Baccalaureate: Creative and Technical Subjects — House of Lords, 2017-09-14
Topic: Education
Deborah Stedman-Scott (Conservative, Centre-right): That this House takes note of the impact of the English Baccalaureate on the take-up of creative and technical subjects, and the case for broadening the curriculum to create a coherent and unified 14 to 19 phase.