Lord Storey
Main Page: Lord Storey (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Storey's debates with the Department for Education
(12 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Baroness has anticipated well that I do not agree that those skills are not valued in our education system. Obviously, those skills are evolving and developing more into digital skills; that is an area in which we are focused both in schools and in skills bootcamps, T-levels and beyond.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that we have a shortage of teachers—some might call it a crisis of teacher vacancies—in our schools. We also have a crisis of shortages in specialist subjects, such as physics and the creative subjects, as we have heard. Fewer and fewer young people are going into teaching or studying education at university. To try to avert this crisis, is there a case for saying that we will refund your tuition fees if you become a teacher?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The Government are not considering that at the moment, and I remind the House that teacher numbers are at an all-time high, at over 468,000.