Qualified Teachers

Nicholas Dakin Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Having been a college principal only three years ago, I bring the perspective of the head teacher to the debate. In the college I led, the sixth-formers would have expected debaters to refer to the motion. I think that they would have found that much of the Secretary of State’s 30-minute speech related not to the motion, but to peripheral issues concerning free schools and the question of regulation. Those are valid areas of debate, but if he had taken the trouble to read the motion, which I think would have been helpful—it is what I would have advised my sixth-formers to do—he would have seen that it states:

“That this House endorses the view that in state funded schools teachers should be qualified or working towards qualified teacher status while they are teaching.”

Having listened to the contributions from Government Members so far, one might be forgiven for forgetting the important phrase

“working towards qualified teacher status”.

When I appointed teachers, as I did frequently in my 28-year career in education, they either would have teaching qualifications or would be put in a framework in which they could gain them. That was for their benefit and that of their students, and there is a lot of evidence to demonstrate that. I think that any Member who intends to go through the Lobbies tonight ought to look carefully at the motion. If they vote against it, they need to understand what they are doing.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing us back to the motion. If it became Government policy, will he explain what would happen to those teachers currently employed who did not work towards qualified teacher status? Would he want them to be sacked?

[Nic Dakin]

As a practical person and a head teacher, I would give the people employed in my college a framework in which they could get those qualifications, and we could have accreditation of prior learning, assessments and so on. Those people who have not done the job I did will have theoretical views on this, but I know how it is done, because I have done it day in, day out. The people out there know how they are running their schools and colleges, and the people who work in them know what they are doing as well. We trust them, but they need to be in a framework that delivers. We also need to listen to what parents are saying. In a recent YouGov poll, 78% of parents said that they want the teachers teaching their kids to be qualified.

I have just left a symposium in Portcullis House on the Finnish teaching system. I was reminded that not only do Finnish teachers need a master’s degree in their subject knowledge, but the degree has to deal with pedagogy. That is what teachers need: the knowledge and the pedagogy. That is what I needed when I had teachers standing in front of the kids in my college who I had a responsibility to deliver for. I am sure that is what people up and down the land want.

[Andrew Percy]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Nic Dakin]

I am afraid that I cannot give way because so many Members wish to speak and the Secretary of State was so greedy in using up the time.

All my experience tells me that essentially there are only two things that really matter in running schools and colleges: the quality of leadership and the quality of teaching and learning. If we get those two things right, all the rest will follow. Of course, just because someone has a piece of paper, whether a postgraduate certificate in education, graduate teacher status or whatever, does not mean that they can necessarily teach, because there needs to be a framework of support in their school to ensure that they learn the skills of the profession.

To be fair to the Secretary of State, he very much echoed what the shadow Secretary of State said in underlining the importance of teaching as a profession. That echoes what the Prime Minister said quite rightly in 2010, which was that teaching should be a profession. Well, a profession has proper structures for training, qualifications and professional development. That is the framework that delivers high-quality individuals. Within that delivery of high-quality individuals, there will always be people who need appropriate support.

The Deputy Prime Minister was right when he made it clear that anybody teaching in our state-funded schools should either have qualified teacher status or be on the way to gaining it. I am really pleased that the Schools Minister, who is in his place, despite struggling a little to make this clear in the Westminster Hall debate, made it extremely clear when he appeared before the Select Committee that he was alongside the Deputy Prime Minister on that. That is why I am confident, because they are people of honour, that the Deputy Prime Minister, the Schools Minister and the rest of the Liberal Democrats will be alongside us when we vote for the motion today.