Education Bill

Debate between Baroness Benjamin and Baroness Morris of Yardley

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, with respect, I am not convinced by the Minister’s arguments. I agree with people who have said that there is room for people without qualified teacher status in the classroom. They can bring a lot to the school and they have a set of experiences and often a set of qualifications that are not QTS, but which lend themselves to effective and imaginative teaching. I am pretty sure that that provision is in the 2002 Act, but I could be wrong. So we have that flexibility.

This measure causes me some difficulty, and that is why I wanted to wait until the Minister had spoken. Given that that exists already, and that probably everybody here could cite examples of people without QTS who are effectively teaching in schools—we have had a lot of examples already—what is going to change? This is primary legislation we are talking about. It is not sufficient to say that this measure allows something at the edges, a fraying of the boundaries, a bit of give and take. With respect, that is not good enough for primary legislation. It is about laying down what is allowed and what is not allowed.

Secondly, if this really is not much—if it is just a bit more blurring of the edges, on top of the blurring of the edges that was set up in 2002—why free schools? Is the Minister saying that these people have nothing to offer to academies, have nothing to offer to maintained schools? Let us just think about it. We could have an example—let me be kind—of a brilliant person with suitable non-teaching qualifications who wants to and is willing to teach this nation’s children. The only place they could do that is a free school. Why should the Government stop children in 99.9 per cent of the system being able to benefit from that teacher’s experience?

I think the Minister is caught between two extremes. Either it is nothing, so put it everywhere—just say. One way might be to produce an edict saying, “Remember that there are people other than those with QTS who can work alongside those with QTS and good leaders in our schools, and we welcome you and please populate our schools”. Or it really is a shift in the law that is going to draw the boundary in a different place in terms of the qualifications that teachers need. If it is the latter, with respect again, we need more than we have had so far about where those boundaries will be drawn. Saying that it is a bit of fraying it at the edges, a bit of give and take is not really good enough for primary legislation.

[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, at a seminar in Birmingham recently, many parents from the black community were in favour of an alternative system of education, because they felt that schools were failing their children. They favoured free schools because, as I said, they felt that the present system was failing their children. They wanted education to strengthen their children’s identity, and found that sometimes that comes from individuals who can assist the teachers in the classroom by giving them support. So unless the teaching curriculum changes and reflects the needs of these children, we might need to have unqualified teachers in the classroom.

I know of one particular unqualified teacher who already helps to teach in the classroom. She says that she has made a great difference to the children’s lives, giving them confidence and self-esteem, especially young black Caribbean boys. She says that she has had all the checks and has had everything done in terms of training and child protection. So in some cases like these we need to consider having unqualified teachers in the free schools, because there are lots of black communities out there begging for this to happen, for we feel that we are failing our children.