(written answers from Hansard) Question

Michael Foster (Labour, Worcester) asked how many students have undertaken teacher training courses in each year since 1979.

Answer

Estelle Morris (schools minister) released a table showing the number of new entrants to initial teacher training for the years l98l-82 to l997-98. She added that information for l979-80 and l980-8l was not available. (see table 1) SCHOOL CO-OPERATION

Question

Dr Vincent Cable (Lib Dem, Twickenham) asked how many applications were submitted under the Government’s proposals for co-operation between maintained and private schools and what was the success rate for proposals submitted by local education authorities and the independent sector.

Answer Stephen Byers (minister for school standards) replied that 294 applications were received and 48 projects are being supported. Each application had to involve at least one maintained and one independent school and specify a lead organisation.

Five successful projects currently involve local authorities, and in one of those the local authority is acting as the lead organisation. (See table 2) GCSEGNVQ SCORES

Question

Don Foster (Lib Dem education spokesman) asked what the national average GCSE point score was for males, females, all 15-year-old pupils in total and in maintained schools including special schools in 1997 and what was the number of pupils in each category.

Answer

Dr Kim Howells (education minister) submitted national average GCSE point scores (A*=8, G=1). (See table 3) Question

Mr Foster also asked for the combined average GCSEGNVQ point scores in 1997 of males, females and all 15-year-old pupils in maintained schools including special schools assigning GNVQ grades points on the basis that at intermediate level a distinction equals 7.5 points, a merit 6 and a pass 5, and at foundation level a distinction gets 4 points, a merit 3 and a pass 1.5.

Answer

Dr Howells released a further table (see table 4)

SCHOOL CLOSURES

Question

David Prior (Conservative, North Norfolk) asked how many schools had been notified as being subject to proposals for closure since May 1, 1997 and what was their size.

Answer

Stephen Byers said that since that date statutory proporals had been publised to close 167 mainstream schools. This figure included 17 nursery schools. Of the closure proposals, 101 were involved in mergers to form new schools. The numbers of pupils on the rolls of the schools proposed for closure ranged from 1 to 980.

Question

David Prior asked how many primary schools had fewer than 4O pupils in England and Norfolk.

Answer

Mr Byers replied that in January 1997 there were 364 maintained primary schools with fewer than 40 full-time pupils in England. The equivalent figure for Norfolk was 34 schools