Teacher Training and Supply

Debate between Pat Glass and Duncan Hames

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Pat Glass]

I entirely agree. If the Government had attended to the warnings of the Select Committee in spring 2012 we would not be facing the crisis that my hon. Friend’s colleague and friend spoke about at the weekend. Since the Committee considered the issues it has been apparent that there is a worrying future for ITT in England, and for the future sufficiency of the teacher work force. The historical context is that every recent Tory Government has left office with a teacher shortage.

Some but not all School Direct places will offer an academic qualification such as the postgraduate certificate in education alongside qualified teacher status. However, accredited providers are accountable and responsible for the conferring of any academic qualification and QTS. In view of that, it is not surprising that students prefer to have an academic qualification including QTS from a university, rather than from a school, albeit one that is linked to a higher education provider. That is, if nothing else, an issue of status. All things being equal, what good maths graduate is going to choose school-based QTS over that awarded by a prestigious university? In that matter, I have some experience.

The problem is that Government policy is shifting funding from universities to school-led provision so quickly that, while universities may not be short of students applying for their teaching courses, they no longer have the funding to deliver courses of the quality and in the numbers that they have in the past. Universities are particularly concerned about the impact of the next round of ITT allocations on their ability to sustain teacher training. That includes the ability to sustain support for school-led routes such as the School Direct programme.

In 2013-14, as we have heard, ITT allocations and acceptances by Government have shifted by 25% to School Direct. More than 90% of postgraduate and undergraduate courses through universities were filled across the country and, in some cases, across subject areas, but only 66% of places allocated to School Direct have been met—well below the target allocation. In addition there has been over-recruitment in subjects including chemistry, history and PE, and that has masked much larger shortfalls in subjects such as maths and physics. Overall recruitment is 43% below target in physics and 22% below target in maths. The shortfall has been made worse because the Government have chosen to reduce allocations to HE institutions and universities, the bit in the system that we know works well and that has already been judged outstanding, while significantly shifting allocations to the School Direct programme, the bit in the system that is new, in many cases experimental and, as we now know, falling well short of targets. I understand that they have refused to shift the under-filled ITT places in School Direct to universities.

[Duncan Hames]

The hon. Lady mentioned the core allocation provided to higher education institutions. Bath Spa university, which provides ITT for many in my constituency, has outstanding status and therefore still enjoys some core allocation. Does she share its concern that, with changes in the Ofsted regime, the number of higher education institutions with a guaranteed core allocation will decline?

[Pat Glass]

I agree entirely. I and others in the profession are extremely worried that the next round of ITT allocations will result in some universities cutting back further, or closing their education departments as they become financially unsustainable. If that happens, an even greater burden will fall on school-led provision without the support of the higher education element that everyone recognises as vital to the provision of good teaching.

Like other hon. Members who have spoken, I cannot understand the Government’s insistence on employing unqualified teachers in schools. I have an MSc and I think that, certainly in the past, I was qualified to teach mathematics, but a working knowledge of maths and statistics does not make a teacher. Without the benefit of a Bachelor of Education degree, I would not have had the necessary skills and knowledge of child development. I would not have known how children learn, or about differentiation and delivering a syllabus to a range of abilities. I would not have known about assessment, or understood what each child could or could not do, and what they needed to do next. I would not have been able to manage behaviour in a classroom, or to identify and meet the needs of children with special needs. Probably just as importantly, I would not have had credibility, or the trust of my colleagues, the parents, and the pupils. Pupils know who is or is not experienced, and they can quickly tell who is qualified. Often that will determine not only their willingness to listen and learn, but their classroom behaviour.

The Government need to step back and consider their future allocation for ITT carefully. They run the risk of irreversibly damaging a system that has worked well and served us well, that has provided us with the best teaching force that the country has ever had, and that is internationally recognised as outstanding. To plough ahead regardless is to risk destabilising the whole system, damaging it irreversibly and leaving the country with yet another Tory-made teacher shortage.