EDUCATION (ADMINISTRATION) (Hansard, 22 July 1974)

§ Mr. Bob Cryer (Keighley)
I am most grateful for the opportunity to speak in an unusually crowded House at this hour, with everybody listening, on the question of the administration of primary, secondary and further education. I am concerned not with the outside material supply but with the actual organisation of the institutions of education.
The present system of administration is ingrained and traditional. It is one of hierarchies in both schools and colleges, and promotion within the framework of teaching is essentially out of the classroom to administrative positions. Yet head teachers, for example, are trained as teachers, not as administrators. The larger 1256 the school, the less teaching the head does. In very large schools he does not teach at all. I should make clear that there are many excellent devoted heads, but the system whereby we are fixed with a rigid hierarchical system is mistaken.
Heads have too much power. They provide references for members of staff and can easily blight a person's career by a half-hearted recommendation and by wielding their power over promotion. A head may, for instance, present an unfair picture to a board of managers or governors. This view is not entirley my own. In the debate on the Queen's Speech the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) said on 8th July, 1970: I want to say another word about headships. It is difficult to get heads for these very big schools, but there is another problem we have to face, and that is security of tenure of heads. It is a fact at the moment that once a head is appointed he is there for life. Anybody who knows schools will realise that occasionally this can be very harmful. We know that there are lots of heads who are absolutely first-rate, but there are a few who are not.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th July 1970; Vol. 803, c. 715.] That view is shared by a number of people.
I can quote another example to the House. A head teacher went to a board of managers and presented a report. There was no other member of staff present at the meeting of the board of managers and there had been no consultation whatever with the staff. This involved a school taking pupils up until the age of 11 years. Part of the head's report to the board of managers stated: The junior classes present a different and very serious problem. There will not be any quick easy return to what I consider a satisfactory state of affairs but rather a systematic building up from the boettom with the cooperation, dedication and if necessary direction or replacement of teaching staff. I estimate that three years may be required before results appear obvious. The easy part of pulling the school round has started in the following directions:—
1. All members of staff have been asked to make an effort to improve the standard of work.

2. Special attention paid to discipline both inside and outside school.

3. Bad time-keeping has been more or less eliminated.

4. By visiting every class daily and supporting any decision that has been made by the teacher. Examining books and make sure the children know that they face a united staff and also the staff know that I 1257 am determined to see there is no relaxing on their part.

5. In future all equipment and school supplies will be the best quality available.

6. The posts available carrying allowances above the basic scale go to enthusiastic ambitious teachers who are prepared to be guided by myself and take part in courses run by the County."
That report was presented in a school which had not been subject to any previous complaint, nor would there have been any complaint following the meeting had I not, fortunately. happened to be present. The illustration I am giving is that of a headmaster who is not faced with a member of his own staff on the board of governors. He can give an entirely coloured and prejudiced opinion of his school, without any consultation with the staff, and he can present a highly distorted view. I am satisfied that the report I have mentioned was a total distortion.
The members of staff who may say that the report is a total distortion—as some might reasonably do—would normally not be the people to whom the posts available carrying allowances above the basic scale would go. They would not be ambitious teachers "prepared to be guided by myself". A head teacher carries this enormous power of totally preventing the career advancement of someone who happens to disagree with him.
This head decided, again without consultation, to abandon the initial teaching alphabet put forward by the previous head and members of staff with great enthusiasm and adopt the "Breakthrough to Literacy" scheme promoted by the Schools Council. There may be pros and cons of these two systems, but in this case a unilateral decision was made without consultation.
Since 1968 there has been more widespread recognition by local authorities that teachers should be on boards of governors and managers. When this happens, head teachers cannot present a partial view representing only their prejudices and not the situation as a whole. However, this should be a requirement on local authorities and not optional. I recall vividly one Conservative councillor on a Conservative-controlled local authority describing all members of staff who stood for election as "potential troublemakers". I need hardly add that that 1258 local authority did not adopt, and was not even prepared to investigate, a scheme to allow primary school teachers to stand for election to boards of governors or managers. Local authorities should be required to allow this sort of democratic participiation.
Even when such representation has been allowed, only one teacher is put on a board with 14 or 15 governors comprising the head teacher and people of standing appointed by the local authority. This can be intimidating. I know of one member of staff of a comprehensive school who was elected to a board of governors. His head insisted that he meet him before every board meeting so that they could present a united picture. In other words, the free discussion and fresh information which staff representation was designed to introduce is in that case to some degree prevented because the head ensures that the teacher thinks along much the same lines. I know that he is annoyed if the staff representative brings up anything which has not had the head's prior approval.
That is not the sort of democracy we should be talking about. Democracy means that teachers should be able to take their places on boards of managers and governors free from intimidation. To this end they should not be isolated and have to face such large bodies by themselves.
It is also worth remembering what I have said about a teacher depending so much on a head's recommendation for promotion either within the school or outside. Therefore, if a teacher representative on a board of governors chooses to ignore any suggestions of a headmaster, his career can be thrown into jeopardy.
Boards of governors frequently do not meet often enough. They are our democratic safeguards. There are cases where boards meet very infrequently and work goes on. I know of another case in which a board of governors has not met for several months, yet during that period several pupils have been suspended and one boy has been refused part-time education following a brain operation because the head said simply that it was not an invalid home. Those decisions have not been able to be challenged because the board of governors has not met, 1259 there being, so it is said, no urgent business.
In colleges of further education the same topsy-turvey system of advancement is present whereby promotion is dependent not on teaching ability but on administrative ability, and where the salary system is geared not to the time spent in lecture halls or classrooms but to the time spent in administration. For example, the assistant lecturer in a college of further education is presumably new and, therefore, raw when required to be in class contact for more or less 24 hours a week with six hours' preparation, whereas he is the very person who needs more preparation time than anyone because he is new to the job. But the older hand, who has gone through the various scales to become, for instance, a senior lecturer, will probably have only about 14 hours a week class-contact time, yet 16 hours a week administration and preparation work. In other words, the experienced person has the excessive amount of time to prepare for class, with which he probably has a great deal of experience.
Principals, vice-principals and heads of departments are not trained to administer. They are trained to teach. But they are taken out of the lecture room and class room and put in administrative positions for which they have absolutely no training.
It is a great irony that our education institutions should provide, for example, management courses, but that those selfsame institutions are often run by people who have great quantities of money and large numbers of people to control, but have no training of any formal nature in these skills. I believe that the unions and the Government should negotiate a system whereby promotion should be for teaching and not for administration.
However, the question of administration still arises. What are the solutions one can suggest for administration in primary, secondary and further education institutions? First, in further education institutions, under the Education Act (No. 2) 1968 academic boards of elected representatives have been established. These are often effete, ineffective talking shops, and they bring democratic participation into disrepute. If academic 1260 boards could function without the principal's veto and if they had genuine power, it would be the reality of democracy instead of the facade which, alas, occurs in too many institutions.
I raise the question: why confine academic boards to colleges of further education? They could well be introduced into secondary and primary education. It would mean that over a period, no doubt with adequate salary safeguards, headmasters and principals of colleges could be phased out and allowed to go back into the class room from where they started, for which they have, presumably, a vocation, and where their real cause for life lies. They would no longer be involved in the routine chores of administration. In small schools all the staff would be on the board, and any formal functions which would be carried out normally by a head, such as taking assembly, could be taken over by an annually elected chairman.
Teachers often have mach more to contribute than that which they are allowed to contribute. Some heads already encourage the fullest participation, but this is a quirk—although something which is welcomed as a gem among a torrid sea of conformity. It is the system which needs to be changed, because the democratic procedure which one head allows might well be changed with a change of headmaster.
Again, it is difficult for teachers to talk about democracy when they face possibly an arbitrary and bureaucratic headmaster themselves. It is difficult for teachers to talk to young people about democracy in a society when they have no sense of democratic participation themselves. In my view, democracy does not consist of putting a cross on a piece of paper every three or four years.
Neither should democracy begin at the age of 18. For most people, democracy means participation from an age when reason can prevail. Certainly students participate in a modest way in colleges of further education, and there is no reason why this participation should not extend to secondary education. A number of free schools are already demonstrating to a modest degree that participation can be all-embracing. Those experiments should be looked at with interest. In the immediate future, however, there is no reason why participation by 1261 pupils at secondary schools should not become a reality. I understand that the Derbyshire education authority has considered this and is likely to implement it in the near future.
If there is to be participation—I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will welcome sympathetically the idea of participation by pupils in administration—it must be borne in mind that this should not be confined in secondary education simply to sixth formers. We know that with the recent raising of the school leaving age a number of problems exist. One of the things we do not want to do is to exclude the 16-year-olds of all sorts of ability—or, for that matter, the 14-and 15-year-olds—from an opportunity to participate in the administrative decisions of schools and other education. institutions.
In my view, democratic participation in decision-making is something we should start with at an early age. It is something we should start with with schoolchildren and students, and we should not ignore it when we talk about democracy in industry as regards teachers. Teachers occupy a very important place in our life. Too often they are denied the right to discuss participation in decision-making. I hope that the tide of democracy is sweeping through education and will bring a refreshing current of vigour and new ideas to our education system.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) for raising this very important subject. I assure him that it has been on our minds and receiving consideration for a considerable time. We have had representations and delegations from teachers and their associations and from the National Association of Governors and Managers. We are indeed considering the situation.
It is easy to get things out of perspective and to work up a sense of grievance. The picture of head teachers painted by my hon. Friend bears little relationship to my experience as a former chairman of an education authority. Indeed, as a former headmaster for 12 years I did not recognise myself in the heads he was talking about who had too much power.
1262 Nevertheless, I have always been of the view that the appointment of head teachers in schools is perhaps the most important job that an education authority does. At the same time, however, I think we are mindful of the fact that all education institutions are concerned with people, and people are different. They have different attitudes and, therefore, no blueprint that is laid down either in the Department or in the local education office can ensure the kind of democracy we all want. I propose to deal with some of the points that my hon. Friend has raised.
There is no doubt that attitudes in society have changed in all kinds of ways. We support the demand for people to be involved in the decisions that affect their daily lives. What could be more natural than, for instance, parents—my hon. Friends did not make much mention of parents—asserting their right to have a say in the education of their children? What could be more natural than teachers working in a school wanting to take part in the decision-making on the day-to-day organisation?
What is taught in school, the methods we use to teach and the way we organise education depend very much on, and indeed reflect, our view of society and the individual child growing up in that society. Staffs, parents and pupils have a vital part to play.
I acknowledge the rights of each group and remind the House that the assertion of rights carries with it a willingness to accept responsibility for the orderly and proper running of the institution to which those making the assertion belong. Each group, whether it is a group of parents, teachers or students, has its own legitimate special interests, but all must have some regard to the general interests of the school, and all have a responsibility to the outside community where the school operates.
Democracy has become more difficult to exercise as we have come to recognise the rights of all concerned to be involved in the decision-making process. Surely if democracy is to have any meaning at all, and certainly if it is to succeed, we must begin in school. Democracy implies a readiness to consult, to listen, to give and take, to share responsibility.
1263 In 1945 a new pattern of maintained school government was introduced under the Education Act 1944, which laid down the basic framework for managing and governing bodies. This was followed by a White Paper—"Principles of Government in Maintained Secondary Schools". In the following year, model instruments and articles of government put these principles into a precise practical form. The model articles were the result of protracted and extensive consultation with all the main interests involved. This was almost 30 years ago.
The instruments which lay down the constitution of governing bodies of voluntary schools and the articles which determine the conduct of secondary schools, both of which are subject to the control of the Secretary of State, have closely followed the pattern of the 1945 models. There have been variations. Local authorities have made use of their freedom to introduce any particular elements in the constitution of governing bodies which they have thought right for their own schools.
Many, including my hon. Friend, think that the time has come for major changes and for departures from those models. For example, some authorities have provided direct representation for parents and for teachers, and some have provided for direct representation for pupils. Some want this to be made obligatory.
In the past few months the new local authorities have had their problems with trying to harmonise the different arrangements they have inherited in different parts of their own new areas.
This debate has given a valuable opportunity to open up this subject for discussion. The wider and the more vigorous the discussion up and down the country, the better the decisions will be. We have had pressure for membership of teachers on the governing bodies of their schools. At present this is not permitted in voluntary schools and is at the discretion of local education authorities in county schools.
I want to make it quite clear that there is no bar to the appointment of a parent as a governor of any school. I believe that parental involvement will grow substantially in the years to come, and I welcome this involvement. At one time in my teaching career it was thought that 1264 the last people to have any say in the education of children were parents. Parents have every right to be directly involved.
A few authorities have made provision for pupil membership of governing bodies. This raises difficulties in discussion and decisions concerning members of staff, and we are watching this development with interest.
Consultation with assistant teachers by heads in the exercise of the latter's functions is very much a matter for discussion, and of course, coupled with this is the whole question of the control of the curriculum in schools and in colleges.
I assure my hon. Friend that we are reviewing with urgency all aspects of school management and school government. We are eager to listen to and to discuss with interested groups the changes which are necessary. We see school as a vital part of the life of any community. We believe that democratic involvement will be a healthy development in the life of the school and of the neighbourhood.
With regard to the colleges of further education, the government and conduct of establishments of further education was laid down by the Education Act 1968, followed by Circular No. 7/70. Here we want a balance between all the various interests—local authorities, the governing body, the principal, the academic board, students and student affairs. We want an attitude of good will and common sense in all these matters because we want to strike a balance between the various conflicting interests.
There is no perfect way of deciding a teacher's potential in the matter of administration and headships. It is the most difficult job in the world to make the right appointment. I commend to my hon. Friend some of the experiences that I have noted in the country. There are various in-service courses for potential head teachers. I think that, with big schools in particular, there is a need for more staff training, so that administration and so on, which is a vital part of the school organisation, can become more familiar to those who have been expert in the class room and then are promoted to take charge of a school.

§ Mr. Bryan Davies (Enfield, North)
I think the point which my hon. Friend made, and which we would like to be 1265 considered, is the question of the hierarchy in the educational institution, and particularly whether we can change the situation in which promotion for the best teachers is defined in terms of an administrative rôle. Many of us feel that we could learn a great deal from the universities, where the teaching in service rôle is important and administration could be a definitely separate activity rather than related to the career prospects of a good teacher.

§ Mr. Armstrong
That is a very important matter and I am grateful for the intervention. On the other hand, some 1266 first-class teachers would look forward to becoming heads of schools. They make first-class heads. It is a matter of balance. All I would say to my hon. Friend is that we have this matter under very urgent review. We want to see more democracy and more involvement by those—