§ 3.48 p.m.
§ The Earl of SwintonMy Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. The Statement is as follows:
"I wish to make a Statement about the Government's policies and actions to improve teaching 945 quality in schools in England and Wales by the better use of the resources available. These are set out in a White Paper which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I are publishing today. Copies are available in the Vote Office."—
it may be for the convenience of your Lordships if I say that copies are also available in the Printed Paper Office. I return to the Statement:
"Our first objective is to improve the arrangements for teacher training. Last November I announced changes in the structure of the initial training system in England which are designed to match the supply of newly trained teachers to the needs of both primary and secondary schools over the next few years, both in quality and in quantity. My right honourable friend will soon be announcing his decision for the system in Wales. We shall now use our power to approve initial training courses to improve their content and structure, a matter on which we are indebted to the valuable advice of our partners in education through the Advisory Committee on the Supply and Education of Teachers and to the work of Her Majesty's Inspectors. We accept the committee's recommendation that initial training courses should in future be approved on the basis of explicit criteria. Newly trained teachers will be expected to have greater knowledge and expertise in the subjects they are to teach, as well as more practical experience: and will have to provide satisfactory evidence of classroom competence. The training institutions will be expected to improve their arrangements for selecting students and to demonstrate that their staff have themselves recent successful experience of teaching in school. We now look forward to the committee's advice on the details of the new criteria and intend to apply these to new course proposals and in reviewing existing courses during the academic year beginning in September 1983.
"Our second objective is to improve the deployment of teachers so that their pupils can obtain full benefit from what they have to offer. We shall record the subjects and the ages of pupils for which new teachers have trained in formal letters from the department. We shall bring forward amended regulations to require local education authorities to have more regard to the formal qualifications of teachers, as they relate to specific subjects and age ranges, when they appoint them to particular posts; and we shall ask HMI to keep under review the operation of this requirement.
"It is also in the interest of the pupils that local education authorities should pursue positive policies in managing their teacher force at a time when resources are limited and teacher numbers must fall because pupil numbers are falling. Authorities need to use the various management instruments at their disposal in a planned and sensitive way so that the inflow of able recruits is maintained and so that teachers are deployed where they can best serve the pupils.
"At the same time authorities need to make it possible for serving teachers to continue their professional development through in-service 946 training. Additional provision has been made for this in the Government's expenditure plans.
"The schools depend crucially on the professional skill and commitment of the teachers. The Government believe that the White Paper provides a sound basis for enabling the teachers in our schools to serve their pupils as the nation, and they themselves, would wish".
My Lords, that concludes my right honourable friend's Statement.
§ 3.52 p.m.
§ Baroness DavidMy Lords, I should like to thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. Of course, our final comment on it will have to wait until we have had the opportunity to read the White Paper. Naturally, we are in favour of the highest quality in our teaching force and of better selection and assessment of teachers during their training, and indeed during their probationary period.
We welcome the Government's realisation that educational standards are threatened, but this of course is not only because of the quality of the teaching force; it is because of the lack of resources and the cuts that LEAs have had to make on central Government instruction. The lack of remedial teachers, which of course affects very much what children learn and will be able to learn in the future, and the curtailing of the curriculum in the secondary schools, are both highlighted in the latest HMI report. This really does depend a great deal on resources.
I wonder whether the Minister could expand a little on the beginning of paragraph 2 where it says:
Our first objective is to improve the arrangements for teacher training".Apparently the Advisory Committee on the Supply and Education of Teachers is to be consulted and its advice taken. Are we sure that it will be taken, because it was not taken in the autumn? What it suggested as to the number of teachers in training was ignored byWe welcome the acceptance that more practical experience is necessary before the new teachers get into the classroom, and that the staff at the training establishments should have had recent experience of teaching in schools; and of course we welcome what the Statement says about in-service training. Again, according to the last HMI report, only half the LEAs were providing a satisfactory amount and quality of in-service training. This is particularly important if we are thinking of new subjects coming into the curriculum and a changed curriculum. Could the Minister say how the Department of Education and Science will be certain that the money intended for in-service training is used for that purpose? Are there to be specific grants for that?
In paragraph 3, the Statement says:
We shall bring forward amended regulations to require local education authorities to have more regard to the formal qualifications of teachers, as they relate to specific subjects and age ranges".I hope that the Minister can explain a little more about that. This seems to be narrowing things very much. Teachers may need to change and in-service training will help that. I shall be glad if the Minister can say a little more about that.947 Paragraph 4 says:
local education authorities should pursue positive policies in managing their teacher force at a time when resources are limited".I think that what has happened with LEAs is that very often, because of falling rolls, they have been forced to redeploy their teachers. They have to use them rather than sack them. They cannot do that which perhaps the falling rolls would demand, get rid of all the teachers at once, so they may be forced to use these teachers in not altogether the places that best suit them. Could the Minister say what the Government's intentions are about this? Again, it is really a question of resources. It is easier not to have a mismatch if there are enough resources to employ more teachers.I should like to ask about outside experience. There is nothing in the Statement to the effect that people will be brought in from outside the normal school situation. I think that it would be very valuable for the education of children and for teachers if people from outside, perhaps from industry and other businesses, could come to teach in schools for a certain amount of time, to bring variety and a change, and that teachers could go out from schools and have some experience in industry and elsewhere. Could the Minister say whether there is anything of that in the White Paper, and if it is intended? We all want quality, but being a really good teacher is a very rare quality. However many first-class degrees or whatever one may get in the school, it may not mean that one is a good teacher.
One final question: was there any consultation with the teaching unions—with the teacher force—before this White Paper was written?
§ Lord Beaumont of WhitleyMy Lords, I, too, would like to thank the Minister for repeating this Statement. Of course, as far as the central part of it goes, it is very pious and very encouraging. We look forward to reading the White Paper now that it is published. I hope that we shall be given a fairly speedy opportunity to discuss the White Paper in your Lordships' House.
As far as the Statement goes, it is all very well to put the emphasis on quality. Of course we all want the emphasis on quality, but one cannot produce quality in this kind of situation unless there is some form of quanitity as well. I was up in Lincolnshire over the weekend and the teachers were discussing the cuts in staff in their schools that they were going to make over the coming year. All that I can say is that in places like that one will not be able to have any teachers seconded for in-school training.
There is also the problem, as the noble Baroness, Lady David, said, that teachers are having to be redeployed, because of the shortages, to jobs for which they are not entirely suitable. There is nothing much one can do about that except to provide more teachers. This is really what is needed to put up the quality as well as the quantity.
Lastly, I would like to ask the Government whether they have really looked at the resources that are going into the teacher training colleges after all the recent cuts, to know whether there will be enough to deal with the workload which appears to be the thought behind this White Paper.
§ 3.59 p.m.
§ The Earl of SwintonMy Lords, I am most grateful both to the noble Baroness, Lady David, and to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, for the way that they have received this White Paper. I was particularly pleased about the way that Lady David began her remarks. She asked me a number of questions in fairly rapid succession. I apologise if I do not have the answers to all of them. I shall certainly write if there are some that I miss out.
I think that both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, referred to the cuts in education, and the number of teachers concerned was referred to especially by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont. Between January 1979 and January 1982 the numbers of full-time equivalent teachers employed in maintained nursery, primary and secondary schools in England and Wales decreased from 471,000 to 448,000, but because there was a greater proportional fall in pupil numbers the overall pupil/teacher ratio actually improved from 18.9 to 18.5. The pupil/teacher ratio for January 1983 is expected to show a further improvement. In fact, present pupil to teacher ratios are the best that they have ever been. Our expenditure plans allow for some further improvement in the ratios over 1982 levels if local education authorities contain their pay and other costs.
Of course, the Government accept that there will be strains on the staffing of secondary schools as the weight of demographic decline shifts to the secondary sector. But LEAs and teachers can relieve these strains by keeping a tight rein on pay and other costs, thus facilitating the employment of more teachers within the salary bill which can be afforded by reorganising schools in areas where rolls are falling and by careful planning of early retirement and redeployment. So I do not think that the situation is quite so bleak as the noble Lord and the noble Baroness made out.
As for the changes and bringing them about, which matter was raised by the noble Baroness, I hope that those responsible for individual teacher training courses will read the White Paper and that some changes will be introduced simply as a result of that. But on a more formal level, my right honourable friend is writing to Sir Clifford Butler, the chairman of ACSET, today and I hope that the committee will be able to submit advice on the criteria to be established for initial teacher training courses by July. The aim will then be to establish the criteria as soon as possible after that date and to begin applying them to new course proposals and to review existing courses from the autumn of this year. The noble Baroness, Lady David, asked me about consultation with the teachers. Of course, the teachers' organisations are involved as partners in ACSET, so in a way they have had a say there and ACSET is going to be re-consulted. As far as the local education authorities are concerned, I understand that my right honourable friend is also writing to them to try and arrange a meeting to consider this matter.
Specific grants towards in-service training were also mentioned. The sum of £7 million is being earmarked for that very purpose. It is always difficult when local education authorities get their hands on their money to know how they are going to spend it. The noble 949 Baroness raised a very good point in that respect. However, this money has been specifically earmarked for in-service training in different fields, and I think that I answered a Question on that matter the other day.
On the question of teachers coming from outside into the schools to teach, that I do not think is mentioned in the report. However, I think that there is something which suggests that there is, indeed, a case for young people who are going into teaching taking a year off and doing something else before they go to their institutions of training. In my view, that is a very good idea. I suppose that so far as getting people in from outside is concerned, that is for the head, the staffs and the governors of schools to try to do.
§ Lord KilmarnockMy Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Earl for repeating the Statement. Of course we welcome the commitment to increase initial and in-service teacher training. But we are slightly puzzled by paragraph 5 of the Statement, the last sentence of which reads:
Additional provision has been made for this in the Government's expenditure plans".When one turns to the White Paper containing the Government's expenditure plans, one finds that under "education" there is a drop in education expenditure envisaged between 1982–83 and 1983–84—that is to say, we are going down from £12,628,000 to £12,560,000. I would like to ask the noble Earl from where in fact the funding for that additional initial, and particularly in-service training is coming?Secondly, I managed very quickly to scan one page of the White Paper, which was embargoed of course until 3.30. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, in hoping that we shall have a chance to debate it in greater detail. But I see that under "management issues" there is a reference to small schools. It says:
The population distribution makes it inevitable that there should be some small schools which are staffed at disproportionate expense".That is then followed up by an injunction to local authorities to rationalise their teacher force. May I ask the noble Lord for an undertaking that this rationalisation of the teacher force will not be at the further expense of small schools in rural areas?
§ The Earl of SwintonMy Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, for those remarks. I really do not have any more to say about the £7 million which, as I mentioned to the noble Baroness, Lady David, is being specifically spent for in-service training. So far as teachers in the rural areas are concerned, I really cannot give an undertaking as regards that. There are some scattered rural areas where, however much the numbers go down, we must have a school; and where we have a school, we must have a teacher.
§ Baroness BaconMy Lords, would the noble Earl not agree that the most well trained teachers cannot be really efficient if, at the end of their training, they are teaching very big classes? Does he not remember—I am sure he does—that when he was chairman of the Primary School Committee of the North Riding County Council and I was the Minister, he came to me 950 with a deputation imploring me to let his authority build more schools because the schools were bursting at the seams? We have got over that now because of the fall in numbers; yet does he not agree that his Government are not now reducing the size of classes but are closing schools and leaving classes as large as they were before, and that it would be much better to have smaller classes because then we would get real efficiency from teachers?
§ The Earl of SwintonMy Lords, my chief memory of that interview is that I was absolutely terrified and the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon, as always, was absolutely charming and put me at ease. But to spring that one on me at this stage is something of a fast ball! Again, as I have said, the pupil/teacher ratios have in fact never been better than they are at this moment. Obviously, numbers are falling and teachers have to go, but the ratios are better than in the days when I came to see the noble Baroness in her office.
§ Viscount EcclesMy Lords, if my memory serves me aright, nearly 30 years ago, when I became responsible for education, there were approximately 150,000 teachers in post. We now hear that there are over 400,000—two and a half times as many. Does my noble friend think that education has improved anything like two and a half times? Was not the real trouble that the expansion of the teacher training colleges was much too fast; that the selection of the students was not well done; and that when they got there they were allowed to choose what they studied, with the result that the core subjects were not taught to a proportion of teachers, which meant that in the primary schools subjects like mathematics went down like a stone?
§ The Earl of SwintonMy Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Eccles for those remarks. Yes, the facts he gives are absolutely right. As I have said, there are in England and Wales 448,000 teachers. It is to try and improve the standards that this White Paper has been produced. It is very much the policy of this Government to try to improve the standards in our schools, and one of the ways in which to do this is to try to improve the standards of the teachers in those schools.
§ Lord Davies of LeekMy Lords, is the noble Earl aware that we are grateful for the Statement and we are also pleased that he takes a great interest in education, which we have known for many years. Nevertheless, is he further aware that the word "quality" is something esoteric and abstract and very difficult to define? There must be a certain charisma about teachers, no matter how well they may be informed academically and even if they are senior wranglers. In the old-fashioned days I had a senior wrangler teaching me mathematics. I had to go down to the fourth form to understand what the man was talking about. Consequently, if we are looking for quality, we want the background. Is the noble Earl further aware that a good mechanic or carpenter needs the tools? Unless we get the books and the impedimenta that are needed, this modern apotheosis of a micrometer and electronics has nothing at all to do with the quality of education. We want to see the classes smaller and the rulers of schools given a better chance than they are getting today.
§ The Earl of SwintonMy Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, could never have taught me because I would not have understood half the words he used: he is way above my head. But, yes, I think that there is a great deal of sense in what he says. Having read this White Paper—and, like other noble Lords, I have not had very long to study it—as I understand it, the aim is to try to teach teachers how to teach. I think that that is a very important point.
§ Lord Nugent of GuildfordMy Lords, is my noble friend aware that, after the questions that were put to him last week about religious education, some noble Lords will be disappointed to find that there is no word about that in the whole of this White Paper? Can my noble friend tell me whether this is a subject which my noble friend and his noble friends and right honourable friends will really take seriously? Is he aware that most of us think that the Christian heritage, based on Roman civilisation, is the whole basis of our lives and that, unless children are taught this at school—or, at any rate, given a rough idea of it—the major foundation of our whole civilisation is omitted? Will my noble friend undertake to convey to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State our very deep concern that in the whole of this White Paper, which I have skimmed rapidly through, there is no word about this as a qualification which should be sought for in at least some teachers who are to teach in our schools today?
§ The Earl of SwintonMy Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend, Lord Nugent, for raising that point. Yes, this is very much some of our thinking. In fact, I was aware of some of the things that were to be included in the White Paper but I was not allowed to mention them. One thing I wanted to say then was that the whole area of teachers and what they teach is a matter that will be closely examined, as will be the subject matters that teachers will teach. The whole idea of this is not only to improve the teaching of religious education, but to improve the quality of teaching of all sorts of subjects.
§ Baroness DavidMy Lords, I should like to clear up two points. On the consultations, do I understand that the teachers' unions were not consulted at all about this, which is really all about teachers, apart from those who happen to be on ACSET, and that the local education authorities, which are being required to do various things in the Statement, were not consulted? Secondly, is the £7 million which the Minister said is earmarked for in-service training earmarked for something within the general rate support grant or is it as a specific grant for in-service training?
§ The Earl of SwintonMy Lords, I think that I shall have to write to the noble Baroness on both those points. As I understand it, consultation has taken place and is continuing to take place. As regards the extra £7 million, I shall have to write to the noble Baroness about that.