Teaching Quality

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes that no school system can surpass the quality of its teachers; and therefore resolves that all teachers in all state-funded schools should be qualified or working towards Qualified Teacher Status, be undertaking ongoing continuing professional development and have their skills and knowledge re-validated throughout their careers in order to support them to excel in the classroom, to improve learning outcomes for all children in all schools, to uphold discipline in the classroom, to tailor their teaching to children with special educational needs and to close the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers.

The motion—which flows on from those very powerful words of the Secretary of State for International Development about the power and purpose of education—begins with a clear statement of principles that were first enunciated by Sir Michael Barber.

This should be a moment when—just as in the previous debate—the House comes together, to extol the virtues of a highly qualified, self-motivating and dedicated teaching profession. It should be a moment when we undertake a shared commitment to give teachers the best possible training, so that we equip them properly for the demands of the classroom, and it should be a moment when we unite in praising all the hard work that teachers and head teachers do on a daily basis, while also acknowledging that we currently have one of the best teaching cohorts that the country has ever seen. I see the Secretary of State nodding in agreement and I hope that when he steps up to the Dispatch Box he will acknowledge the last Labour Government’s role in delivering that cohort and in raising teaching standards. We know of his enthusiasm for debating the past. Today should be the perfect opportunity—

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way so early in his speech. Does he agree that it is curious that we have a Secretary of State who wants to micro-manage discussion of the first world war but is not prioritising continuing professional development of teachers who might be able to instruct their pupils rather better?

[Tristram Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which leads me perfectly on to my first point, which is about education focusing on the professionalism of the teacher in the classroom, rather than being micro-managed from Whitehall. It was the Prime Minister himself who in 2010 said—[Interruption.] I would have thought that Conservative Members would like to listen to the words of the Prime Minister. He said:

“The quality of a teacher is the single most important factor in a child's educational progress.”

Moreover, he said,

“children with the best teachers”

learn

“four times as fast”

as those taught by the least effective. He was absolutely right. He also offered a solution that drew on international evidence and best practice:

“Finland, Singapore and South Korea have the most highly qualified teachers, and also some of the best education systems in the world because they have deliberately made teaching a high prestige profession.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

That is probably the best intervention we have had for some time on the question of education, because it actually relates to what is taught. I believe that we need proper grammatical rules in order to ensure that words are used with precision. Like all bodies of knowledge, however, it evolves over time. There is no tension between recognising that there are certain grammatical rules and that they change, in the same way as there is no tension between recognising that there are certain literary works that should always be in the canon and that over time they change. For example, Macpherson’s “Ossian” is out of the canon, but Burns will always be in.

[Mr Marsden]

The Secretary of State talked about sloppy language and various other things. Would he care to define for the House the meaning of the words he just used: “top teachers from our universities”?

[Michael Gove]

I said, “teachers from our top universities”. Of course, I refer to Oxford university as one of our top universities, but perhaps I should have included Cambridge and Imperial, or Aberdeen and Edinburgh for that matter—there are many. The point I am making is that the Opposition cannot have it both ways. They cannot say that we want teaching to be an elite profession and then, when we congratulate those people from elite institutions who go into teaching, decry us for somehow being snobbish. I have taken the hon. Gentleman’s point. In fact, I have expanded it into a logical argument, only subsequently to refute it.