Education Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Brinton]

76ZB: After Clause 14, insert the following new Clause—
“First principle in funding teacher education
The Secretary of State shall exercise his powers with a view to ensuring all initial teacher education is accredited higher education.”

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 76A in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Walmsley. I am also supportive of Amendment 77 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rix. Internationally, the countries performing well in the PISA rankings recruit teachers from among the brightest graduates in their country. In Finland, prospective teachers must have achieved a first-class degree, and are regarded and treated as top professionals in their country with excellent pay which is considerably above the average for our teachers’ salaries in this country. Interestingly, they are also given total responsibility for the curriculum at a school level.

On the previous group, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, spoke about Finland and the lack of politics in education. I believe that that is partly because education is such a national priority that all parties do not regard it as a key issue over which they need to fight. Four years ago at an OECD conference, I spoke to Finnish colleagues in higher education. While they are not complacent, they know that their system works and produces excellent results. This Bill aims to trust our professional teachers more and I hope that we will move to a system more along the Finnish lines.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, when the noble Baroness met her friends from Finland, I wonder whether she had similar answers to the last time I met the Finnish Education Minister. I asked her why Finnish schools were so successful. She answered that it was because of a culture within the country that loves learning, which is demonstrated not only in the widespread membership of public libraries. She also told me that in Finland it used to be that you were not allowed to get married unless you could prove that you could read. Does the noble Baroness think that that is a good idea for us to copy from Finland?

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[Baroness Brinton]

I think that on the first part of the premise the noble Lord is absolutely right. Sadly, in this country, we have a back-street culture of not celebrating learning. Some of our language—for example, “too sharp for his own good”—absolutely illustrates that. I am sure that all Governments of recent years have been trying to overturn that, but we have not yet managed to get it into the culture of the country. I think that I would dispute the issue about marriage in terms of where we are in the 21st century and whether it is absolutely appropriate to push people who may or may not wish to get married to check on their qualifications but I am amused by the intervention.

I am very grateful to the Minister for responding at Second Reading to my question about the role of higher education in teacher qualifications, given the emphasis in the Bill on training, rather than teacher education. Our two probing amendments are to draw out more detail on the Government’s thoughts on teacher training, especially that taking place mainly in school. Both the induction year and ITT happen away from the close supervision of a higher education institution and school placement that we know from the more traditional routes of PGCE or BEd. A worry has been expressed that qualified teacher status, which will be the preferred route as funding for PGCE is reduced, as has been highlighted in the HE White Paper, Students at the Heart of the System, might compromise that. In addition, the recent paper Training our Next Generation of Outstanding Teachers recognises the importance of the formal HE qualifications, but also allows that where a trainee works at an undergraduate level towards a bachelor’s degree and QTS it generally attracts lower quality applicants than a PG ITT.

Will the Minister clarify that, regardless of entry qualifications or QTS student teachers, the course that they will follow must at the very least be a formal HE qualification to ensure that we protect and hopefully improve the standards of teachers, and therefore—if we believe the example of Finland and South Korea—increase the attainment of students and pupils in the system? The paper says that 11 per cent of trainees choose the QTS route. The TDA website says that entry requirements are three GCSEs and a degree, but that degree can be a foundation degree sitting below a bachelor’s degree. I believe most people would expect a degree to mean a bachelor’s degree as a minimum, preferably an honours degree with many, many teachers moving on towards a postgraduate qualification.

I am very supportive of foundation degrees in their own right, but if we are moving towards a teaching profession principally of upper-level bachelor’s degrees as minimum and preferably a postgraduate qualification, a foundation degree is not where we should be aspiring for proper HE qualifications.

Additionally, the White Paper on teaching training talks about “providers” and it is this terminology that has caused us to lay down our probing Amendment 76A. It is essential that we protect the quality of teacher training and the evidence already shows that the quality of teaching and learning for teacher training is of a higher standard than that found in our schools. I therefore ask the Minister to clarify whether the training for trainee teachers will be provided by higher education institutions under the regulation of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education within its constituent subject benchmark statements.

Amendment 77, the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, also supports the case made in our two probing amendments. The issues with special educational needs that today’s teachers need to understand are complex and high level and I believe that they must be taught at a degree level. Accordingly, I beg to move Amendment 76ZB.

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[Baroness Brinton]

I thank the Minister for his helpful response. My starting point in response is to pick up the comments made by my noble friend Lord Willis of Knaresborough. From the amendment’s perspective, the HE qualification is a starting point. The amendment does not signify the beginning and end of training. I applaud his comments about continuing professional development, which is essential, at whatever level. I would hate there to be any misunderstanding on that point.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, talked about the lowering of standards. The motivation behind the amendment was concern that they might be loosening because of the different use of language between the various White Papers and Bills that we have seen. Standards must be consistent.

I am grateful for the Minister’s response and I look forward to the further review of the publication on special educational needs training. My noble friend Lord Rix has had to give his apologies, but I am sure that he would be similarly reassured by that point. I am sure that he would be grateful for the list of points made by the Minister, particularly the one on the scholarship for specialist training. However, I think that my noble friend would still want to make the point that every teacher—

[Baroness Benjamin]

He is behind you.

[Baroness Brinton]

I shall not speak for my noble friend any further. We are back in Whitehall farce territory. I apologise to my noble friend.

The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, about the bachelor of education is important, but the key point of the amendment is to make sure that that base-line graduate qualification plus postgraduate and continuing professional development means that we have an excellent teaching workforce, and I am grateful to the Minister for his response.

Amendment 76ZB withdrawn.