Teaching Council Proposal

HL Deb 05 April 1989 vol 505 cc1162-82

7.16 p.m.

Lord Glenamara rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will establish a general teaching council for England and Wales.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, professional self-government has long been the aim of teachers who are concerned about the standards of their profession and the public esteem for it. Indeed, one of the earliest attempts at giving teachers professional self-conduct took place in the early years of the last century when Queen Victoria gave a charter to the College of Preceptors, a body which is still pursuing that objective.

In 1965, the then Labour Government established the great General Teaching Council in Scotland under the Training Council (Scotland) Act. In 1969, I took the initiative of setting up the Weaver Committee to plan a general teaching council for England and Wales. That committee produced a positive report in favour of a general teaching council but unfortunately it came to grief because of inter-union rivalry.

The need and the desire for professional self-government are greater today than they have ever been. The prospects of agreement about it are much better than they have ever been. I shall explain why in a few moments.

I do not wish to introduce a note of discord into the debate, but in my view—I have been associated with teaching all my adult life—the morale of the teaching profession is lower than I have ever known it. Teachers have lost the right to negotiate about their pay and conditions of service; they have lost the right to develop their own curriculum, which they have enjoyed since Robert Lowe's revised code came to grief in the middle of the last century; they have lost the right to decide what to teach. That is now decided in the greatest detail by the Secretary of State. Time spent on each subject is no longer a matter for their professional judgment. Indeed, the way in which teachers do their work in England and Wales is now more closely circumscribed than in any Western country and most countries in the Eastern bloc. All this has been imposed upon them and their morale is at an all-time low. A generous government—and I hope that this Government are generous; they are continually telling us that they are—would try to restore that morale.

One means of doing so would be to accord teachers a major, generous measure of autonomy under a general teaching council. By that I mean a statutory independent professional body for the education service, analogous to the GMC, established by Parliament in 1858 for the medical profession or the GTC, which I have just described for Scotland, created by Parliament in 1965.

However I do not wish to give the wrong impression. I am not advocating a general teaching council simply as a means of enabling the Government to make amends to the teachers for all the indignities that they have suffered in recent years, but because it is surely a sensible, democratic and efficient course to take at this time, if the Government want a teaching service of high quality with pride in itself to carry out the 1988 reforms. It is worth remembering that only the teachers can make a success of the Education Reform Act 1988—only the teachers, not the DES or anybody else.

I said a moment ago that the prospects for agreement today are better than they have ever been. Let me explain why. In 1984 the University Council for the Education of Teachers, at the request of the bigger teaching unions, set up a forum of 17 teacher bodies involved in education to plan a general teaching council. It was under the chairmanship of Professor Alec Ross, who is very well known to many of us and particularly to my noble friend, one of the Deputy Pro-Chancellors of Lancaster University.

In the short period of three years this forum has reached agreement on the principles, the role and the functions of a general teaching council. That is quite a remarkable achievement, because those three years, 1985 to 1987, were not marked by professional unity on any other issue. But they reached almost total agreement on this. Having reached agreement, the UCET-sponsored forum then began to consult much more widely and to share its thoughts with other bodies; to be precise, another 16 bodies. They ranged from the Association of County Councils through such bodies as the CBI and the DES itself and the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals to the TUC.

The education management unit in the Institute of Education in London University has also been holding a series of seminars with the same consultative purpose. In the month of March it has held six seminars: in the University of Manchester, the University of Warwick, Salisbury College of Technology, Huddersfield Polytechnic, the University of Wales and the University of London.

This work has gone on and the whole process—the original UCET forum, the 16 other bodies I have mentioned and the seminars—show a remarkable and commendable determination to get the plan for a general teaching council right this time. I can think of few, or indeed no, initiatives in the field of education which have been so thoroughly pursued and prepared as this has. I understand that the process of consultation will end next month, and I am told that the Secretary of State will then be invited to convene a national conference. From it he will pursue the idea of professional autonomy through to legislation.

I should be deceiving the House if I gave the impression that throughout all this consultation period everything has been agreed. One important point has not been agreed—the method of electing the governing body of a general teaching council. But all are agreed on two most important points about the governing body. First, it must contain a majority of registered teachers. Secondly, it must contain representatives of the wider public interests in education—parents, governors, local authorities, churches etc. One of the flaws in the Weaver Report was that it did not provide for this.

A major area not agreed is whether the teacher majority should be elected by a ballot of all registered teachers—I strongly believe that it should be—or whether it should be based upon the membership of existing unions, with the kind of representation they had on the now defunct Burnham Committee. That is a method which would cause great conflict of interest where difficulties arose in disciplinary matters.

If the Government eventually legislate, they will almost certainly have to make the decision themselves, as the Labour Government had to do in the case of the Scottish GTC. But I very much hope that the Government will not say that they cannot proceed without agreement on the point, because it will never be agreed among the teachers' unions themselves. I can tell them that now. But to say that the Government cannot proceed because 5 per cent. has not been agreed, when 95 per cent. has been agreed, would be grossly unfair.

The broad purpose of a general teaching council is that teachers themselves should control the ingress to and the egress from their profession; they alone should have the power to confer or to withdraw the licence or the right to teach, with of course provision for an appeal to the High Court. In exercising its disciplinary powers, the council would have to develop some kind of professional ethic. It could be a kind of Hippocratic oath, or it might be an agreed code of professional conduct of the kind which some unions, notably the Professional Association of Teachers, have developed in recent years.

From the broad purpose of controlling the ingress to and egress from their own profession, a number of other functions would flow. I shall not discuss them in detail because I took the liberty of sending the Minister the committee's detailed proposals. Clearly teachers must have a major voice in the training of teachers, both the initial training and the in-service training, just as the Inns of Court in the noble Lord's profession and the Law Society have a major voice in the training of lawyers.

The nature and length of the initial training should be matters for the profession itself. This accreditation function would also apply to in-service training. The GTC would also lay down the ground rules for induction, whether the induction of newly qualified teachers or, for example, the induction of newly appointed head teachers. So it must have a major voice in the training of teachers.

Having said that, perhaps I may recognise at once that this is one of the major difficulties as regards the DES. They might argue, as the officials in the DES did in 1969 and 1970, and as they will certainly argue in 1989, that the Government themselves must be able to ensure that the supply of teachers is always adequate to implement public policy. I agree that they should. They then go on to say that there is a conflict between this need, which the DES must retain, and giving the general teaching council a major voice in the training of teachers. I do not believe that there is a conflict. I have never believed that there need be a conflict; and nor does the UCET forum. I do not believe there is a conflict any more than there is a conflict between the need to ensure that the health service has an adequate supply of trained doctors and the involvement of the General Medical Council in the training of doctors.

There is a shifting equation between the supply of teachers and their entry qualifications. However, that need present no insuperable difficulties given good will on the part of the DES and of a general teaching council. That would of course depend on where the line were drawn between the GTC's strict accreditation function and its advisory function. Where that line was drawn would be a matter for negotiation between the Secretary of State and the UCET forum.

Finally, a general teaching council is not an end in itself. However, I believe it could be a means of achieving a high degree of unity of purpose in carrying out the public will, as expressed in legislation passed by Parliament on education, in the best possible way. It could help to create a recognised, respected profession united in public service. It would not solve all the problems of the education service overnight, but I believe that its establishment would be a recognition that they can only be solved by a united, self-respecting teaching profession.

All I hope is that the Minister will give some sympathetic encouragement tonight to the teachers who have served on this forum and worked so hard over the past three years to achieve almost complete agreement. I further hope that the Minister will give some hope to all teachers that they are at last recognised as a profession in fact as well as in name.

7.31 p.m.

Lord Beloff

My Lords, the noble Lord and I have faced each other across this Floor in education debates more than once. It is a particular pleasure that, for once, we are agreed, although we did not necessarily come to these conclusions by entirely the same route. Certainly the conclusion which I wish to support is the hope that the Government will look sympathetically upon this proposal. It is not I believe in any sense a party political matter.

In 1983 I had the task of presiding over a committee composed of Conservatives interested in education. The committee had to prepare the education elements in the 1983 General Election manifesto. The committee was representative of the educational world. One of the conclusions of the committee was that a general teaching council for England and Wales should be set up. This is relevant to the explanation and the detailed information on the current state of play for which we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, because that suggestion was turned down for inclusion in the manifesto by the then Secretary of State who is now the noble Lord, Lord Joseph.

As I remember it, the argument produced by the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, was that it was not possible to devise a regulatory body of the kind which the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, sketched out for us tonight. The noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, also suggested the kind of functions which it should have. The functions suggested then were very much the same as they are now. The noble Lord, Lord Joseph, said the body would simply become another weapon for teachers' trade unions to use in their conflicts with the Government over matters such as pay and conditions. Those conflicts are perhaps endemic. It was my view then, and it remains my view now, that it is possible to devise a system of election to such a body—the alternative system which I think the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, approved of is a possibility in this connection—which would not run this risk. It would be perfectly possible to elect the body on a regional basis of teachers from particular areas of the country. Such a body could ignore the fact that those teachers were members of one trade union or another because they had respect among their professional colleagues and were known for their own good works as head teachers or in the classroom. Therefore, it seems to me that the argument which was then put forward is not a valid one. If it is not a valid argument and if another body can be devised, as separate after all as the General Medical Council is from the BMA, that should surely be welcomed by people of all political parties or of none who are interested in education.

This is a particularly good moment at which this subject should be raised again, not merely because of the detailed work which has gone into it over the past five years, but also because we are witnessing—and are likely to continue to witness—a major upheaval in the production, education, training, and certification of teachers in any event because of the fast changing nature of the educational scene. The proposals to increase the number of those who have received on-the-job training after becoming graduates, as against those who go through a teacher training course, are issues on which the Government have an opinion and on which various other people have opinions. These issues can be debated either way, no doubt; but they are certainly appropriate for a general teaching council to look at. They are not appropriate issues, say, for the teachers' trade unions to look at. In their recent conferences they showed a very wide variety of attitudes; and if I may say so, sometimes they showed a wide variety of prejudices.

If we assume that there will also be, as one would hope, an expansion of the role of the schools—this may have been discussed earlier this afternoon in our debate on training—that again makes it appropriate that there should be a professional body to ensure that the balance between education and training, for instance, is preserved. I know this concept perhaps may not appeal to the Department of Education and Science for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, gave. I am also well aware that at the moment the Government are not in a very favourable mood as regards professions. Yet I should have thought it is quite clear that if we are to make progress as a society, the building up of a professional sense of obligation at all levels in the educational profession—this is becoming increasingly necessary in higher education as well—and the preservation of, or enhancement where it exists, of a similar sense of professional obligation is an absolute condition of making satisfactory changes to meet the new demands upon our society.

It is wrong to think that the existence of autonomous professions in any sense detracts from the national interest. Properly viewed, self-governing, autonomous professions contribute to the national interest by enabling people to express their own devotion to the particular tasks which they have to perform. If that is generally true, it must be true of teachers.

If we are to ask people to undergo what is nowadays described as the stress of the teaching profession (some aspects of which have been drawn to our attention in the report of my noble friend Lord Elton) I think that at the same time we should give teachers the feeling that they are part of an appreciated profession, and that they stand high in the public confidence. In that respect, I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara.

I believe that that confidence would be greater if teachers' corporate contribution was made largely through a general teaching council, and the unions were left to what is their natural habitat: negotiations on matters of pay, hours of work, length of holidays and so forth. I think there is a distinction to be made, and I should be disappointed if Her Majesty's Government and the present Secretary of State showed the same negative attitude as we found in 1983.

7.41 p.m.

Lord McNair

My Lords, it was predictable that the essential background information or factual agenda for this debate would be clearly and cogently provided for us by the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara. We foresaw that and we were not disappointed.

It was possible to interpret the Question as drafted by the noble Lord either as just that, a question, or as a request. Clearly it is a request and it is a request which I should like strongly to support. Perhaps I may say how delighted I was to hear the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, support it and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, was equally pleased.

Perhaps I may give some of the reasons why I and some of my political colleagues would like to see a general teaching council established as soon as possible. However, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, that this is not a party political matter. The first reason is morale. There is a clamorous and urgent need to improve the morale of our teachers. Morale and status go together. We and the teachers see that doctors, lawyers, vets and many other worthy professions have long had their equivalent of a GTC. In our eyes the teachers are at least as important as the members of those professions.

I should go further and argue that the educators of a population are its most important members and that their influence upon the future, for good or ill, is greater than that of any other professional group, not excluding politicians. I think that Plato got that right. Perhaps the only exception would be the really great philosphers, scientists and artists, but they are freaks of nature. One cannot do anything about them except hope that they will crop up from time to time.

Our first reason therefore for wanting to see a GTC is that, if intelligently and unselfishly established, it would go a long way to raising the morale and enhancing the standing of the teaching profession in our society.

I turn now to my second reason, although all these reasons tend to overlap. It is possible to believe and difficult to doubt that, if a general teaching council had been firmly established with something of the traditional authority of the General Medical Council, teachers would have been spared some of the indignities they have suffered in recent years. The Burnham rug has been yanked from under their feet with no replacement except an advisory council appointed by, guess who? Is it not called an interim advisory council? One may ask, how long is "interim"? If the noble Lord can tell us, we should be interested to hear when we can expect some news of Burnham's successor.

Negotiating rights over teachers' pay and conditions have been abolished, if I am not mistaken, making teachers somewhat less advantaged than municipal refuse collectors, as our dear friends the dustmen are now called. Surely those and other humiliations would have been averted, successfully resisted, or perhaps not even contemplated if we had had a GTC.

My third motive for supporting the request concerns the public attitude towards education. As I said earlier, these arguments tend to interweave and overlap. I am afraid that recently there has been a tendency to downgrade and cheapen the way in which we are asked to look at education. It may be partly because I grew up in a university town that I have always felt a deep reverence for learning. I have acquired little enough of it but I have retained my reverence for it. Yet nowadays we hear parents described as consumers of education—parents, not children. I did not consume my education, I absorbed it, or some of it. It is not and cannot, without catastrophe, be regarded as a commodity. If teachers had a well-established and properly constituted GTC, as solicitors for the time being have the Law Society, that of itself would help to remind us and the teachers what a precious thing it is that they transmit to their pupils.

I come to the last of the reasons that I shall give tonight for supporting the request of the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara. We must have something to protect education against excessive interference by governments, all governments, present and future. During those long, hot, plague-ridden nights of last summer we loaded the Secretary of State with new centralising powers. From this side of the House perhaps I should say that we failed to prevent him from accumulating them. He reminded me of the dung beetle in the "Insect Play". As we kept on saying, nobody knows who will be Secretary of State in years to come. Whoever it may be, if he is wise and if he has a truly humane attitude towards education and a little of the reverence which I spoke of earlier, then I believe that he will be not just glad, but relieved, to share some of those powers with a general teaching council.

I should like to conclude with a few brevities. The composition of a GTC is much debated. I know that I am not qualified to dogmatise on that subject. However, I hope that it would avoid the fallacy of corporatism. We do not want a sort of educational Neddy. We should hope that most of its members would be elected by their colleagues, one teacher one vote. We should also hope, as has already been mentioned, that there would be an element of regionalism in the elections and that the voice of the Cornish teacher or the Welsh teacher would not go unheard.

Finally—and I mean finally—perhaps I may end with a question which I do not expect anyone to answer but which I should like to place on the record. If and when we get a general teaching council, is there any reason why the independent sector of education should not also be represented thereon? I do not like to see the private and public sectors diverging ever more widely. Perhaps this might be a way for them to keep in touch.

7.49 p.m.

Lord Taylor of Blackburn

My Lords, I too am grateful to my noble friend Lord Glenamara for raising the Question this evening. I believe that no one has done more than he over a good number of years to bring this request to the attention of various bodies. We might differ a little among ourselves about dates, but I believe from my research that he intended to bring the matter forward in 1970. Unfortunately, he left office at that point and the incoming government did not pursue the proposal. We shall not argue about exact dates, but I agree with my noble friend that the Scottish council was set up in 1965.

Much work has been done on the matter over the intervening years. I have been connected with various educational establishments over that period and have never known a time when one was able to get 17 organisations—both unions and associations —to agree in the way that they have agreed on this subject. If my memory serves me correctly, the only association that is not quite happy at the moment—and I say "at the moment"— is the National Associ- ation of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers. The remaining associations are quite happy about the matter and I am sure that the NASUWT will probably think differently in the course of time.

Much has been said regarding the morale of the teaching profession. Having listened to and read the debates that have taken place over the Easter period, I believe that nothing would restore teachers' confidence more at the present time than the setting up of a general teaching council. Teachers now crave something to inspire them and give them the professionalism that they so badly need as a national base. I am sure that that would be a great thing for them. If the Secretary of State wants to redeem himself in the eyes of the teachers, that is certainly one of the ways in which he can do so.

There has been a certain amount of confusion regarding the role of the council. Having read all the documents and debates, I am sure that no one wants the council to take the place of the trade unions. It is recognised that the trade unions will deal with something different—pay and conditions—but that the general teaching council will deal with the professionalism, training and discipline of teachers. It is important that they should have such a body.

I do not want to become too involved tonight because this is the wrong time and the wrong place to go into the detail of who should be the representatives, who should constitute the body and from which regions they should come. Those matters can be sorted out among teachers. I want to pay tribute to Professor Alec Ross of Lancaster University who has done so much, as my noble friend Lord Glenamara acknowledged, to steer the committee in that direction.

Everyone who takes part in this evening's debate will certainly support the request—it is a request, but a sincere request—on behalf of my noble friend Lord Glenamara. I hope that the Minister will take this request seriously. If he wants to do something good to help the teaching profession a t the present time, he should set up the council as quickly as possible.

7.54 p.m.

Lord Dormand of Easington

My Lords, perhaps naively, I have always thought it self-evident that there should be a general teaching council to compare with the associations governing the medical, dental, legal and other professions. I well remember my hopes when my noble friend Lord Glenamara set up the Weaver Committee. That seemed to me to be a milestone, although he was correct about the reason for its failure. I must say—I shall deal with this point later—that that issue would still be a major problem now. That point has already been made in the debate and it is perhaps worth repeating.

A great deal has also been said about the structure and organisation of a general teaching council, and that is absolutely proper. It is a major matter. There is no doubt that there will be great disagreement if and when it is established. However, my short contribution tonight deals with the case for a GTC. I make that point because, as has beery mentioned by at least three contributors to the debate, the morale of teachers at the moment is the lowest that it has ever been. Anyone who has been associated closely with teaching for any length of time must agree that that is the present situation.

I said that I thought that the setting up of a GTC was self-evident because there can surely be nothing more important than the education of a human being. We are talking not only about instruction in particular subjects, important though that is, but about what philosophers have said over the years about the education of the whole man. That includes, among other things, the inculcation of moral and ethical standards, civilised behaviour, aesthetic appreciation and, not least, the development of healthy living. The raw material, if I can use such a phrase, is a young person who often has little or no desire to be influenced in such matters.

The task facing the educator is therefore a daunting one which requires not only thorough training of a high standard, but must be combined with personal qualities that are not always required or found in other professions. I believe that, if we add to all those matters the sheer pressure of dealing day in, day out, with 20 or 30 young people, each with his or her own distinctive personality problems, even the most cynical of critics must admit that teaching is not only an honourable but a difficult profession and therefore worthy of a professional body such as a general teaching council.

Because of those important matters—I hope that noble Lords will accept that they are important—we must ask why a council is not already in existence. First, there is no doubt, at least in my mind, that for a long time academic standards were too low. The length of training—I am thinking of the former two-year and three-year courses—was much too short and it was simply not always possible—I realise that there were exceptions—to achieve high standards in what was, after all, a combined course of academic study and professional training.

However, that state of affairs has now passed. Teaching is becoming a graduate profession, as it should be, which not only ensures higher standards but, equally important in arguing for a general teaching council, earns the respect of parents and the public generally. In that regard it could be argued that, with its multiplicity of further training, re-training, refresher courses and the like, the teaching profession is ahead of other professions.

A further reason why there is no teaching council —here I make a criticism of the teachers themselves —is that there has been little effort or initiative from the profession for such a body. That is the reason, so the Government say, why they have done nothing about a general teaching council. I can understand that view, but I do not accept it from this Government because they have done so much to denigrate teachers.

The decision to remove negotiating rights was almost unbelievable and will rankle for many years after the restoration of those rights. The recent decision to recruit licensed teachers into schools and other educational institutions is the biggest demonstration yet of the contempt that this Govern ment show for the teaching profession. Imagine a licensed doctor or a licensed dentist who is learning on the job!

As I said, the teachers can be criticised in this matter but there is no reason why the Government themselves should not take the initiative in establishing a council. It would not only be a recognition of the nature of the work, but over the years would raise standards. Some of my noble friends may not agree but I am sure that among teachers generally, in spite of the apparent lack of it, there is a desire for a recognised professional body. A little pump-priming, as it were, from the Government, in my view, would soon bring about the necessary change.

In the past two or three years there has been criticism—not entirely justified—of action taken by teachers, and I refer to the withdrawal of services from out of school activities, from the school itself and so on. I am no great supporter of industrial action, particularly in the field of education, but I do not know what else could have been done against a government who have shown such an uncaring attitude toward people with such an important and difficult job to do.

I mention these matters because I believe that in the long term a general teaching council would make a significant contribution toward the resolution of such problems. A sense of status and professionalism is bound to have an effect. I believe that an initiative from the Government would not only create good will where it is at present badly needed but would demonstrate a genuine concern on their part. It is not only inevitable but proper that the teaching profession should be compared with other professions in the call for an overseeing professional association or organisation. Some of my remarks have already dealt with some of those points.

I draw attention to the intrinsic nature of the work. It is far from easy. The fact that teaching more than any other profession, leads to a greater number of breakdowns is an indication of the pressure that is brought to bear on teachers. We must also consider the comparative value of the professions to society. All of them are important, but I hope that my remarks have shown that teaching ranks equally with the other professions. By its very nature, however, it has a disadvantage. In law, medicine and other professional fields the client often, though obviously not always, receives a quick or fairly quick answer, response or solution to the problem posed. That is obviously advantageous to the professional concerned. That is never the case in education. Therefore it is inevitable that pupils, parents and the public generally often have doubts, reservations or disagreements about the work of the educator. It often gives rise to the sometimes or indeed often heard phrase "anyone can teach".

It is worth summarising the demands made on a person who wishes to enter the teaching profession. The Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education supervises teacher training courses. There is therefore right at the beginning an external setting of standards. Obviously entrants must have A-levels or degrees relevant for the course. They must complete a course which usually lasts four years, have adequate periods of supervised teaching practice (which is properly becoming more important) and have suitable personal qualities. Those general requirements are certainly no less than the requirements of other professions.

The annual report for 1987–88 of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools has been much quoted recently and not least in this House. I close my remarks with yet another quotation. He said: Too many teachers feel their profession and its work are misjudged and seriously undervalued". I do not say that the establishment of a general teaching council would entirely meet that misjudgment and undervaluation but I believe that it would make a significant contribution toward doing so. I hope that the Government and the teaching profession will soon take action in what many people consider would be a major step forward.

I conclude by expressing the view that the contribution to this debate made by my noble friend Lord Glenamara is the most significant speech on this important issue that I have heard for many years. His contribution and that of other noble Lords, added to the atmosphere and feeling in the teaching profession—perhaps in the country at large, and certainly as far as parents are concerned—leads me to believe that the time could not be more suitable for the Government to take an initiative. I hope that they will take notice of what has been said tonight.

8.5 p.m.

Baroness David

My Lords, I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Glenamara on his admirable speech raising this Question tonight. It is very satisfactory that he should have asked the Question. He was Secretary of State when the Weaver Committee was set up to make proposals, for the establishment and operation of a council through which teachers in England and Wales can exercise a measure of self-government", and it was only last month that a discussion document called Towards the General Teaching Council was published by the Education Management Unit of the University of London Institute of Education. So the time is ripe for a new look and a new assessment.

On the 8th July last year my noble friend Lord Dormand asked whether the Government would set up a general teaching council. The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, responded to the effect that the Government had consistently made it clear that they were prepared to consider the case for a GTC on the basis of a specific proposal likely to command widespread support and serve the interests of relevant parties—parents, pupils and employers as well as teachers. She said that no such specific proposal had been received. I hope that it will be received before too long.

Talks have been going on under the aegis of UCET, and one hopes that a specific proposal will emerge as a result and that it will have the support and agreement of all the teaching unions. The failure to reach agreement no doubt gives the Government an excuse—if such they want, and they may—for not going ahead with the idea. However, it seems that 17 major professional associations are now in agreement, and that is very encouraging. We have a discussion document produced as a result of those talks.

A GTC would be committed to maintaining professional standards of conduct arid professional discipline—matters which are now dealt with by the DES. It would determine minimum qualifications for entry into initial training and the nature and length of that initial training. It should be involved in in-service education and training, retraining and re-entry to the profession. It should be involved in advising the department on the supply of teachers.

The crisis in teacher supply and the shortage of teachers, particularly of the subjects that make up the core and foundation curricula so soon to be embarked on, which was highlighted a month ago in a very good debate opened by my noble friend Lord Stewart of Fulham, points to the need for someone to advise on present and future needs as the DES and Ministers have failed so dismally to do so. They appear to have no comprehensive plan. They have been woefully negligent in letting this crisis arise.

Over the past two decades we have achieved a graduate teaching profession for schools, as my noble friend Lord Dormand said. Unqualified instructors have been retrained and graduates without a teaching qualification have been admitted only in exceptional circumstances. Much of the pressure for that improvement came from the former Advisory Committee for the Supply and Education of Teachers and its predecessor, ACSTT. Those bodies were set up as a result of the Weaver Report. They represented the teaching profession and the employing authorities.

ACSET produced an important set of recommendations on initial and in-service training and on training to meet special educational needs. Its recommendations were accepted by the Secretary of State, who then set up the Council for the Accreditation of Teachers (CATE for short) to ensure that training institutions met the criteria within a few years. ACSET could be seen as the governing body which could recommend review and revision of CATE as an executive body, but ACSET was discontinued five years ago and there has been no replacement body to advise the Government on teacher supply and education. So CATE is left without a channel for professional support for any changes in its work. I understand that there used to be a branch of the DES that concentrated on forecasting the needs of the teaching profession both in numbers and subjects, but that is no more. Therefore a professional body such as the suggested GTC is very badly needed.

Mention has been made of the GTC for Scotland set up 24 years ago. That gives an excellent precedent. It consists of 49 members, of whom 30 are registered teachers. The council fulfils a range of professional duties, including control of entry to the profession, the exercise of disciplinary powers, the accreditation of initial courses of professional training, the provision of advice to the Secretary of State on questions of supply and demand and the maintenance of a register of persons deemed fit to teach. As such, the GTC is a statutory body requiring the registration of all teachers serving in the public sector in Scotland. It provides a model that is known to work.

It is fair to say that some people in the education world are suspicious of the way that a GTC could develop and suggest that self-regulating professional bodies can initiate and perpetuate restrictive practices. Opticians, pharmacists, doctors and nurses have on occasion been known to put their own interests above the needs of the National Health Service's patients. The people who are suspicious of the GTC fear that it might promote the wrong kind of professionalism; defensive, aloof, elitist and remote. However, I would say that there is above all a pressing need to raise the morale of teachers. The establishment of a GTC would at least help to give teachers some new self-respect and to raise their morale, and it could help towards a much needed unity in the profession. The UCET working group is proposing that a GTC be established as the statutory independent professional governing body responsible for teacher qualification, registration, supply, training, professional discipline, research and external relations. The approval of teacher education courses through the Council for the Accreditaton of Teacher Education would be transferred to the GTC and the registration and professional disciplinary powers of the DES would also need to be taken over by the council.

There is the question of the composition of the council. Perhaps here there could be problems, as my noble friend Lord Glenamara said. The UCET paper calls for an independent governing body analogous to the GTCS and other professional bodies like the GMC. Yet the document proposes a composition which is representative in nature and not modelled on the GTCS or the GMC. For example, it proposes indirect representation through teacher unions on the basis of the former Burnham Committee. The GTCS, however, is composed of a majority of teachers who are directly elected by individual teachers themselves every three years. Other members are appointed from the universities, colleges of education, and local authorities, together with a few lay people. Similarly, the GMC is composed of a majority of directly elected members of the profession together with some appointed members representing medical educational interests and some lay people. I believe that the lay people are important. The Law Society is composed in a similar way.

Although teacher associations are rightly concerned about professional matters as well as pay and conditions, it could cause a conflict of interest if they were directly represented on the GTC. For example, it would be difficult to justify a situation whereby a teacher accused of professional misconduct would be defended by a union official before a disciplinary body which included a representative of his or her union. Also, the result of different associations disagreeing with each other on fundamental issues could be professional standards being based on the lowest common denominator. To build the GTC around the former Burnham Council or Schools Council structure would be a recipe for disaster.

One matter for which the GTC would not be responsible would be pay and conditions of service. That should be quite separate and in the hands of the employers and the unions. The GTC should be a professional body responsible for standards in the profession; that is what we would support. The Government should give it the finance to get it off the ground. Some funds would no doubt be directed from the DES, but eventually it would be best if it were self-financing through moneys raised from the registration of teachers.

I hope that, when the three-month discussion period is over at the end of June and firm proposals are coming from this discussion paper, the Government will accept the advantage of a general teaching council which has been supported by all Members who have spoken this evening. The unanimity has been quite remarkable and I am sure gives much pleasure to my noble friend who asked the original Question.

8.15 p.m.

Lord Henley

My Lords, the House, as I think every speaker said, listens with very great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, who is a former head teacher and a former Secretary of State for Education and Science. I listen to him with even greater respect as a fellow Cumbrian and a fellow graduate of Durham University, as also I believe is the noble Lord, Lord Dormand. Everyone in the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, for initiating this interesting debate.

The Government welcome this debate and the discussion on what is, after all, a most important topic: the status and value of teaching as a profession. The Government are sometimes accused of undermining the teaching profession, of being critical and never praising its members. I have to say bluntly that that is not true. Of course we value teachers and the job that they do. Of course we value their dedication, hard work and professionalism. Ministers in the department take every opportunity of praising teachers. The fact that the media may choose not to report them when they do so is another story. There are many excellent teachers in our schools. They deserve recognition for the good work that they do. The Government do not need to be convinced that teaching deserves wider respect among the public at large. Indeed, it is part of our aims to secure greater public esteem for teachers and value for the work that they do.

The noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, asks a direct question: will the Government establish a general teaching council for England and Wales? I am afraid that I do not have a simple yes or no answer. The Government have no present intention of establishing one. The noble Baroness, Lady David, mentioned the Question in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, last year which my noble friend Lady Hooper answered. I shall repeat that Answer. We have said repeatedly that we are prepared to consider the case for one on the basis of a specific proposal put to us. That is a fair statement and a coherent position. It might help the House if I explain why.

Without spending too much time on the details of the history lying behind moves to establish a general teaching council, something by way of background might be of help to this House. Discussions within the teaching profession about self-government and the establishment of a general teaching council go back a very long way—indeed as far as the last century, as the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, mentioned. Between the Wars, there was a voluntary registration council, but it has lapsed.

More recently, but as long ago as 1969, the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara—as he mentioned—established a working party under the chairmanship of Mr. T. R. Weaver, who was a distinguished senior official of the Department of Education. The working party published its report A Teaching Council For England And Walesin 1970. That report proposed the establishment of a council whose functions would include keeping a register of teachers, where registration would be a condition of appointment to teach in sectors of education including maintained schools, exercising responsibility for professional discipline, and controlling standards of entry to the profession. The teaching unions were represented on that working party; but in the event, discussions among the unions following the publication of the report did not lead to unanimity, and the then momentum for the establishment of a council petered out.

More recently, moves have been initiated by the College of Preceptors, by the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers, and the so-called independent initiative led by Mr. Gerald Smith. A few other individuals have had, and maintain, a special interest in the subject. Generally, all these discussions have failed to make sufficient progress to demonstrate consensus on the wide variety of issues that arise. They have not found unanimity of purpose across the profession or among the teacher unions. There has been a great deal of talk. But it would appear that a general teaching council is not an idea yet whose time has come.

Lord Glenamara

My Lords, does not what the Minister has just said apply to the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers Forum discussions? Surely agreement has been reached to the extent of 95 or 97 per cent. Is he really saying that there is not sufficient agreement to go forward?

Lord Henley

My Lords, I understand the point that the noble Lord is making. I have said that the Government will consider proposals if there is unanimity and they come forward. I said that earlier. As we have said repeatedly, we are prepared to consider the case for a GTC on the basis of specific proposals put to us.

The noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, and the noble Baroness, Lady David, both mentioned Scotland. As they said, it is relevant to the case that Scotland has had a General Teaching Council since 1966. Noble Lords will be aware that for historical reasons education in Scotland is entirely separate, and administered separately, from that in England and Wales. There are many differences between the systems, of which the council in Scotland is but one. I believe that the principal difference in relation to the establishment of a GTC in Scotland, as opposed to one in England and Wales, is that in Scotland there is only one sizeable teacher association, and therefore unanimity was easier to reach.

Against that background, we do not see a clear call from teachers themselves for the establishment of a general teaching council. It does not seem to be at the top of their list of priorities. The department has had no significant correspondence from individual teachers pressing for the establishment of one. We have to consider whether teachers want a council; what would it be established to do; how would it be constituted, and with what representation?

I have to say that the establishment of a general teaching council is not a priority for the Government. We have no present intention of establishing one or of taking any initiative to change the present arrangements for the regulation of the profession. There is no evidence that those arrangements work less than well.

Some might argue that if there is no active call from teachers for the establishment of a council, there is at least a passive call. They will say that teacher morale is not high and that the establishment of a council will bolster the image of teaching as a profession and help to counter low morale, which I accept that every noble Lord who has spoken in the debate has stressed.

I do not propose to enter a discussion on whether teacher morale is high or not. The answer will vary with individual teachers, just as with any other collection of individuals within an occupational group. But let nobody say that the Government are not concerned with teacher morale; of course we are. We believe that teaching is an exciting and attractive career. We aim to make education among the foremost and most important issues of the day, as it should be. The education of our people is vital to our national well-being and future prosperity. With the Education Reform Act 1988, teachers are placed where they should be—at the centre of our initiatives to provide better education for all our school pupils. Teachers, as some noble Lords said, are the key to those reforms. We are convinced that they will gain recognition for their role and that this will itself help to bolster teacher morale.

Lord Dormand of Easington

My Lords, the Minister has just left the point I intended to ask him about. I hope he will forgive me for intervening. Do the Government believe that a general teaching council is a good idea? If that is their view, surely there is no reason why they should not take the initiative. I believe I used the words "pump-priming" or something like that. If it is a good idea, why should they not take the initiative, knowing all the time that there are immense difficulties? We all recognised that in making our contributions. The Government might create good will in doing that and at the end of the day come out with a GTC which will benefit all the people about whom the Minister is talking—children, the nation generally; indeed everyone.

Lord Henley

My Lords, the noble Lord will accept that I said that this was not at the top of the list of government priorities. But as I said at the beginning, and I cannot repeat this more strongly, we are prepared to consider the case for a council if specific proposals are brought forward.

Lord Dormand of Easington

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. That is not the point I am making. I am saying that, if the Government think it is a good thing, why do they not take the initiative in the hope that it will come about?

Lord Henley

My Lords, I have said that the Government do not put it top of their list of priorities. We do not see it as vital, but if proposals come forward from all interested bodies, the Government will certainly consider them. I feel that that is an answer to the noble Lord's point.

I was speaking about bolstering teacher morale and the fact that teachers are among our most important agents for change. As the noble Lord, Lord McNair, said, there can be no higher calling than to have charge over young people as their characters and attitudes are being formed and as skills and knowledge are being acquired. There should of course be adequate rewards and remuneration.

I am sure that I do not need to remind the House that the Government have accepted in full the recommendations of the Interim Advisory Commit tee on School Teachers' Pay and Conditions. Those recommendations will mean a 6.3 per cent. increase in the teachers' pay bill and an increase of over 40 per cent. in teachers' pay since March 1986. The noble Lord asked how long "interim" was in the title of the interim advisory council. The Government continue to discuss new negotiating machinery for pay with the teacher unions and the local authority employers. They have said that they hope to have new machinery in place for the pay settlement in 1990.

These are the positive steps that we are taking to ensure that teachers' morale is healthy. But I have to ask whether, indeed, morale is low at present when it has been shown that less than 1 per cent. of teachers leave the profession for other paid employment. It is also the case that some 25,000 people enter or re-enter teaching each year. Surely these are not signs of low morale.

What, then, about the argument that the establishment of a general teaching council will help the standing of teaching as a profession? It rests on rhetoric. We are told that doctors, lawyers and so on have similar bodies and, therefore, teachers should have one if they are to achieve the status of doctors and lawyers. But I fear that that is assertion and not argument. It does not take sufficient account of the difference between professions which are employed and those such as doctors and lawyers which are largely self-employed. The case is not proven.

The noble Baroness, Lady David, said that the existence of a general teaching council will somehow have an affect on the supply of teachers and help to combat teacher shortages. I do not intend to go into the question of teacher shortages here in detail. As noble Lords will remember, we had an interesting debate on this less than a month ago. I urge noble Lords to read the contribution of my noble friend Lord Davidson. He set out persuasively and in detail the steps that the Government are taking to counter teacher shortages. Teaching is already an attractive career. We have had very good responses to our publicity and advertising recruitment campaigns. Our action programme on teacher shortages is demonstrably having success. It is far from obvious to me how the existence of a council would in itself help to encourage more people to enter the teaching profession in shortage subjects.

Baroness David

My Lords, when I was talking about doing something about the supply of teachers, the problem was working out what would be needed for the teaching profession in the future. It was that kind of supply argument that I was making.

Lord Henley

My Lords, I accept the point that the noble Baroness has made. I am sorry if I missed it while listening to her.

The noble Lord, Lord Dormand, mentioned licensed teachers. The position of licensed teachers has been represented by some as being a new way of getting untrained teachers into the classroom on the cheap. The case is the opposite. At present anyone can become a qualified teacher, whatever his or her background or experience, simply on the recommendation of a local education authority. No specified educational requirement and no obligation to subsequent training are necessary. In future, licensed teachers will require a minimum of two years' full-time equivalent higher education. It will allow the entry of some excellent holders of higher national diplomas. Each licensed teacher must have a personal training plan proposed by the local education authority. The new arrangements will be simpler but much more rigorous than at present. They will establish a better defined alternative route into the profession.

It is, I think, without question that the establishment of a council would mean a profound change in the way that the teaching profession is administered and regulated.

The first consideration is whether a council should have a statutory base and whether registration should be compulsory for all teachers. One would then need to consider how such a body should be financed and whether it should be supported wholely or in part by government or self-financed by an annual levy of registered teachers.

There are important questions as to what the functions and composition of the body might be. Most obviously, it would need to maintain a register of qualified teachers, but it would perhaps need to advise on or actually bestow qualified teacher status and regulate standards of entry to the profession. The body would need to promulgate a code of conduct and to enforce it and discipline within the profession. Ultimately, it might have to advise on or have the power to remove names from the register.

Would such a body also have subsidiary functions? Would there be a role for it in advising on the content of initial and in-service training for teachers? It might also have a role to play in the important matters of teacher supply and the professional development of teachers, including annual appraisal.

There are many questions here. It is without doubt that the establishment of a council would mark a most significant change in the conduct of the teaching profession. In the light of that, the Government's attitude is not unreasonable. We have asked, simply, to see evidence that there is a demand for such a body from teachers themselves. We have also asked for evidence that such a body would be constituted to serve the interests of all the parties concerned and not just teachers. We should need to be sure that the body could serve the interests of both parents and employers.

The only substantive discussions which are taking place at the moment are those led by the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers. We have asked to be kept informed of the progress of those discussions, and Professor Ross, who is chairing them, has kindly undertaken to do so. The Government have said, and said repeatedly, that they are prepared to consider the case for a council on the basis of a specific proposal which is likely to command support from the interests I have mentioned. No such specific proposal has yet been forthcoming. But, should such a proposal be put to us, we should be happy to consider it. That is a reasonable attitude. That is a balanced attitude. I hope that this House will agree that the Government have been and continue to be open and fair-minded on this important question.

House adjourned at twenty-six minutes before nine o'clock.