HC Deb 02 March 1967 vol 742 cc673-4
6. Miss Lestor

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if, in view of the development of the comprehensive system of education, he will review the method of training of teachers for this type of education.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Anthony Crosland)

Colleges, departments of education, Her Majesty's Inspectors and my Department have already recognised the need both for an adjustment of training courses and the organisation of special courses and conferences to meet the point which my hon. Friend has in mind.

Miss Lestor

While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him whether he would not agree that, in view of the change in the pattern of education which the comprehensive system is bringing, plus the raising of the school leaving age shortly, this is a matter of very great urgency?

Mr. Crosland

I think that this is a matter of very great urgency. I doubt whether the main problem is a structural change in the nature of the teacher-training course. The real problem is to find a whole variety of ways—and this is what we are trying to do—of preparing teachers for what is becoming a very new and different teaching function.

Mr. Hornby

Would the right hon. Gentleman in particular consider the needs of headmasters—say, the headmaster of a secondary modern school shortly to become a comprehensive school—who will find themselves managing very different institutions from those which they are managing at the moment?

Mr. Crosland

I entirely agree. The hon. Gentleman will have noted that in answer to a recent Parliamentary Question I said that we were setting up a permanent working group of Her Majesty's inspectors, with, I hope, a regional organisation as well, to keep in mind precisely the point he has raised.