Teacher Training and Supply

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Lord Brennan of Canton

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

This must remind you, Mr Caton, of your election to the House of Commons in 1997, for a Welsh constituency, because we seem to be in a Tory-free zone in the Chamber. Is that a Tory on the Bench behind the Minister? [Interruption.] No, he is a Liberal as well—so it is a Tory-free zone.

I congratulate those who have come to take part: my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), who secured this important debate; my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson); and my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), who once again drew on his experience. I visited his college when he was a head teacher and I was a Minister, and a fine and well-led college it was. I congratulate him on delivering his speech to the accompaniment of the Household Cavalry outside; it was impressive how he kept going despite the drumbeat. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) also contributed, along with the occasional chipping in from the hon. Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames), which was welcome. I found very little to disagree with in his interventions.

At the root of this debate is the fact that the Secretary of State for Education does not believe that teaching is a profession at all. He has made it clear that he thinks it is a craft to be picked up on the job, which is why he does not really care whether teachers in taxpayer-funded schools are qualified. That is his policy: teachers in academies and free schools need not be qualified. Bearing in mind that more than half of secondary schools are now academies, that represents the majority of schools in the country for children over the age of 11.

As far as the Secretary of State is concerned, as long as teachers have good subject knowledge, that is sufficient. Knowledge is important, but as the great Peter Kay said, knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. Let me make it clear that Labour believes, just as we now know the Deputy Prime Minister believes, that it is wisdom to ensure that teachers in our taxpayer-funded schools have or are en route to gaining a teaching qualification, and that they enhance those qualifications throughout their career through continuing professional development. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe, I did a postgraduate certificate in education many years ago. They were not always of the highest quality. We must always be trying to improve the quality of teacher training. During my teaching career, I went on to do an MSc in education management. It was an important part of the structure of a career.

I will not dwell on the disastrous recent news about the Al-Madinah free school, or from Pimlico, but the Government should reflect on some of those lessons during the next few weeks and months. In this debate, I will talk a little about current problems.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Kevin Brennan]

Of course I will give way to the former Chair of the Select Committee on Education.

[Mr Sheerman]

I apologise for not being here earlier; I had soldiers returning today, and I had to greet them downstairs. I am sorry that they made a bit of noise.

The Education Committee of which I was Chair did a thorough investigation into the quality of teacher training. It can be improved, but there is a whole culture out there. I am a visiting professor at the Institute of Education. This is the week of the professions, when 15 professions have come together to say how important the professions are in setting standards and creating the culture of a profession. Does my hon. Friend agree that is more important in teaching than in almost any other profession?

[Kevin Brennan]

I certainly do. The distinguished former Chair of the Education Committee makes a powerful point. The mood music from Government is important too in whether teaching is regarded as a profession, and it is highly important that teaching, of all professions, should be. We have worked hard in recent years, including through the efforts of my hon. Friend and his former Committee, to raise the status of teachers to the point where we could say with confidence and Ofsted’s support that we had the best ever generation of teachers in this country. That is in danger of being undermined by the current Government’s approach to the issue.

On the current problems, we support and have supported the trend for student teachers to spend more time in schools. We started the support of Teach First when we were in government—to listen to the Secretary of State, one would think that he invented it—and we supported its expansion. However, the trend should be managed properly. The problem is that in their eagerness to propagandise and oversell the School Direct policy, the Government have abdicated their role in securing enough teacher training places, they are not ensuring an even geographical subject spread and they are destabilising university teacher training. We heard about the example of Bath, an institution rated outstanding in teacher training, is considering giving up its teacher training programme next year due to the uncertainty created.

[Kevin Brennan]

I agree that the hon. Gentleman may not have said so, but they have said it themselves, in evidence to the Education Committee. It is on the record if he wants to check it.

We say yes to a diversity of routes into teacher training and a greater role in teacher training for good schools, but no to leaving the supply of teachers to the vagueness of an imperfect market, generating greater uncertainty and possibly leading outstanding higher education providers to close down courses. Will the Minister listen to the concerns, ensure that core allocation to good universities is sufficient, bearing in mind that they also supply support to School Direct partnerships, and give enough certainty to allow them to commit to future investment in teacher training? I am sure that, as an economist, he will understand the importance for future investment of having some certainty within the market. Will the Minister also make it easier, as my hon. Friends have asked, to transfer or vire allocations between different routes, so that good candidates are not turned away from teacher training unnecessarily?

[Mr Sheerman]

Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that when my former Committee investigated the training of teachers, we also considered the training of social workers? Social worker training is an interesting warning sign. When we destabilised the training of social workers, many of the finest centres, such as the London School of Economics, said, “This is too much bother,” and withdrew from training social workers. We are in danger of doing that to the teaching professions. Good institutions will leave the market, as will some of the leading research institutions that also train teachers.