Teaching Quality

Elizabeth Truss Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

As always, we have had an amusing speech from the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), but it reflects an alternative universe, mainly informed by briefings from the National Union of Teachers.

Under this Government, we have seen a huge improvement in the standing and attractiveness of the teaching profession, which is absolutely where it should be. New people are being attracted to teaching in droves. We now have one of the youngest teaching work forces in the developed world, with the exception of Indonesia and Brazil. Three-quarters of new teachers entering the profession either have a first or a 2:1 degree, which is the highest since records began. Teach First is now the largest recruiter of graduates in our country, and the programme has quadrupled. We are also extending it to more areas of the country and into early years. We all agree that teaching quality is the No.1 factor in education, and we are determined to raise standards, which is why we have improved the skills test, making it harder to pass. We have limited the number of re-sits that teachers can take. We are paying bursaries and scholarships up to a value of £25,000 in subjects such as maths, physics and chemistry. Last year, we recruited a record number of physics trainees.

What the Opposition are saying about the freedom to hire non-QTS teachers is a complete red herring. There are actually fewer teachers without QTS now than there were under Labour. If it was such a big issue for Labour MPs, why did they not do anything about it in their 13 years of government? There is also little difference between academies, where 96% of teachers are QTS, and maintained schools, where 97% of teachers are QTS. As the Chairman of the Education Committee said, there is simply no evidence that that is a problem in our system. We recognise the importance of empowering head teachers to enable innovation to take place. We do not believe in central diktat and box-ticking, which is what we had under the previous Government. That is why we are reforming teacher pay and conditions and giving schools and head teachers the ability to reward good performance with performance-related pay, although there does not seem to be much agreement on the Opposition Benches about whether that is a good idea.

We can see that schools are using their freedom to do things differently. In the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Simon Wright), the Sir Isaac Newton free school, which offers maths and science for 16 to 18-year-olds, has hired a psychology lecturer from the university of East Anglia to teach seminars that introduce students to complex concepts and research. That is only possible because they can hire that person even though they do not have QTS. Many schools are using subject expertise to find the extra people that they need.

I agreed with the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) when he said that there had been too much centralisation and too much of the “invented in Whitehall” mentality. That is why we have put in place a school-led system and why we have had 50 teachers over in Shanghai learning about CPD, peer research and open-door policies from their colleagues in the teaching profession. That is why we are interested in the idea of the royal college of teaching. It must be independent and we would consider funding a good proposition, but the important thing is that it must be school-led and head teachers must be empowered to make the decisions.

Under the previous Government, we had an approach that decided that Whitehall and the Secretary of State knew best. We had centrally driven initiatives, such as the national strategies, that included chunking and told teachers how they should teach. Rather than empowering teachers, they deskilled them. As the shadow Work and Pensions Secretary has said, that led to shocking levels of English and Maths among jobseekers.

In PISA 2012, England showed no improvement in maths or reading during Labour’s period in office. Adult skills among the young people who are leaving school now are better than those for the generation who are retiring. The only good idea the Opposition had in government—academies giving head teachers more freedom—is the idea that they are keenest to deny when it comes to the crunch. The success of these schools shows the importance of freedom within a strong framework of accountability. We have already seen huge improvements since 2010, and 250,000 students are no longer in underperforming schools. We have seen a 60% increase in students taking rigorous English baccalaureate GCSEs. I know that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) supports them and I welcome a new pronouncement on that.

The Opposition should not be seeking to undermine those freedoms that deliver better outcomes for our young people. I urge Members to vote for the amendment, which continues the programme we have developed to allow schools and head teachers to decide how best to organise and run their schools. The whole issue of QTS is a red herring. There were more unqualified teachers in schools under Labour than there are now. In fact, the number of teachers without QTS in academies has halved since 2010.

The Opposition’s evidence is baseless and they need to think again about their policies, which will simply involve implementing more box ticking across the country.

Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2), That the original words stand part of the Question.