Schools White Paper

Pat Glass Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that any reform should be evidence based, and that anything else is pure ideology? In the light of the chief inspector of schools’ report published yesterday, which showed clearly that university-led initial teacher training was twice as likely to be good or outstanding as schools-led initial teacher training, will he now look at that matter again?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady has been an impressive lead Member for children’s services and education in the past, and she speaks with authority. We are publishing an evidence paper to go alongside the White Paper—the first time that has happened—which will contain the evidence base for everything that we are doing. The expansion of teaching schools is based on research by the National Federation for Educational Research, which showed that they are outstanding in the work that they do.