HC Deb 24 January 1983 vol 35 cc762-8 11.22 pm

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Berry.]

Mr. Bob Dunn (Dartford)

I am delighted and pleased to have obtained tonight's Adjournment debate on the subject of the removal of initial teacher training from the Thames polytechnic Dartford site. The decision to do so, as announced and confirmed by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, was for those who know and admire the levels of excellence achieved at Dartford a bitter and significant blow—bitter because it was unexpected, and significant because the decision, if enacted, will end almost 100 years of physical education training at the Dartford college.

Since 1895, a quality and range of education opportunities for women, and from 1968 for men, have been offered and improved at the Dartford site, a known and nationally famed centre of excellence. I am conscious that in this debate I speak as Member of Parliament for the Dartford constituency, but I wish and hope to express the views of many thousands of people at local, regional and national level who have reacted strongly and are opposed to the decision taken by my hon. Friend.

On 8 November 1982, in a press notice, the Department of Education and Science announced its final decision on initial teacher training. In paragraph 6 on page 4 of the statement a list of criteria was published which the Department took into account when considering the distribution of places. There were 11 criteria, and it is our contention that, on the vast majority, if not all, Dartford college registered very well. The mechanics of registering have been brought to the attention of my hon. Friend on the two occasions on which he received deputations led by me.

Thames polytechnic Dartford college maintains two specialised teacher training courses—a BEd degree in movement studies, which is for women teachers in physical education, and a BEd (Primary) degree, which is a degree course for the training of teachers in primary schools, specifically in the Inner London environment.

Paragraph 3 of the press notice of 8 November, in the section entitled "Notes to Editors", states: In its advice ACSET showed actual and projected pupil numbers for the period 1970ߝ1995. Primary numbers in England, which reached a peak in 1973 of over 4.6 million, are projected to fall to less than 3.4 million by the mid-1980s and then to increase. Secondary numbers in England, which reached a peak in 1979 of over 3ߝ8 million, are projected to fall to less than 2.8 million by the start of the 1990s and then to increase. The two courses to which I referred will be wound down and will stop by the mid-1980s, at a time when, according to paragraph 3, the school population at primary level will start to increase. The birth rate has now been increasing for some years. The Advisory Council on the Supply and Education of Teachers recognises that, and the Department of Education and Science has accepted its advice. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is on record as saying that the number of children in primary schools will begin to rise again in the mid-1980s. The logic of the situation impels us to treble the number of newly-trained primary school teachers. In view of that statement and of the consensus that exists, it would appear to be wrong to close the Dartford site when there should be an increased recruitment of primary school teachers.

During the past few months my hon. Friend has been subject to much pressure. During that time he has been most courteous in his response and he obviously has a difficult decision to make. But I would not be here tonight if I believed that the last ditch was approaching. I wish to argue the case for the retention of teacher training at Thames polytechnic, and the case for the BEd(Primary) and the BEd (Physical Education) for women is strong. First, the degrees are designed to ensure the closest relationship between theory and practice. Secondly, a substantial programme of school experience proceeds through all years of the degrees. Thirdly, students, especially in the BEd(Primary) degree course, pay close attention to the multi-ethnic inner city school and its relationship with the community. Fourthly, there is also in the BEd2(Primary) course a close relationship between the School of Education and Teaching Studies and the ILEA Environmental Studies Centre at Horton Kirby.

Fifthly, the BEd(Primary) course covers the whole of the primary age range and the whole of the primary curriculum, so that students at Dartford are equipped to teach in both infant and junior schools.

Sixthly, the BEd (PE) course has been designed to take into account the latest thinking on such degrees, as expressed at the recent Sheffield conference. Finally, there are outstanding facilities for physical education at the Dartford site of the polytechnic.

The loss to north-west Kent and the loss to my own community of the Dartford college would be enormous, and I know that my hon. Friend will bear that in mind when he replies.

On 19 January, my predecessor in this place, Lord Irving of Dartford, raised in another place the future of the Dartford site. He received a reply from the Earl of Swinton which appears in the House of Lords Hansard for that day. Lord Irving spent a great deal of time outlining the history of the Dartford site since the arrival of Martina Bergman Osterburg in this country in the 1880s. In the Dartford site we have a unique institution, because it was the first institution of its kind in the United Kingdom. Very shortly we shall be celebrating the centenary of institutions initiated by Madame Bergman Osterburg in this country. It would be a paradox if in a few years we were to celebrate her centenary with postage stamps and other items of recognition having closed the pioneering college which she set up in Dartford in 1895.

All-party support exists against the decision to remove initial teacher training from the site. I have support from my own colleagues from north-west Kent. I have support from Lord Irvine, who is a member of the Labour party. The hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Cartwright) would have been here tonight to give me support but for a prior constituency engagement.

My hon. Friend and I live in the real world. I accept the difficulties under which he has been operating. If we cannot have that which I seek, perhaps we can seek something else. Perhaps he will allow ILEA to reschedule the number of places for physical education throughout the colleges, and therefore maintain a physical education presence at the Dartford site.

When Madame Osterburg died on 29 July 1915, she left the institution to the nation. Since that time it has passed, in the form of a trust, through a number of hands, finally ending with Thames polytechnic. It is for us in north-west Kent an article of faith that we maintain the physical education presence at Madame Osterburg's college. To do less than that would be a gross injustice to a fine radical lady—radical in the non-Socialist sense—who came to Dartford and set up a pioneer course which is famous throughout the world.

I appeal to my hon. Friend to show us a small light tonight—if possible, a bigger light—and to comment on what I have had to say, and also on the massive public demonstration that he has received against the proposal to remove initial teacher training from the Dartford college of Thames polytechnic.

11.34 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. William Waldegrave)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn) for the courteous way in which he has introduced this short debate. He has been kind enough to say that we have difficult decisions to make. It has not been enjoyable for anyone to have to undertake them. Equally, those of us who have seen him in action in this House will not doubt the sincerity of his commitment to his constituency, and particularly the care that he has taken over the issue. As he has mentioned, he brought to me two delegations, which have argued the case, and he has also raised this Adjournment debate tonight. My hon. Friend has put before the House the basic context of the diminution of teacher training, which now seems to us to be necessary, faced with the demographic trends. I shall add one or two figures to the ones he gave.

In 1971 initial teacher training was undertaken in 42 universities and 184 public sector institutions. Between them, these institutions produced an output of 40,000 newly trained teachers each year. The Labour Government, realising that the commitment to teacher training was far greater than the country needed, reduced plans in 1977 to a system based on 31 universities and 76 public sector institutions in England and Wales, with a planned total of 39,000 initial teacher training students and 20,000 planned admissions.

There must still be further reductions. My hon. Friend referred to the advice that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State received from the advisory committee on the supply and education of teachers. The advice pointed to a considerable reduction in the overall need for newly trained teachers, following the sharp fall in the birth rate and the school population, which is down by more than 1.5 million—or more than one-sixth—in the decade from the mid-1970s. We have concluded that planned annual admissions to initial teacher training courses should be reduced from 20,000 in 1981 to 15,650 in 1983 rising thereafter as we begin—as my hon. Friend correctly predicted we would need to begin—to increase the training of primary teachers. I emphasise that, in the respect that the Secretary of State departed from the exact advice of ACSET, he called for rather more of diminution in the training of secondary teachers thinking that, because we were training more secondary teachers than could sensibly be expected to find jobs—within limits we must provide a sensible choice for local authorities—we should cut the number of training places for secondary teachers but should increase, beyond what ACSET originally recommended, the training of primary teachers. We believed that the system could respond even more quickly than ACSET thought it could in that respect.

The savings in teacher training form part of the projected savings in higher education as a whole that the Government have put before the House in two White Papers. In so far as resources remained in teacher training, as we think unnecessarily, there would be further savings to be found elsewhere. Equally, if we can tailor the teacher training system to what we see as the needs of the country, more resources will be available elsewhere for higher education as a whole. We came to the conclusion that with this roughly 20 per cent. cut overall in places it would simply not be educationally sensible to spread the remaining butter more thinly across a similar number of institutions.

The primary and secondary intakes now proposed for 1983, 1984 and 1985 will produce a total in 1985 of 27,000 initial teacher training students—about 20 per cent. fewer than was intended when the present system was designed. We therefore came to the conclusion that, if all institutions were not to become weak and the teaching group subjects too small, we had to diminish the number of institutions involved.

As I look down the records of entries in 1981, as opposed to planned targets, I repeatedly find groups of one or two students following particular options. The advice of Her Majesty's Inspectorate is clear on this matter; that is not educationally good sense. So we came to the conclusion that a smaller number of institutions should be involved in teacher training. Partly in our minds was the thought that when the demographic fluctuations, which would undoubtedly take place again in the future hit us—demographic change is always unexpected—and if we had fewer but on the whole rather larger centres, the capacity to alter size of intakes without doing anything drastic to the number of institutions would be greater. With some exceptions it has been our intention to try to concentrate resources in rather larger groups.

My hon. Friend knows from his experience in the Department the sort of discussions that we have undertaken and the painful exercise was carried out against the background to which he referred. There has been some misunderstanding about the way in which we used the criteria. We did not go down a checklist and tick off the criteria against a single institution. All the criteria were comparative. We had to look at the whole national system against the criteria and to look for arguments for adding to the basic system. We altered the original prosposals, because we concluded that some special cases should be added to the central system.

After the cutbacks of the 1970s it would be surprising if the remaining institutions did not score highly on most of the criteria. The ones that it might have been easy to withdraw had long since been withdrawn. All the remaining institutions were providing a valuable service.

The situation in physical education is in some ways even more radical than that in initial teacher training overall, not only because of the need to reduce the number of institutions, but because the European Commission's 1977 directive on equal opportunities for women compelled us to do away with sex discrimination in course intakes and to admit men and women to all physical education training establishments.

That meant that the size of a viable unit should be bigger—about twice the size. Apart from the educational benefits of larger units, the European directive compels us to move to larger units. That is what we have done. There were 34 institutions undertaking bachelor of education programmes in physical education and that will be reduced to 10. The average intake will be almost doubled from 16. The intake at Dartford was below average—about 11 in 1981.

I read with great interest the speech in another place by my hon. Friend's predecessor as hon. Member for Dartford who movingly outlined the history of the Dartford college. I am sure that the influence of what has gone on at Dartford has spread through physical education not only in this country, but world-wide.

I can say, without raising hopes or expectations too high, that it is not inconceivable that some physical education could continue with the existing facilities. We are willing to consider any proposals—the obvious source is the Avery Hill college—for the use of the facilities. In terms of London higher education establishments, the distance between the colleges is not all that great, though there would be some inconvenience, and I could see advantages to Avery Hill in using those facilities. We would put no obstacle in the way of practical proposals to use those facilities. I do not want to be misunderstood as saying that we should return to the Thames polytechnic for an entry quota, but we should be prepared to—

Mr. Bob Dunn

Is my hon. Friend saying that it would be up to ILEA to make proposals, for the Thames polytehnic, and that those proposals would involve some rescheduling of the ILEA umbrella, especially in south London?

Mr. Waldegrave

I am saying that we would not want to reschedule entry targets between institutions, but if ILEA or Avery Hill as an institution, made proposals for the use of the Dartford college facilities, we would put no obstacles in the way of that. To some extent, one can see, as can those who appreciate the history, as my hon. Friend does, and as his predecessor does, that there would be some satisfaction in seeing the activity continued on the site. I repeat that I am not saying, I am afraid, that we would want to, or are in a position to, return to the Thames polytechnic for an entry quota.

We did not give the distribution of the places, whether in physical education or, more broadly, in initial teacher training, between the various institutions of ILEA to ILEA as an authority—which is a proposal put to me by ILEA—because, although we considered the idea and discussed it with ILEA representatives, the Secretary of State, I and senior officials, came to the view that we could not properly fulfil our duty if we simply devolved to another authority the difficult choices involved.

We have the duty not only to judge, on the advice of the inspectorate, and other advice, the quality of what goes on in the colleges; we also have the duty, which is without the capacity of ILEA to undertake, to try to make a strategy across all three sectors—the voluntary colleges, the university and the local authority. That was why,'after toying with the idea and discussing it with ILEA representatives, we felt that we had to undertake the thankless task of making the decisions ourselves. That is what we have done.

I repeat that in this case the potential advantages of a liaison between Avery Hill and the Dartford site are attractive. In that sense the intentions of Madam Osterberg's will would, if they were to come about successfully, be met. My advice is that in strict legal terms, the proper excercise of statutory powers by the Secretary of State, can, with the advice of the Charity Commissioners, alter the terms of the will.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford for giving me the opportunity to give an encouraging sign of co-operation. However, on the broader front, in terms of the reorganisation, which we all hope will be the final one—teacher training has had three periods of reorganisation over the past 10 years. We have provided the nation with a well-founded system that will mean that we are in a position to respond flexibly to the future.

In terms of the general structure, I do not wish to give my hon. Friend any hope that we can be persuaded to restore initial teacher training as a whole to Thames polytechnic. We could do that only at the cost of weakening other institutions or of diverting resources, for which there are pressing needs elsewhere in the higher education system. We would be training people in skills for which we are already training more than car, find jobs at the secondary level. The resources, the students of the proper quality, will not be available to increase even faster than we are at the primary level.

It is the intention of Ministers to stand on the final decisions that have been taken, although where there are intelligent things that can be done at the margin to make the best use of resources we shall be willing to listen and help. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to say so.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at eleven minutes to Twelve o'clock.