Teacher Training

HC Deb 29 March 1994 vol 240 cc780-1

3. Mr. O'Hara

To ask the Secretary of State for Education what representations he has had over his plans for the reform of teacher training; and if he will make a statement.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr. Robin Squire)

We consulted extensively last autumn before introducing the current Education Bill and have discussed our reforms with a number of representative bodies during the past six months.

Mr. O'Hara

How many of the bodies consulted approved of the Government's plans to reform teacher training? Have parents been consulted about the implications for their children of increased and extended exposure to apprentice teachers under the proposed system?

Mr. Squire

The hon. Gentleman has interpreted the Bill incorrectly. For a start, no school will be brought into training unless it chooses to—no compulsion is involved. Secondly, the Bill will ensure the more effective deployment of resources for initial teacher training, and I should have hoped that a majority of hon. Members would welcome that.

Mr. Pawsey

I hope that my hon. Friend will disregard the ill-considered comments of Labour Members. Is he aware that his statement will be widely welcomed by parents, as the reforms involve schools and allow practical teaching to take place more closely with individual children? Will my hon. Friend also join me in condemning some of the extraordinary practices of teacher training colleges in the past?

Mr. Squire

My hon. Friend, with his wide experience, is absolutely right. There will be—there already is—an explosion of interest in school-centred training among teacher trainees, who are interested in this new form of training for those with three or four years of university experience who want more training on the job. It is working very well, and the Bill will cement the new system in place.

Mr. Don Foster

Does the Minister accept that his commitment to high-quality teacher training sits ill with his Department's failure to ensure that highly qualified teachers have the necessary resources at their disposal and high-quality buildings in which they and their pupils can operate? Does he agree that the Department's proposals to tackle the backlog of repairs and maintenance in school buildings are wholly inadequate?

Mr. Squire

In a word, I do not agree. The House looks forward to hearing which part of the 1 p that the Liberal Democrats trail around the country will pay for this proposal. We shall be keeping a close eye on it—the hon. Gentleman should be in no doubt of that.

Mr. Bryan Davies

Are we really to be treated to another display of overweening arrogance by the Secretary of State, following the mauling that his Bill has received in another place? Does he really intend to reverse Labour's amendment, backed by some of the most right-wing members of his own party, and insist on school-based courses for teachers' education, with no input from higher education—even though the pilot scheme on which the proposals are based will not have been completed until this sorry Bill has completed its passage through the House?

Mr. Squire

The Bill is in excellent shape, and we look forward to its arrival here from another place. I note in passing that the idea of a teacher training agency has been accepted by the other place, where their Lordships rejected the Opposition's alternatives. As the hon. Gentleman would expect me to say at this stage, the Government are carefully considering their position on the question of school-centred teaching in response to the amendment.

Mr. Harry Greenway

Does my hon. Friend agree that the remarkable professional behaviour of the teachers at Middlesbrough yesterday showed the high quality of the teaching profession and the fact that schoolteachers have a substantial contribution to make to the education of new members of their profession?

Mr. Squire

I think that my hon. Friend speaks for the whole House when he congratulates the teachers involved in yesterday's horrific incident. Day in, day out, I take the opportunity to pay tribute to the work that teachers do across the country, exhibiting skills which, fortunately, do not usually have to be deployed in such dreadful circumstances.