Top marks for enthusiasm

David Miliband says he has the best job in the world. But he also faces some formidable problems. Can the eager schools minister end the 'national disgrace' of youngsters dropping out of school at 16, asks Richard Garner

David Miliband is preparing for action. The 37-year-old Minister for School Standards, famously introduced at his first conference by a head teacher as "the Year Eight (12-year-old) in a suit", knows he has to deliver the goods after his meteoric elevation within a year of becoming an MP.

The young minister gave himself three things to do by the end of the summer holidays. "I wanted to introduce myself to the profession in a way they could feel I was someone they could do business with," he says. "I wanted to get a sense of what the Department was doing and I wanted to begin to look at some of the long-term issues that need tackling."

Most teachers' leaders have been impressed by Miliband's grasp of his new ministerial brief. He has, as it were, graduated from being the "Year Eight in a suit". But it may have been easier for him than for most ministers. As the former head of Downing Street's policy unit, he was responsible for writing the first drafts of government policies.

While Miliband contemplates the tasks ahead, he pushes a piece of paper sporting a diamond shape across the table. This has four headings: leadership, specialism and collaboration, teaching and learning and beyond the classroom. These four interlinked themes, he says, underpin the Government's education reforms. "When you hear us making speeches and droning on about how important it is to raise standards, we are not just plucking things out of the air," he says. "This is what drives us on."

This term will see headteachers being given more freedom to run their own schools; 1,400 are sharing up to £175m for new leadership initiatives. The number of specialist schools is increasing dramatically and cluster arrangements with groups of neighbouring schools to share expertise are being encouraged. Therefore, there is plenty of evidence that work on perfecting the first two sides of the diamond is in hand. It is the third side – teaching and learning – that will be in the spotlight during the coming months as negotiations over teachers' workload begin in earnest.

Depending on where you stand, these talks are either about modernising the teaching profession or reducing teachers' workload. Miliband has a third way to describe them – "school workforce reform". He is, thereby, trying to convey the sense that change is needed, not just to the way teachers work but to all those involved in running a school – classroom assistants and administrators as well as teachers.

"It is a huge thing for the education service," he says, referring to school workforce reform. "We are going to be spending a huge amount of money on it.

"The ultimate goal is higher standards for children. Teachers have the capacity to make the biggest difference to educational outcomes but it won't make that much difference if we simply continue to spend money in the old ways."

Miliband is optimistic a deal can be done. Teachers' leaders are now less warlike about industrial action. Their minds have been concentrated by the fact that at least £1bn of the Chancellor Gordon Brown's comprehensive spending review depends on a modernised workforce.

Miliband is equally blunt, however, in warning teachers that employing more staff will mean less money for pay. Another area for reform is the secondary school curriculum – the learning side of teaching and learning. Next month the Government will be announcing the conclusions it has drawn from the responses it received to its 14-to-19 Green Paper.

Top priority will be given to reforming key stage four – the curriculum for 14-to 16-year-olds – and making it more flexible so that young people can take more time out at college or in work experience. This is aimed at youngsters who are turned off the academic curriculum.

This is the logical next step for a Government that began in 1997 by reforming primary education. It introduced the compulsory literacy hour and daily maths lesson and went on to extend those two concepts to key stage three (the curriculum for 11-to 14-year-olds).

Flagship plans to introduce a new matriculation diploma are being put on the back burner. Few headteachers think that ministers got the proposals right. They reject the idea of three tiers of diploma. "It is difficult to see why a separate certificate is needed for those with higher grades," says John Dunford, the general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association.

Miliband agrees that the matriculation diploma is for the long term. "Some people said it was too bold, others that it wasn't bold enough. We are ruminating on that."

He adds: "Don't hold your breath. We have had a genuinely impressive dialogue. We are talking to young people, to teachers and employers. Fourteen to 19 is a complex curriculum. No reform happens overnight." The Government's main aim is for a vast improvement in the numbers who stay on in full-time education or training after the age of 16. Miliband doesn't even want to talk about the staying-on rate, preferring the drop-out rate instead.

"It must be one of the most stunning statistics that we are 20th out of 24 OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] countries for staying-on rates at 17," he says. The minister is even more appalled that the United Kingdom is 22nd out of 24 for its staying-on rate at 18. "This is a national shame and it is a national disgrace that we still talk of people staying on after 16 rather than dropping out [if they don't]," he says.

Miliband is anxious not to leave the impression that ministers have "done" with primary education "The group of kids that are not yet reaching Level Four (the required standard in national curriculum tests for 11-year-olds in maths and English) is still 25 per cent," he says.

And it is important to stretch the brightest primary pupils, he adds. The fact that one in four children are already achieving Level Five shows teachers are not just teaching to the test but going further because pupils are reaching levels not expected of them.

"I really do reject those arguments that we're robotic utilitarians who want to drive creativity out of the curriculum and create automatons who are good only at reading, writing and counting," he says. "More youngsters now have access to a much richer curriculum as a result of Labour's reforms," he adds.

Does Miliband have as much power as he did in his days as Downing Street's chief policy wonk? "When I walked into Downing Street in May 1997, I thought I had the best job in the world," he says. "There was a chance to put into practice all the things we'd talked about in Opposition." Guess what? He now feels the same about his new job. It looks as though that enthusiasm will stay with him.

r.garner@independent.co.uk