On Sunday 05 September Andrew Marr interviewed Education Secretary Michael Gove. Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.
ANDREW MARR:
Well big changes to the schools system in England are one of the government's top priorities. The Education Secretary Michael Gove's about to announce details of the first wave of "free schools", and the idea is that groups of parents, charities, faith groups, businesses will be able to set up schools funded by central government but independent from local education authorities. So the question is how many of them? Well hundreds, thousands, except it hasn't happened quite like that and of course money is very tight indeed. Michael Gove is with me now. Welcome. Can you tell me, first of all, how many free schools are going to happen in the first wave? MICHAEL GOVE: I expect that there'll probably be 16 schools in the very first wave. We've had over 700 groups that have been in contact with a charity called The New Schools Network, which has just been operational really over the last few months. Of those 700, about 100 or so have actually put in applications to the Department for Education; and of those, there are 16 that are mustard keen to open in September 2011. And I've been flattered and excited actually by the extent of interest, and also by the enthusiasm shown by these inspirational people. Many of them are teachers currently in the state system who want to transform the education of children, often in the very poorest areas. And some of the proposals - for example, there's one young teacher who wants to open a school in Bradford - are deliberately targeted at the children who need their education transformed the most. ANDREW MARR: So 700 expressions of interest; 100 serious applications; 16 at the end of it. That's a heck of a winnowing down. Why so few? MICHAEL GOVE: Well we want to make sure that those applications that go forward are high quality. But more than that, it's important … ANDREW MARR: So what's the problem with the other ones? MICHAEL GOVE: Well the important thing to recognise is that under the last government, we had I think two new schools which were promoted by parents, which were set up in the way that we intend to see more new schools set up in the future. To set up a school now in this country normally takes between three and five years. In order to establish a school, you have to wade through a plethora of rules, a morass of bureaucracy. We're hacking that bureaucracy back. ANDREW MARR: (over) But you've cleared all the … What I'm interested in … So you've tried to clear a lot of that aside … MICHAEL GOVE: (over) We are clearing it aside. ANDREW MARR: … and making it much, much easier. Why so few coming through? Is it simply because people don't understand the new system yet or aren't in the financial position to open them? As I say, 700 applications and then 16 just going … It's not the kind of first wave that you would have hoped for. MICHAEL GOVE: It is! It's actually well in excess of my hopes. Before the General Election people said, "You'll never get a bill through, Michael, in order to facilitate this in the first two weeks of a new government". People also said, "The idea of new schools opening in September 2011, just a year or so after you've become the government, that can't happen." It takes three or five years for schools to open, but actually we're making a difference now. The critical thing to bear mind is that the last time you and I had a chat … ANDREW MARR: You still haven't explained … MICHAEL GOVE: … you know which was just after the election, just three or four months ago. It seems like only yesterday. And now … ANDREW MARR: I can remember the chemistry between you and the Liberal Democrat … MICHAEL GOVE: And Paddy Ashdown. ANDREW MARR: And Paddy Ashdown. I can remember that. MICHAEL GOVE: Exactly. But that's the really surprising thing, isn't it? ANDREW MARR: That was surprising certainly. MICHAEL GOVE: That just three months on from the government being formed, you have Conservatives and Liberal Democrats working together; and just three months on from the government being formed, we are on course to double the number of academies and we are seeing 16 new schools created. ANDREW MARR: But still tiny. It's still a tiny number of schools. Ultimately do you want every school to be a free school? MICHAEL GOVE: Well what I would like to see are more and more schools taking advantage of a greater degree of autonomy. But the point that I fear that you … the mistake I fear you may be making is conflating the creation of new schools … ANDREW MARR: (over) Academies. MICHAEL GOVE: … with the additional freedoms that we're giving to existing schools. And again there, you see a considerable degree of enthusiasm. One thing to bear in mind is that the act, the legislation which allows new schools to be created and existing schools to have more freedom, was only passed at the end of the parliamentary term, at the end of the school term. So all these people who are setting up new schools were working through the school holidays. While most of the political world and the journalistic world was on the beaches of Spain or in the hills of Tuscany, these inspirational young people … ANDREW MARR: Okay, okay. MICHAEL GOVE: … were doing their best to try to ensure … ANDREW MARR: Sure, sure. MICHAEL GOVE: … that education could be transformed. ANDREW MARR: But you were talking about hundreds of academies and it's going to be 32, isn't it? MICHAEL GOVE: No, we've already had more than 100 academy orders that have been signed, so in the course of the next academic year we're on course to double the number of academies. Bear in mind … ANDREW MARR: So how many this academic year? MICHAEL GOVE: We expect that there will be more than 140. ANDREW MARR: This academic year? MICHAEL GOVE: Yuh. ANDREW MARR: 140 academies? MICHAEL GOVE: Yuh, more. ANDREW MARR: One of the other big issues in education, as you know, has been the sort of fear that GCSEs and A levels have become too easy. We've seen some schools, generally in the private sector, saying we're going to move off; we're going to do international equivalents to that. How can you deal with this problem a) of apparent grade inflation (if you think it's real); but also the fact that kids are not studying foreign languages in this country, they're not studying the science and the maths, the hard subjects that this country is going to need if we're going to compete in the future? MICHAEL GOVE: You're bang on. This is a big problem that we are determined to address. One of the things that worries me most about our education system is exactly as you say: the drop in the number of students doing foreign languages and the way in which in the last year at GCSE, we actually saw fewer people doing science. And that really concerns me. Not just because it's bad for our economic position in the future. It actually is depriving young people of the thing that they should get from education, which is a rounded sense of how to understand this world in all its complexity and richness. ANDREW MARR: Most of the exciting new ideas in the world at the moment come from science. MICHAEL GOVE: Oh absolutely. ANDREW MARR: You know if you don't understand that, you're … MICHAEL GOVE: (over) Absolutely. If you don't understand science, if you don't understand other cultures, then you are deliberately cutting yourself off from the best that's going on in the world. ANDREW MARR: Okay. But what can you do about it though? MICHAEL GOVE: Well we've been thinking hard about how we can transform the accountability systems, the league tables, the whole qualification structure in this country. We're going to have a white paper which will come out in this autumn, which will explain some of the ideas that we think are worth piloting. But there's one in particular that I'm very attracted by, and that's the idea of learning from other countries where they have a Baccalaureate style system. European countries - and for that matter Asian countries - require all students, whether they're going onto academic or vocational study afterwards, to ensure that by the age of 16 they have a core of academic knowledge which they can be comfortable about. I'd like to explore setting up something similar here, a sort of English Baccalaureate, and what that would involve is saying to students you should be thinking about studying GCSE English, Maths, a science, a modern or ancient foreign language and a humanity like History, Geography, Art or Music. And if you get passes … ANDREW MARR: (over) So you oblige people to do a wider group of subjects. And if you don't do that wider group of subjects, you don't get your diploma or your baccalaureate or whatever? MICHAEL GOVE: Well everyone chooses. We encourage people to follow the courses that stimulate them, that broaden the mind. But if you get five GCSE passes in each of those areas, I think you should be entitled to special recognition. And that's why I think the idea of creating as it were an English Baccalaureate to signal that if you've secured those five GCSE passes, that you have got a broad, rounded education - what in old times would have been a school leaving certificate, and which in fact equips you for the modern world. ANDREW MARR: Do you have a name for it yet, or …? MICHAEL GOVE: Well I think that calling it an English Baccalaureate is a way of stressing that we want to emphasise that other countries do something like this, and emphasise we need a broad education. One of the advantages that you and I share, Andrew, is that we were brought up in the Scottish education system where there was an emphasis historically on breadth. One of the concerns that people sometimes have … ANDREW MARR: (over) Yes, higher. MICHAEL GOVE: Exactly. … about the English education system is that people's options are narrowed too early and, critically, I think that we need to learn from other countries. We've fallen behind other countries in the last few years educationally and that's unfortunate. The pace of reform is accelerating elsewhere. I think that instead of being nostalgic - looking back and saying things were better in the old days, let's learn from them - we need to look forward at other countries which are doing better than us … ANDREW MARR: (over) Doing better and better. MICHAEL GOVE: … and say what can we learn from them? ANDREW MARR: What about A levels? What about A levels because that's the other area where there's been a lot of worry? MICHAEL GOVE: Yes, an understandable concern. I think it's important that we ensure that A levels remain a proper preparation for higher education. And one of the concerns that's been put to me by universities is that you have incredibly bright, young people, really enormously talented who turn up at university now, but the A level as a syllabus, as a course hasn't prepared them properly for the demands of higher education. And there are parents - like you and me - who also worry that what used to be a clear two year run during the whole of sixth form, when you had a chance to do sport and art and music as well as getting into sort of deep study, has now become cluttered up with too many modules, too many exams that lead to too much time being spent on weighing how much you know and not enough actually getting to grips with the subject. So I've asked universities to help me to see if we can reform the A level structure in order to encourage both deep thought and also that broadening of the mind. ANDREW MARR: Well let me broaden the interview at this point to talk a little bit about general politics because there's been a slew of difficult stories already for the coalition, as you know, over the last week or two. Can I ask you first of all about the phone tapping story, which seems no sign of going away - lots of senior figures from politics lining up to ask for further enquiries and so on. If it turned out that Andy Coulson had known about the phone tapping at the News of the World, he would have to go, wouldn't he? MICHAEL GOVE: Well it's a speculative question. ANDREW MARR: Yes, but it's a real question. MICHAEL GOVE: Well I've had a look at some of the press reports here and you know there seems to be a recycling of allegations that we've had before. The things that I know are a) we had a House of Commons select committee investigate this; b) the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, who have access to all the facts … ANDREW MARR: (over) But they're alleged to be part of the problem by some people. MICHAEL GOVE: Well some people are making allegations, but it's striking that many of the people who are making allegations are Labour politicians, so there's an element of the party political about it, you know. But the police have looked at these allegations and have decided that there is no case to answer. ANDREW MARR: So you think this should go no further? I mean this was after all the Pulitzer prize winning team of journalists at the New York Times. These were not young journalists who'd got no experience who were investigating this story and they were pretty unequivocal. MICHAEL GOVE: Well I think there's something happening in America to do with circulation wars and all the rest of it, which is influencing this. That's my understanding. But one other thing that I should say … ANDREW MARR: (over) Is this the anti-Murdoch thing going on in the States? MICHAEL GOVE: Apparently so. Who's to say? But one thing that I do know is that Andy Coulson himself acknowledged that the situation at the News of the World wasn't right and he resigned at the time. I think the one thing that people are overlooking is even though there is no evidence that he knew what was going on in this specific case, that he chose to resign at that point. He devoted his whole career to journalism and he decided that he had to carry the can. ANDREW MARR: Yuh. MICHAEL GOVE: And so you know in that sense … ANDREW MARR: I just come back to my original thing. If it turned out he knew about it, he would have to go, wouldn't he? I mean seriously, he would have to go? MICHAEL GOVE: Well, as I say, it's been investigated properly by others … ANDREW MARR: Okay. MICHAEL GOVE: … and you can ask a series of hypothetical questions, which will … ANDREW MARR: Well, okay, well let me ask you … MICHAEL GOVE: … which are only intended, I suspect probably, to take the story onto the next stage. ANDREW MARR: Tusk tusk, tusk tusk. Let me ask a non-hypothetical question actually about your colleague William Hague as well who's been all over the papers again. I mean this is one of those stories which is going to be drip-drip-drip. People have got it in for him in the media. You can just pick up almost any paper and you can see columnists saying it's a misjudgement, it was wrong to make that statement. My question is are you concerned about the way the media goes after people like William Hague - gets their claws into somebody over an allegation and just keeps at it? I mean he is going to have a hard time now. MICHAEL GOVE: One politician said that politicians who complain about the media are like sailors complaining about the sea. ANDREW MARR: Enoch Powell. MICHAEL GOVE: (laughs) One wise thing he said. But my own view, having been a journalist myself, is that you have to take the rough with the smooth. As far as William goes, he's an outstanding foreign secretary. He's one of the most gifted politicians of our time. I feel admiration for the dignity that he has always handled himself. There have been all sorts of attempts in the past, not least when he was Conservative Leader, to you know throw stuff at him. And William is a real asset to front rank politics and I'm sure that when people decide you know to write about William in the future, they will recognise that he's someone of whom this country is … We're lucky to have him in public service. ANDREW MARR: Alright, Michael Gove for now, thank you very much indeed. INTERVIEW ENDS
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