Teacher Shortages

HL Deb 08 March 1989 vol 504 cc1478-516

2.51 p.m.

Lord Stewart of Fulham rose to call attention to teacher shortages; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said

My Lords, I come to be moving the Motion because my name has come out of a hat. About 30 years ago, in somewhat similar circumstances, my name came out of a hat in another place. Being in a position to choose a subject for debate, I chose the shortage of teachers. The problem has persisted ever since. That is not altogether surprising because experience has shown that whatever plans one makes for education those plans will not come to very much unless one has enough qualified teachers. That is as true now as it was 30 years ago.

One of the chief advantages enjoyed by the most favoured section of the private sector of education is that it can make a more generous allowance of teachers in relation to the number of pupils.

The point is emphasised at the end of the recent report of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, where it is pointed out that whatever is projected under the recent Education Reform Act will come to nothing unless there are enough qualified teachers. Therefore, I make no apology for bringing this subject again before Parliament, albeit in a somewhat different context.

We are by no means short of advice and information on the subject. There is the report I have just referred to from the inspectors, there is the activity of the Select Committee of another place and evidence submitted to that committee from many quarters. There is the report of the Interim Advisory Committee on School Teachers' Pay and Conditions and a survey by the Institute of Manpower Studies. All those provide information from which one endeavours to draw, first, a picture of the general position, and then of the position as it affects different subjects to be taught. However, that is not easy because there does not appear to be any sure source from which one can make precise calculations as to what is likely to happen to teacher supply in future.

One thing at least appears to be clear: in the years between now and 1995 the number of pupils will first go down and then rise again, but not to its present level. During that time there will be a persistent decline in the number of people likely to come forward for teacher training. That is partly because of the demographic position—the number of people in the relevant age group—and partly because of growing competition for graduates from business, finance and industry which makes it increasingly difficult for teaching to attract a sufficient proportion of graduates. There is, therefore, that underlying difficulty.

In their evidence to the Select Committee the Government make the assumption that the number of people coming forward to be trained as teachers will increase perceptibly in the next few years, to such effect that by 1995 the number of teachers trained and the number of teachers wanted will be equal. It is not quite clear why the Government have made that assumption. One gains the impression that they did so because it would give the answer that they wanted. That is rather like the position of the pupil who has stolen the teacher's mathematics book containing the answers at the back of the book as well as the problems at the beginning: having decided how many teachers we shall need by 1995, the Government assume that the intake will be such as to make that possible.

Even if the Government are right and the overall totals of supply and demand are equal, it is alarming that there will be large gaps in particular subjects, some of them subjects to which the Government attach particular importance. According to the Government's calculations the supply of mathematics teachers will be 5 per cent. below what it ought to be. Nearly everyone else makes assumptions of a good deal more pessimistic nature about the supply of mathematics teachers. The Government take the view that the supply of physics teachers will be 12 per cent. below what it ought to be: chemistry, 20 per cent.; modern languages, 14 per cent.; technology, 27 per cent., and music, 28 per cent.

According to the Government there will be surpluses in some departments. They have suggested that there will be a surplus of teachers in religious education. I find that that view is not shared by other authorities who have studied the problem. Indeed, several warn of a shortage of teachers in that subject. I stress that point because we have spent a great deal of time in this House debating religious education. It would be a pity if all that thought came to nothing through a lack of teachers.

Among all the various commentators on the matter I found only one who took an optimistic view of the situation. That was to be found in the Daily Telegraph. It encouraged us with the thought that when the Education Reform Act was running at full blast the head teachers would have control of the school funds, they would be able to dismiss a large number of the teachers as being incompetent and replace them with people gathered from business and industry who would teach the children what education was really about. I heard a good deal of the debates on the Education Reform Act, but I did not think that that was what the Secretary of State had in mind. Perhaps the Government will enlighten us before this debate is over.

The Education Reform Act is certainly an impressive piece of work. One newspaper commentator likened it to the invention of the wheel. However, I could not be sure whether he was speaking in sycophancy or in satire.

The Act will place increasing demands on teachers. I notice in The Times today that yet another demand is to be made on teachers' time. We are told that every school has to nominate a teacher who will be responsible for dealing with theft, arson, vandalism and graffiti. That decision has been reached by what is called a "Special Action Squad" chaired by a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State and composed of inspectors of schools, officials of the Department of Education and Science and education officers. As I am afraid one would expect from the present Government, there was not even one teacher among them. No employer would get anywhere if he went to a group of industrial employees and said, "We are going to require you to carry out a new and arduous duty; we have not consulted you about it, but have consulted several other people: this is what you have to do". No employer would get anywhere if he did that. He would have more sense than to attempt it. However, I am afraid that that is the sort of action we are used to at the present time.

I mentioned shortages in regard to various subjects. We must also notice that there will be regional shortages. Even if the total number of teachers was brought up to requirements, we could not be certain that they would be where they were wanted. It is notoriously difficult to move to certain parts of the kingdom at the present time because the cost of accommodation is rising to such fearsome heights. Broadly speaking, the more prosperous a region of the country, the more difficult it will be to obtain the necessary number of teachers in the coming years. Some local authorities endeavour to deal with that problem by, for example, providing hostel accommodation for teachers. If it is a question of re-employing women teachers who have been away from the profession while their children were very young and now want to return, some local authorities make provision for child care. Others give help with mortgages. It is worthwhile noticing that those steps can be taken by a local education authority which deals with a good many teachers. I cannot see a grant-maintained school which wants to employ one or two teachers setting up a mortgage system or a hostel for them. I shall be interested to know what the Government think about the application of those remedies to grant-maintained schools as distinct from those in the local authority network.

A great many other particular remedies have been offered to the Government, all of which are worthy of study, although none looks like producing a substantial increase. I hope that the Government will give those remedies attention. I shall mention the schemes put forward by two of the principal unions. The National Union of Teachers proposes to attract teachers from overseas into teaching in this country and the Assistant Masters and Mistresses' Association offers a premium or bounty for a school that manages to encourage another teacher into its employ.

All those measures are worthy of study, but there is one remedy that I must invite the Government to approach with great caution; namely, any kind of dilution of the teaching profession. I do not rule that out in all circumstances. There was a considerable measure after the war that one could have called dilution, but one must remember that that was done when it was apparent that the Government were taking education extremely seriously. They intended to spend more money on it and to raise the school-leaving age. If one wants goodwill for a scheme of dilution, one must convince the employers that it is not a way of obtaining a certain number of teachers on the cheap, but of obtaining substantially more teachers to overcome a national problem. In general, one must obtain the goodwill of the lobby of people with whom one deals. That is what is so sadly lacking as a result of the way in which the Secretary of State has handled his approaches to the teaching profession.

It is no good talking about goodwill unless there is a realistic approach to the question of teachers' pay. At the moment there is talk of an increase of 6 per cent. With inflation running at 7.5 per cent. and most industrial settlements at 9 per cent., that is not an extremely encouraging recipe for encouraging more people to come into teaching. If it is doubted whether monetary incentives matter, one must ask the Government why they propose to pay the staff of CTCs—the technical colleges—about 5 per cent. more than any local authority could provide. Evidently, they take the view that it is desirable to have a monetary incentive, but I am afraid that that is an example of a general error of government policy towards education. Instead of trying to make all schools as good as possible, they seem to regard it as chiefly important to produce some schools that will be better than others. I believe that to be a disastrous approach.

I mentioned the proposal for teachers to deal with vandalism, arson and so on. I do not entirely make fun of that proposal; it is surprising what teachers will accomplish if they are approached with a certain amount of patience. They will make some sense of that proposal. I do not deny the seriousness of the problem. However, it is not consistent to make exceptional new demands on teachers and at the same time ignore the nature of their pay claim and deny them the negotiating machinery that every other group of worker enjoys. I believe that that is fundamentally inconsistent and illustrates what I regard as the Government's ill will towards the profession. They must get rid of that ill will. To show that this is not merely a party point of view, I shall end my remarks with a quotation from the Independent newspaper which states: In so far as the Government is unwilling or unable dramatically to improve teachers' pay, this suggests not merely that it is not really serious about tackling the growing crisis of teacher recruitment but also that it is deeply contemptuous of teachers and their calling". The words "deeply contemptuous" are not too strong to describe the Secretary of State's attitude towards the teaching profession. A profound change of attitude is required. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

3.5 p.m.

Baroness Young

My Lords, we should all like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham, for introducing this important debate this afternoon. Teachers are central to the whole education system, implementing the Education Reform Act, raising standards, developing the potential of individual pupils and preparing young people for the 21st century. The supply of teachers is crucial, especially in the core and foundation subjects, and the supply must be spread throughout the country so that all pupils may benefit. It is important that teachers should know that they have our support. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, only in so far as I am aware from talking to a number of teachers, that morale is low at the present time.

I should like to begin by saying that I recognise very well—as I believe will my noble friend who will reply to the debate and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State—that many new tasks are now being demanded of teachers. There are the new GCSE examinations with an immense amount of internally assessed work. There is TVEI which will be part of every school by 1990. Teachers must learn how to use all the new high-tech equipment which, although splendid, I am told is a new skill to learn and manage in quite different circumstances.

It is perfectly possible to argue at length whether or not pupils are more difficult today than they were 20 years ago, but it is certainly a view consistently expressed to me by teachers to whom I have spoken that discipline is more difficult, and that there are certainly a great many more outside temptations so that children find it more difficult to concentrate. It is also unquestionably true that there are many more broken homes. Then there is the time taken up by those new areas and the new requirement of records of achievement. I have supported such records, but I am now told that they can take up one teacher's time for two or three full lessons as each child's record of achievement is individually discussed. We need to consider whether that is the most valuable use of the time of teachers of crucial subjects, especially when it occurs so frequently, although it may be right once a term. I also understand that the whole area of social and personal development can take up a lesson a week of the time of a crucially important teacher.

Despite all that, I am one who believes that there are thousands of teachers today who do a very good job. I have read with great interest, as I am sure have all noble Lords who will take part in the debate, the HMI report that came out last week. Clearly, although there are areas of concern, a great deal of good work is going on at the present time which we should support and on which we should build.

At the centre of this debate today is the supply of teachers. We need to keep this subject in proportion. I was most interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, said in his opening remarks: that he had raised this subject some 30 years ago. Certainly in my entire time of taking a real interest in education I never recall a time when there has not been a shortage of maths teachers, to which of course other shortages have subsequently been added. Perhaps I may say that that should not in any way make us complacent, but it is a fact of life.

However, I suspect that with the core curriculum and the foundation subjects, every school is being forced to look closely at what is being taught and how the school day is planned, with the financial delegation to schools, and with governors looking very closely at what is happening. The gaps are showing up in a very clear way. Indeed, one needs again to look no further than HMI's report. It states that, in primary schools there are acute shortages in many of the inner and outer London boroughs". There is a rapid turnover of teaching staff. Primary education is critically short of teachers with expertise in science technology and mathematics". In secondary schools there are shortages in teachers of maths, science—in particular chemistry and physics—and craft design and technology. This is an issue that we must take very seriously indeed. We shall all listen with great interest to what my noble friend has to say in response to what I think he would acknowledge is a very real problem.

I therefore very much welcome what the Government have done in looking at the requirement of the core curriculum and foundation subjects, and the recognition that there is likely to be a very considerable shortfall in teachers in some important subjects at least until 1995. I am not absolutely certain that the figure is quite sacred, in the sense that everyone expects us to have reached as many teachers as we would have liked at that date. I hope that that is the case; we shall see.

I welcome the proposals on the recruitment and training of teachers. The Teaching as a Career Unit has been set up in conjunction with local authorities. This is especially important at the present time with the fall in numbers of school leavers, the numbers of employers who will all be fishing in the same pool, and the importance of attracting new teachers. I believe that the Government are quite right—perhaps I may put it in terms of thinking the unthinkable—to consider ways of attracting in people whom I think a few years ago no one would have considered. I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, did not dismiss out of hand the prospect of bringing in people who may have had experience of industry, who are scientists, or physicists, or mathematicians, who bring expertise not because they may turn out to be perfect teachers but because they will certainly bring practical experience and knowledge of the world. Consideration of these men and women—who could become, as I understand it, licensed teachers—is valuable not because it will solve all problems but because it would be a positive step in the right direction.

I agree with what the trade unions have said on attracting teachers from overseas. I see this in particular in the European Community in shortages of modern language teachers. This would be very valuable.

We therefore need to look at a great many other issues. I think in particular of bringing back some of the 400,000 teachers who have left the profession. Many married women might well be interested in a part-time or a split job share. Teaching is, above all, a job that fits in well with the family. We need to provide refresher courses to encourage those married women to return.

I see that my time is up. I shall simply conclude by saying that I accept that we must always look at pay and conditions. These must not fall behind those of others. However, if one reads the evidence given in another place, pay and conditions are not the only, or even the primary, reason for the shortfall of teachers which has been with us for a very long time. We need to look at other matters. We need to recognise that this is one of the most important issues facing the education service. I very much welcome the steps that the Government have taken. I ask them to keep this matter ever before them for the good of the education system and the pupils.

3.15 p.m.

Lord Ritchie of Dundee

My Lords, I too should like to add my words of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham, for introducing this very important subject and for giving us a typically wise and witty speech.

In considering an enormous and complex subject, I should like to confine my remarks in particular to London. It is an area that I know a little more about than others. It is an area where the shortage of teachers is particularly acute. The unfilled teacher vacancies at secondary level throughout London are 2.7 per cent. as against a national level of 1 per cent. At primary level it is 4.2 per cent. against a nationwide level of 1.5 per cent. I shall not quote a lot of statistics because they become meaningless. I should like to focus my attention on certain problems which bring to light the gravity of the situation.

As an example, in the borough of Waltham Forest, there are two primary schools which are offering only four days' schooling a week. For this they are being sued by parents for failing to comply with the requirements of the Education Act 1944 of five days' schooling a week. In the borough of Redbridge, a secondary school is not offering maths or English teaching to its fifth year pupils. They are having to teach themselves for the GCSEs. There is a school in the borough of Newham that I happened to visit last week. In this borough in the autumn of 1986 240 Bangladeshi pupils were introduced. They were non-English speakers. The number of pupils in special need of English teaching in this school now is 163. They have been identified as being in particular need by the education authority. Only 100 of them are receiving very scant special help. Children cannot progress in the national curriculum and in the requirements or the hopes of the Government generally if they cannot speak English.

The borough of Tower Hamlets is a particularly difficult case. Five hundred Bangladeshi children there are receiving no schooling. In Tower Hamlets in January 1989 there were 118 primary school vacancies. The same number of secondary school vacancies exist. There are 17 nursery school vacancies and 12 special school vacancies. I understand that the recruitment level for new teachers in the autumn is to be about 25 per cent. down. This is at a time when pupil numbers are beginning to climb since the rise in the birth rate in the mid 1980s. The numbers of children coming into school will become greater.

These are desperate cases, but I should like to say a few words about less desperate, but more widespread, cases. As noble Lords know, the education service has a system of supply teachers. There is a pool of teachers who are in reserve, ready to fill gaps that may suddenly appear through illness, through the need for a teacher or teachers to do in-service training, or for classes to be taken on school outings. These supply teachers are now filling permanent posts in schools so that supply teachers are becoming unavailable if the teacher is ill or in dire need of in-service training. The new national curriculum will require much in-service training. I know that a number of primary school teachers are extremely worried about inadequate training in science. They have to fulfil the requirements of the curriculum in basic science. They are not able to do so without special training.

If there is a school outing—a class is taken to a museum or, shall we say, to a farm—two teachers are required to go with that class. That means there is one class left in the school without a teacher unless a supply teacher is employed. If no supply teacher is available, there is no outing. That, too, will cause a narrowing of the curriculum.

Head teachers are being drawn into this. They are doing full-time teaching. I know of several in the borough of Lewisham who have been teaching full time for the whole of this term. Head teachers should not be doing that. There must be time for administration and in particular for the coming requirements of local financial management. Head teachers are even finding difficulties in going on management courses for the same reasons.

The HMI report already referred to recommends that all teachers should have 10 per cent. non-contact time for assessments, discussing the prospects of pupils and generally thinking about them. The planned average in most authorities is 4 per cent. The actual non-contact time in primary schools is zero per cent. Teachers are teaching the whole time.

The Government seem to have been caught by surprise over the teaching situation in London. Those problems have been touched upon already: they include the costs of accommodation. It may be all right for a young teacher to share a flat. But if, after a few years, he or she wants to get married, take out a mortgage and get on to the home ownership ladder, that cannot be done in London. At the moment teachers are most wanted—when their experience is beginning to show, together with their knowledge of the job—they have to leave London and go somewhere else. Another problem is the cost of transport. There is also the deterrent of the stress of teaching in London and the insecurity and worry, following abolition of the ILEA, arising from new education authorities which are inexperienced and likely to be underfunded.

The remedy for London is the same as the remedy for the profession as a whole. It is, as we on these Benches have been saying for a long time, investment in education. In other words, teachers must be paid sums which are consonant with the importance of the work they are doing. Those sums should demonstrate a general recognition of the importance of their status as public servants.

I should like to conclude by reading the final paragraph of the HMI report. It puts better than I could the means of implementing the improvements that the Government wish to see. The report states: In seeking to ensure that is what happens, teachers' pay, conditions of service and the nature of the changes intended will all have a part to play. But of great importance to most teachers is that the work they do is seen to be valued and rated highly by society; that its difficulties are understood; and that teachers and education are not used as convenient scapegoats for all society's problems. Currently, too many teachers feel that their profession and its work are misjudged and seriously undervalued. Whatever the rights and wrongs of that view, it is as unsteady a basis on which to build change and improvement as was a situation in which teachers were the first and final arbiters of all matters educational".

3.24 p.m.

The Lord Bishop of Guildford

My Lords, I, like others, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, for raising this timely debate on the shortage of teachers. In 1066 And All That it is remarked that for every person wishing to teach there are 30 not wanting to learn. We are now in danger of reversing the wisecrack and saying that for every 30 wanting to learn at least one will not be able to find a teacher. The shortage of teachers is now well documented; the seriousness of it cannot be underestimated.

Like many others, I believe that the Education Reform Act has given us a charter for a fresh approach to education. But if we do not have enough teachers, the Act will look no more than political theatre. Surely one significant factor in the shortage of teachers is that nowadays it is in large measure a gloomy and anxious profession. The quotation just made from the senior chief inspector's report indicates a widespread feeling among teachers that they are misjudged and seriously undervalued. It will not be easy to recruit the teachers we need unless they have confidence in their future.

I must refer particularly to the position of religious education teachers. The Education Reform Act has raised the expectations of religious education and worship in schools. The Churches are party to that new hope and arrangement. We, for our part, will do all that we can to encourage people of high quality and integrity to accept the responsible role of religious education teachers. That will be much easier if we can establish at least four facts.

The first fact to establish is that there is a shortage of religious education teachers. Some people seem to think that there are plenty. The basis for that belief seems to be that there are over 16,000 RE teachers in existence. However, only some 9,000 actually teach. The figures obscure the fact that much religious education is being taught by non-specialists. Some 57 per cent. of those teaching religious education in the secondary schools have no qualifications or training in the subject, even at a subsidiary level. Nor is it just a matter of more strategic deployment, because the number of full-time teachers with religious education as the subject of their highest qualification is lower than for nearly any other subject. It will help if the Government publicly recognise that there is a shortage of available religious education teachers.

Secondly, there is some frustration among religious education teachers that they may have to relate to as many as 500 pupils in any one week. That does not make for good education, nor for job satisfaction. Furthermore, the pressures of the curriculum are such that a secondary religious education teacher may have no GCSE or A-level pupils. That is where the principal interest of many religious education teachers will be. Therefore, in the present circumstances, there are some inbuilt frustrations.

Thirdly, the new requirements for worship in the Education Reform Act will make heavy demands on a school. Where there are separate acts of worship in age groups or school groups, there can be several acts of worship in a school each day. The head will properly turn to the RE teacher for help. If such teachers are to devise and prepare not routine rituals but appropriate acts of worship for reluctant participants, they will need skill, vision and time. The Churches will give every encouragement in the implementation of this requirement of the Act, but it will help if the Government recognise the increased responsibility likely to be given to religious education teachers in connection with collective worship.

Fourthly, the senior chief inspector's report says that, in many (primary) schools, history, geography and sometimes religious education are incorporated into topic work. Although sometimes of high quality, it more often than not lacks continuity and progression, or any serious attempt to ensure that adequate time and attention are given to the elements said to comprise the topic". Not all primary school teachers are trained in religious education. Indeed, their initial training may have contained little guidance in the teaching of RE and worship. In recognising those difficulties, are the Government willing to increase the £1.1 million available for in-service training in religious education so that the expectations of the Act can be realised?

If the Government can acknowledge the shortage of teachers in religious education, as in some other subjects, accept that heavier responsibilities are now falling on teachers of RE, and provide more money for in-service training and shortage-subject status where initial training provision is concerned, then we may be able to move forward in confidence.

3.30 p.m.

Lord Kilmarnock

My Lords, I join with other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham, for introducing this important debate. It takes me back, like a familiar tune, to the debates which took place in your Lordships' House during the passage of what is now the Education Reform Act. Noble Lords may remember that we on these Benches did not agree with the other opposition parties on every amendment. Once or twice we voted with the Government when we thought that they were right, producing shock-horror reactions on this side of the House.

However, we concurred absolutely with the many warnings issued from neighbouring Benches, no less than from our own, that the whole reform package was seriously under-resourced. The National Association of Head Teachers said so; other unions said so; we all said so. It was a refrain which ran through our debates. But, apart from some minor educational support grants, the Government have paid little or no attention; and now we are seeing the results.

Other noble Lords have given facts, figures and instances, and have made projections. I should like to add a few of my own. In doing so I shall try to avoid quoting statistics which have already been given. There are the eye-catching instances, one of which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee. It was the fifth formers in Redbridge who wrote to the TES complaining that they were having to teach themselves because they had no maths or English teachers. There is also the notorious case of the 500 children in Tower Hamlets who are being kept away from school because there is no one to teach them. But the underlying and cumulative trends are the greatest threat and give the greatest cause for concern.

In his opening speech, the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, mentioned that applications for mathematics and physics teaching are falling alarmingly; so I shall not speak about that matter in detail. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, said that in her experience a shortage of maths teachers is a fact of life. However, it is not desirable—particularly in the light of the current emphasis which the Government are laying on maths. The situation should not be allowed to persist.

According to DES figures there will be a shortage of 2,000 chemistry teachers by 1995. That estimate is based on the Government's targets. Professor Smithers, the professor of Education at Manchester University, has projected that the shortfall will be nearer 3,400. Shortages may be hidden where subjects are being taught by teachers with inadequate qualifications. Suppressed shortages result from under-representation in the timetable owing to lack of suitable teachers. According to a DES memorandum, hidden shortages suggest that in 1984 13 per cent. of timetabled tuition in maths and 18 per cent. in physics were provided by teachers with no higher qualification in those subjects.

A survey of 36 schools, carried out by Professor Smithers and Dr. Pamela Robinson of Manchester University, discovered that there were no physics graduates in any of the schools for 11 to 16-year olds. According to their projections, if wastage rates are kept to 5 per cent. and recruitment increases by 30 per cent. schools will be short of 4,000 maths teachers in 1995. In 1988 the number of students on postgraduate training courses in physics at Leeds University fell from 25 to 14. Of those 14, only five took physics as part of their degree and only three graduated in that year.

All such figures are alarming. Of course, statistics can be misleading and the results may not turn out to be quite so dire. However, on any view, the figures must give cause for considerable alarm.

The Institute of Man power Studies estimates that the number of graduates entering teaching fell by 40 per cent. between 1980 and 1986. Since 1984 the secondary school teaching force has been reduced by more than 17,000. The worst years for graduates applying for PGCE courses were 1985-86. Even in 1987 when recruitment for maths and physics courses increased by 33 per cent. and 49 per cent., the DES targets were not met.

There is also the PIT (Pool of Inactive Teachers). The department estimates that 395,000 qualified staff are not teaching. That is almost equal to the number who are teaching. An even higher estimate was given to the House of Commons Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts on 17th January this year. It was then said that there is a pool of 404,000 out-of-service teachers.

That pool of experience and talent becomes all the more important when one surveys the demographic scene. According to evidence also given to the Education, Science and Arts Select Committee the number of 18 and 19-year olds peaked at 1.7 million in 1984. From then until 1997 the number will decline by 33 per cent. Therefore, competition for the shrinking share of qualified manpower will be ruthless and insatiable, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said. Under present pay, conditions and esteem teaching as a profession is unlikely to win out. There will be a dwindling pool of applicants for entry into initial teacher training. From the autumn of 1989 the shortage will be exacerbated by the national core curriculum.

I have mentioned the debates that took place during the passage of the Education Reform Bill. I recall in particular the warnings issued by the National Association of Head Teachers. Looking at the shortages projected from a number of sources—and without going into them in detail—they add up to a potentially whopping 15,000 teachers across the range. These shortages bear heavily on the core and foundation subjects.

All this brings us up squarely against the desperate need to attract teachers from non-conventional sources. On 27th January Mr. Kenneth Baker announced a scheme for licensed teachers with at least two years in higher education. It means that untrained teachers will be released immediately into classrooms without relevant teaching qualifications, although they must pursue a part-time course.

Naturally, that is controversial. It is to the credit of the Association of County Councils, the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and the ILEA that they have reacted favourably to it. I understand also that the NUT is not opposed provided that the scheme is restricted to mature entrants and that there is a proper training component. Perhaps in reply the Minister will say more on that aspect of the Secretary of State's scheme.

At the end of the day the unavoidable need will remain to provide more resources to attract high-flyers into teaching, particularly in the core and foundation subjects. The Government are wedded to market economics, and I have no particular quarrel with that. However, it means they must pay the rate for the job.

The Secretary of State's great opportunity will arise when on 1st April, 1990, he brings to an end, as he is obliged to do, the Interim Pay and Conditions Act. That will give him a great chance to get together with the profession and work out a proper set of arrangements. As has already been said in the debate, he must have the profession with him. He must not fumble the issue. If he does, there will be no way of increasing recruitment to the profession and his exit from the "political theatre"—to use the right reverend Prelate's happy phrase—will be less than glorious.

3.40 p.m.

Baroness Lockwood

My Lords, this debate is very timely from many points of view as my noble friend Lord Stewart indicated in his opening remarks. The difficulties already encountered in the supply of teachers are due to many factors. Demographic trends not only affect the number of children in schools but also the source of supply for recruiting new teachers into the profession. A further difficulty is the introduction of the national curriculum and that, along with the new General Certificate of Secondary Education, places greater demands not only on the number of teachers but also on the in-service training which those teachers require.

In his report the chief inspector draws attention to some of the problems which are encountered in providing in-service training or in enabling teachers to take advantage of the provisions. For example, he says that it is difficult for teachers to take up the opportunity of in-service training when they are spending as much as 100 per cent. of their time in the classroom. The Chilver Report on teachers' pay and conditions also makes that point at paragraph 3.18, which states: Classroom teachers were often working well in excess of the minimum prescribed working year in order to achieve the standards they have set themselves". Those are some of the problems, additional to pay and general conditions, which cause the low morale to which the noble Baroness, Lady Young, referred. These are some of the matters which must be addressed if we are successfully to retain people in the teaching profession and also if some of the initiatives which the Government have sought to introduce in order to attract people into the profession arc to be successful.

It is the latter aspect—attracting people into the profession from non-traditional sources—on which I should like to concentrate. In that respect I welcome the comments made by the Secretary of State to the annual conference of the Society of Education Officers. He underlined the importance of conversion courses if we are to attract people into the shortage subjects. Many women in their earlier period of education were not attracted into science and technical subjects because they were not regarded as particularly good for women at that time, but now many such women may be attracted to that sphere of work.

The Secretary of State also referred to the importance of local education authorities providing adequate schemes to encourage women returners back into teaching. Returners to teaching—and they are mainly married women who have taken a period off for family formation—constituted 55 per cent. of the entrants to the profession in 1986. That proportion has risen from 32 per cent. in 1980.

I do not believe that there is any certainty that that trend will continue because as shortages of young people become more and more apparent, the demand for women returners will increase and education will find itself in a more competitive situation for both young entrants to the profession and mature returners.

Secondly, although from the point of view of school holidays and school hours teaching has been a convenient form of work for women with children, it does not have a particularly good record in providing a career structure for women teachers. While the majority in teaching at school level are women, women do not hold the same proportionate number of senior positions. Indeed, they are largely clustered at the bottom end of the scale. That has been a subject of concern and report from the Equal Opportunities Commission on many occasions.

Thirdly, women returners have been regarded as peripheral to the real teaching force—a source to he encouraged at times of shortage but the first to be dispensed with when the crisis is over. Again that has been a cause for comment by the Equal Opportunities Commission. In that respect a number of cases have been brought by women who have successfully taken their claim to court and have proved that they have been discriminated against.

There is a point about that in the Chilver Report which highlights some of the difficulties which women returners, part-time and supply teachers may have. Very often women who are returning to the profession do so first on the basis of supply teaching. They go in on short-term contracts for a short period or on a part-time basis. The Chilver Report pointed out that there are some rather niggardly differences of pay between teachers on short-term contracts and teachers in other forms of employment. They are not receiving the same basic pay, nor are they enjoying the same opportunities for in-service training. Both the Chilver Report and the Chief Inspector are concerned about in-service training being available for part-time and supply teachers if they are to make a full contribution to the teaching service.

A number of local authorities are tackling that problem. For example, Kent County Council has a policy for the development of careers for women teachers. That involves counselling and also a period of up to seven years when women can take leave to bring up their families on condition that they give a number of days in the course of the year as supply teachers. That enables them to keep in touch with developments in the profession and also with their colleagues. Programmes of that kind will be essential in the future if the educational world and the teaching profession is successfully to compete for that very important source of manpower—women returners.

3.48 p.m.

Lord Beloff

My Lords, in expressing my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham, for introducing this subject, I have the additional pleasure in an education debate of being able to agree with much of his argument. It seems to me that we have probably neglected the importance of the supply of teachers, particularly in crucial subjects, in looking at general reforms with which many of us are in sympathy. There is clearly a serious situation to which it is desirable that we should return from time to time with various suggestions put forward as to how to remedy it—for example, those which have just been put to us by the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood.

However, the difficulty is clearly one which does not stem only from immediate circumstances, as indeed the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, said. It is a problem which goes back a long way. It is related to—I appreciate being saved the trouble of reading out the extract from the chief inspector's report—and aggravated by the decline in the appeal of the teaching profession to the able young.

That is not a recent development and I doubt whether it is confined to this country. It seems to me that teachers as such, certainly all over the western industrialised world, do not hold the prestige they once did. That is perhaps understandable because when that prestige was built up teaching was one of the few ways of social promotion available to large sections of the community. If you became a teacher you somehow or other ascended a step in the social ladder. Appeal to social promotion is, I believe, as important as monetary rewards in determining the direction of people's aspirations for themselves and, perhaps even more, for their children.

Now there are other avenues; indeed, avenues so attractive in some cases, as has been pointed out, that we have the very special problem relating to teachers in mathematics, physics and those subjects which have a considerable marketable value in industry. There is no escape from the fact that special measures will need to be taken for those subjects, whatever we may think can he done about the more general supply.

There may be elements in the situation which relate particularly to educational experience in this country. Teachers are always in a somewhat peculiar situation because they have two objects of concern. They are concerned with the children whom they teach, but they are also concerned with the subjects which they promote in the school, in which they give instruction and in which they are thought to be, at different levels, expert. It would seem to me that as a result of perhaps educational theory over recent decades, perhaps because of demands made by society and perhaps (more likely) a mixture of all those factors, the former role has been to some extent extended at the expense of the latter.

More and more, as parents shed their responsibilities and as television acts as a disincentive to home reading, teachers are asked to take up more and more of the slack. At some point they must ask themselves: are we part of a teaching profession? The word "profession" has been used by many speakers in this debate, though, formally speaking, teaching does not have the structure of a profession. It ought to have, and there ought to be, a General Teaching Council. However, people may well ask themselves whether they are part of a profession or whether they are child minders on society's behalf. The skills that are needed are different.

The point made about today's report on teachers coping with vandalism, for example, is an illustration of that. The manager of a company whose installations arc threatened by vandalism and so on would not consider detaching one of his specialised engineers to that responsibility. He would say that the company needed a security man, someone whose prime concern is that sort of thing. That is an illustration of what I believe has happened in all aspects of modern school life.

The position is perhaps being accentuated by some denigration of the original basic teaching subjects. As I fear I have said in this House on previous occasions, it is important to keep the traditional subjects clear, and "topics" are not good enough, as was said earlier. We need the systematic study by children, at whatever level they can reach, of the traditional subjects—history, English, languages, mathematics, physics and chemistry. Those are disciplines which we know that generations of teachers have managed to introduce to children. I believe that in many cases they would be more impelled to join the profession if they thought they could continue the subjects and were not expected to be mere minders.

We need to look carefully at that aspect if we are to rebuild the attraction which the profession must have if it is to encourage able young people. Here I come to the economic or monetary arguments which have been adduced by several noble Lords. If teachers are to receive higher remuneration they will not do so because of the good will of a particular administration but because there is a ground-swell of public opinion which favours it. Until the public are convinced that they need a teaching profession of higher calibre, with greater training, greater selectivity—indeed, some pointers as to who enters the profession—we will not get the pressure which will lead to the fulfilment of at least the minimum requirements suggested in the Chilver Report and which will enable us to look back on this recent period as a very bad patch.

3.56 p.m.

Lord Dormand of Easington

My Lords, I trust that we are not going to hear too much repetition in this debate, and indeed outside Parliament, of the statement already made on more than one occasion that there has always been a shortage of teachers. The implication is that it is a shortage that has always been with us and that it is perhaps an insoluble problem. It is simply not true that there has always been a shortage of teachers. Furthermore, I suggest that the present shortage of teachers and the nature of the shortage is more criticial and more serious than it has ever been.

The blame for the general shortage of teachers and the critical shortage of teachers in some subjects lies fairly and squarely at the door of the Government. I make that unequivocal statement for two main reasons, but other reasons can be adduced and I shall refer to them later. First, the Government have now been in power for 10 years, and a decade is long enough to have dealt with this problem. Secondly, and very much related to that point, numerous people, organisations and reports have drawn attention to the matter for the whole of that period. There is an abundance of documentation and evidence to that effect. In other words, the Government cannot say that the problem has arisen in only the past two or three years.

A crisis usually arises unexpectedly, but in this case the information has been available to the Government for a long time. For example, the present primary school population has been known since 1983. The number of statutory school pupils for 1991 has been known since 1986 and the current population of 18 year-olds has been known since 1970. On the other side of the coin, in the middle and late 1970s literally thousands of qualified teachers came out of the colleges and university departments to find school doors closed in their faces. The Government and the LEAs refused to employ them, when to do so would have ensured an adequate supply of teachers for later years. The reason for that, of course, is well known to some of us. It was simply that government money was not made available; and that, as we now see, was a serious misjudgment.

The Minister should also comment on what is surely one of the strangest happenings ever in dealing with teacher supply. Why is it that in present circumstances, for three years at least, local education authorities have been allowing, indeed encouraging, teachers to take early retirement? By that I mean really early retirement, at 50 years of age and in their early 50s. That requires justification. The Secretary of State has known for a long time that three in 10 newly qualified teachers fall to go into teaching the next year. Four in 10 new teachers leave the profession within five years. Yet it was only last Sunday that we read that Kenneth Baker has warned the Treasury that the country faces a critical shortage of teachers unless their pay is substantially improved in the next five years. The only matter wrong with that is that it was a long time in coming from the Secretary of State. The Observer newspaper called it: a startling admission of the crisis in teacher supply. Applications for places on teacher-training courses for the current academic year were 4 per cent. down on last year, with a 14 per cent. drop in applications for posts in secondary schools. So the miserable story goes on. In my long association with education I have never known the morale of teachers to be so low. Many teachers—dozens of them known to me personally and I am sure to other Members of your Lordships' House—cannot wait to get out. There is no doubt that the main cause is pay. It has been at the centre of all the disputes that we have had for some years now. But the Government are learning nothing. The recent increase of 6 per cent. imposed by the Government is well below the rate of inflation. As my noble friend Lord Stewart said, it is well below the 9 per cent. settlements now being made in industry. This is a Government with a market-place philosophy. Do they really believe that most good honours graduates will be satisfied with £8,900 rising to £13,800 after seven years? They have had the answer for a long time in the figures that I gave earlier, and there is other evidence to support that.

It is inevitable that a large number will go elsewhere where the money is so much better and our young people are the sufferers. It would be possible to make the whole of one's speech on the subject of the pay problem, but as I said earlier—a number of other noble Lords also referred to it—there are other factors in dealing with the shortage of teachers. First, there is the question of status. Status is closely linked to training and standards. I find it utterly deplorable that this or any other government should be thinking of anything but full-time training for the honourable and difficult profession of teaching.

Would anyone dream of not having fully trained doctors, dentists, vets, lawyers, solicitors and so on, or are the Government thinking "Well, teaching is not quite so important as the other professions"? If that is what they think they should be honest and straightforward and say so. I find myself, quite surprisingly, agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, and it is perhaps the only matter on which we will agree. There should be a general teaching council—I use the same words that were used by the noble Lord—parallel to the governing bodies of other professions. The initiative for the establishment should come from the Government themselves. The teaching profession itself would have an important role to play in making it successful, and I am sure that is what they would do.

Instead of that reasonable expectation, what have the Government done? On salaries that are so important to any profession, the Government have taken away the unions' negotiating rights and have imposed settlements. So much for the dignity and status of the profession. Now there is talk of licensed teachers. The name itself carries a stigma. There are people who will have to stand in front of a class and accept two years of on-the-job training. Such so-called "training" is completely inadequate and should come after the normal course of training. I am certainly not against an increase in the amount of time spent in schools during training, but it should always be done in the context of the college or university course.

I have no doubt, too, that, despite whatever safeguards there are, many unsatisfactory trainees will find their way into permanent posts. That would be disastrous not only for the teacher but for the pupils. Those of us who had responsibility for the appointment of untrained and inadequately trained teachers in the 1960s have bitter memories of what happened as a result of that policy. Many of us thought that the struggles for a fully-trained profession had been won in 1973 when professional training and qualification was made compulsory. The clock is now being turned back.

The Government are attempting to draw some comfort from the recently-issued HMI report on Standards in Education 1987–1988 that has been referred to by most speakers so far. We have already heard quoted several times, and not least by the Secretary of State, the phrase, the education service is well placed to face the future with some confidence.". Anyone relying on that sentence should go on to read the next one, which says, But some old, familiar problems persist.". The report makes crystal clear that the biggest of those problems concerns teachers. It says that without a sufficient supply of trained, qualified and competent teachers all else fails. Then a specific warning is directed to what is undoubtedly the Government's policy: It will be vital to maintain the quality of entrance to teaching even though circumstances may well pull towards a 'never mind the quality, feel the width' attitude.". I assume that the Government take heed of what HMIs say. The Secretary of State has shown himself to be completely out of touch with what goes on in schools, but it is reasonable to assume that HMIs, with their regular visits and professional knowledge, do know what is going on and what is needed. The word "crisis" is overworked, but I believe that its use is justified in the context of this debate. The future of our young children and young people, and therefore the nation, is at stake.

4.6 p.m.

Lord Addington

My Lords, why is there a problem in recruiting teachers? To find the answer we must surely look at the job itself and the rewards that are offered for it. We all know from personal experience, some of us rather more recently than others, how children behave or misbehave in the classroom. There is an obvious correlation between the behaviour of a class and the effectiveness of a teacher in doing his job. That is teaching in order to impart knowledge.

However, there are groups of children who are badly behaved no matter how diligent their teacher is. There are groups who will behave perfectly well for one teacher but who are abominable for another. There are also individual children who, for whatever reason, find nothing more enjoyable than to make classes completely unmanageable. In other words, teaching is a job that involves possible if not actual conflict at a constant level.

It would seem obvious that in recruiting to a profession where there is such a high degree of stress there should he an adequate degree of compensation through salary. It would seem essential that if we are to ensure an adequate supply of teachers in a free labour market where teaching is competing with other professions, the rewards should at least compensate for the stress factor. In an ideal situation teachers are supposed to teach to individual needs. That means, for instance, that where a teacher is confronted with 30 pupils he can be dealing with any number of behavioural and education problems. While trying to teach the day's prescribed part of the core curriculum, at present there is also the distinct possibility that because of particular subject shortages the teacher may not be an expert in the subject that he or she is trying to teach.

He may well be trying to deal with all the aforementioned problems while having to make furtive references to carefully concealed textbooks and at the same time possibly trying to prevent little Darren from incinerating little Fred with a Bunsen burner. He may also have to deal with the insistent demands of various members of his class—usually two girls sitting at the front, if I remember correctly—who want a constant supply of spellings and who are always ready to help the teacher out with comments as regards what the miscreants in the class are doing. We can then further add to his problems by having a few children with special educational needs in his class. For instance, there may be a couple of children with dyslexia or someone with bad eyesight or bad hearing.

Discipline can be a problem in any school. Of late there has been much publicity about violence from pupils and parents towards teachers and the general harassment of staff, with a lowering of respect for authority in any form that appears to be apparent in our society. Parents should be made to take more responsibility for the behaviour of their children while they are in school. A disruptive or violent child will not only fail to learn but he will also prevent his fellows from learning. For too long teachers have had to tolerate such children and perforce to give a very high percentage of their time to them. This is to the loss and detriment of the well-behaved majority in the class. One cannot expel a child from the state system. If the disruptive child is not sent to a special unit he can be dealt with only by sending him to another school through a reciprocal arrangement. A problem child from one school is swapped for a problem child from another; that is, if another headmaster can be persuaded through the kindness of his or her heart to take the child.

Those considering teaching as a career would find the prospect for more attractive if they knew that children who were consistently disruptive would be returned to their parents, who should have the ultimate responsibility for their children. It is difficult to punish children in schools. Strict adherence to the new contracts has not only put paid to many extracurricular activities but has made it hard to put into practice punitive exercises and detention systems. This again is due to pressure on time. All too often parents seem to back up their children against teachers who have legitimate complaints about their behaviour.

This leads to a feeling of helplessness among staff; a feeling that teachers are being asked to teach manners to the unmannerly, to instil discipline in the undisciplined, and at the same time teach their individual subjects. They are criticised for not being willing to give up their free time to do voluntary work with their pupils. They are criticised on all sides for asking for higher salaries. This is hardly a public image likely to encourage quality graduates into the profession. Long holidays would seem to be a real bonus offered by the job, but teaching comes high on the list of stressful occupations. Holidays may rightly be seen as a form of safety valve.

There have been great changes in education recently and people are uncertain about the future of the whole system. There is a new examination system and implementation of the Education Reform Act. These changes entail the introduction of the national curriculum, new pay and staffing structures and the possibility of schools opting out and being made responsible for their own budgets. Teachers have a heavier burden of marking through the new GCSE examination, no matter how educationally beneficial the examination may be. They have to profile the pupils and face appraisal themselves while teaching. A difference is appearing in both salary and authority between those in administrative and management posts in teaching and those mainscale teachers who do the bulk of teaching. All things considered, in an era when jobs at higher salaries are readily available in industry and commerce, a graduate would have to feel a great sense of dedication to choose teaching.

If our workforce in the future is to be capable of competing in an ever more difficult and competitive world, we must look as a first step to the quality of the instruction given in school. At present we are unable to fill the posts currently available in teaching, especially in subjects such as modern languages, mathematics and physical science. This is hardly the best footing for 1992 and the single European market.

4.14 p.m.

Baroness David

My Lords, I want to talk about two subjects, the PIT and licensed teachers, both of which present similar problems. The PIT, unattractively named, stands for the pool of inactive teachers. There are, as has been said, about 400,000 qualified teachers who are not currently employed as teachers, roughly the same number as those employed. More than half of them are women aged between 30 and 49, so it is reasonable to assume that a large number are involved in child bearing and child rearing. Half of the entrants to teaching jobs are re-entrants, so they are of prime importance in helping to alleviate the problem of teacher shortage. It is generally agreed that there is a problem and that it is likely to get bigger rather than smaller with the demographic trend and the demands of the national curriculum. We want to know how the DES plans to attract this large pool back to the profession and what retraining will be provided. They will certainly need retraining, with the rapidly changing demands of the education service.

My question about training—how it is to be done—and who is to pay for it—applies equally to the licensed teacher. The original proposition for routes to qualified teacher status different from the normal B. Ed. and PGCE came in a Green Paper last summer. It suggested that the proposal was a tidying up and a simplification of the present variety of routes. It did not appear that the Secretary of State expected a large number of new entrants to the profession by this new route. He may do so now.

The Green Paper had a mixed response. It is fair to say that most of us did not welcome the idea of the licensed teacher. However, there was not general hostility to the idea of encouraging people who had started their careers in, for instance, business or industry to come into teaching, but there was hostility to the idea that the profession might be diluted from the aim of a fully trained graduate body, which had at last been achieved.

Standards had to be preserved and the licensed teacher was not to be used as a short-term expedient to deal with the teacher shortages. There was anxiety on the part of LEAs that with the greater powers of governors and the changed LFM—laissez-faire management, as I have heard it called—after the passing of the Education Reform Act, control over the standard and expertise of those being appointed as teachers would not be with the authority, which would nevertheless still have the overall responsibility for the education service in its area.

In his speech in January to senior education officers the Secretary of State said that he would be issuing by Easter draft regulations and a circular on how the scheme will operate. He said that he intended all licensees to have the equivalent of two year's higher education in the United Kingdom and grades C in GCSE maths and English. There would be a minimum entry age of 26 except for those who had received training overseas. For LEA maintained schools, there would be full involvement for the LEA, which would decide whether to agree to the appointment of a licensed teacher and would settle on a suitable programme of training. At the end of the period of training it would decide whether to recommend the award of QTS. That has allayed some of the earlier fears.

I should like to know what is intended for grant maintained schools and CTCs. Will they decide for themselves what the training is to be and whether or not a licensed teacher will achieve QTS and permanent employment? It is the kind of training these licensees will receive about which we are curious and concerned. We want to know what the department has in mind. We have had the HMI report on the visit to New Jersey where a provisional teacher programme is in operation. However, it is important to remember that in New Jersey the circumstances are different as there is no PGCE route to QTS.

Teachers there are recruited on a salaried basis and follow a phased programme of induction and training during the first year of teaching. HMI concluded that on-the-job training schemes could provide an alternative to traditional training if, first, the training is comparable with the best available by more traditional routes; secondly, if all concerned have a clear idea of the framework of the training; thirdly, if care is taken to ensure that training is undertaken in schools which can provide a supportive and relevant environment; and fourthly, if the schools involved have a cadre of good teachers experienced in the trainee teacher's subjects who can undertake the supervisory role.

There have been other suggestions for school-based training, possibly in connection with a nearby polytechnic or university institute of education and the LEA advisory service. The Department of Education Studies in Oxford has pioneered some experiments. In his January speech the Secretary of State said that he wanted to invite LEAs and teacher training institutions jointly to devise experimental schemes that would involve the students being given progressively more responsibility during their training and being paid by the school or the LEA for their contribution to the work of the school instead of receiving a grant.

Two things must be remembered if certain schools are to be picked out as teacher training schools, as happens with teaching hospitals in the medical sphere. First, they will need extra teachers as the job, if it is to be done properly, is bound to take time from the teacher's normal programme of work. Secondly, if the trainee is to be paid a salary instead of having a grant, that salary should not have to come out of LEA funds unless the Government arrange in the RSG for extra money to be put into local authority budgets to take care of this. What must be avoided is any attempt to get people into the profession by any method encouraged by the Government because it is cheap and will effect a reduction in public expenditure. There is no cheap way to get a quality service and the recent HMI report confirms that fact. I shall also quote one sentence therefrom: Standards of learning are never improved by poor teachers and there are no cheap, high quality routes into teaching". The Open University is running, with a specific grant from the DES, a number of courses including a PGCE one which enables students to study two years part time. However, the total number per institution is restricted by quota. Relaxation of that arrangement, or a separate quota for part-time students, would increase the uptake. Moreover, if the grant provision was raised to half that for a full-time PGCE student that would help, because the present grant is derisory.

If the Government are serious about wanting to lift standards in schools, more resources are essential. I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, that the public now realise and believe that fact. To achieve a satisfactory and adequate number of teachers of quality needs a far greater input of resources than the Government now seem prepared to consider. We want to encourage teachers to come back to teaching; and if they are teaching, we want to encourage them to stay in teaching. Above all, we want no dilution of the quality of the profession by makeshift measures to meet accumulating but differing crises in different parts of the country.

4.21 p.m.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour

My Lords, I think that most noble Lords speaking in this debate agree that the many highly desirable changes on which schools in England and Wales are now embarked all depend for their success on there being a sufficient number of committed, enthusiastic, suitably qualified and skilled teachers to put the plans into effect. We all agree on that aspect.

Central government and local government have a big responsibility to calculate the number of teachers who will he required to make known to potential teachers, to the 400,000 to whom the noble Baroness, Lady David, referred, who have been in teaching and have left, and to existing teachers, just what the possibilities are. They also have a responsibility to ensure that adequate and suitable training and retraining opportunities are available for those who seek them. A large number of imaginative initiatives are under way. I shall not reiterate what they are, although a lot of them have not been mentioned, because I am sure that my noble friend on the Front Bench will tell us something about them. As many noble Lords have said, salary levels also count and the Government have a part to play in that respect.

However, what has not been emphasised so far in the debate is the fact that the group of people who can do most of all to enhance the attractiveness of teaching as a profession, to raise the profession in public esteem and enable more money to become available where it is most needed is not to be found in central government or in local authorities; it is the teachers themselves.

There is no questioning the fact that the way the public see the teaching profession has changed considerably over the past 20 years. There have been many reasons for that, as my noble friend Lord Beloff said. But surely one root cause has been the changing role adopted by the teachers' organisations as they have gradually allowed themselves to change from what were mainly professional organisations and professional spokesmen into industry-type trade unions and industry-type trade union spokesmen. That change has had all sorts of effects on the way teachers themselves have seen their job; how they have managed their work; and how they have related to parents, to pupils, to governors and to their own head. Most of those effects have not been liked by the parents and the public and of course the prolonged so-called industrial action a year or two ago compounded the problem.

That change in public perception has undoubtedly affected the recruitment of teachers; the encouragement parents give to their offspring to enter teaching; the encouragement of more mature people to enter or to return to teaching and the public's willingness to see big increases in teachers' salaries. It seems to me that this is the time for the profession to put that era behind it and to embark with enthusiasm, and in partnership with parents and local communities, in grasping the opportunities opened up by the new arrangements and making their enthusiasm and their aims plain to the public at large.

Financial delegation will undoubtedly help. When the spending of the school budget becomes a matter for the school itself to determine, the teachers and the head of a particular school will be able to concentrate alongside parents and the local community on the needs and possibilities of their school and how they as professionals can provide the best possible education for local children within the budget allocated to them. There, within the school and its community, they will be able to demonstrate and prove to all concerned the quality of their professionalism and in turn make the profession more attractive to others. That is for teachers to do—not teachers' spokesmen, not central government, but teachers themselves. I believe that such financial delegation will help.

It will be for teachers themselves to take advantage of retraining opportunities in order to upgrade their existing skill and perhaps to enhance knowledge of a shortage subject. There are many ways to do this, and no doubt my noble friend will tell us about some of those when he replies. I know that in addition to what the noble Baroness, Lady David, referred to, the Open University has been given a 1.5 million specific grant by the Government over two years to produce distance learning packs and courses to help secondary teachers to upgrade knowledge of maths and physics, and to help primary teachers with maths. Eleven hundred teachers are involved in such courses at present. The scheme is working well, and if continued funding is available those opportunities can and will be further developed.

Likewise it is for teachers themselves to influence their profession's approach to salaries. For reasons which other noble Lords have outlined, teacher shortages are mainly confined to certain subjects in certain areas of the country. But I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, that I do not believe it is realistic to expect public backing at this time for an increase for all teachers everywhere in all subjects of a dimension that will solve some problems which exist in only limited areas and subjects.

With the community charge impending, the public is increasingly sensitive to the fact that teachers' salaries make up something like one-fifth of all local government spending and will make up one-fifth of the community charge. Surely teachers themselves must insist that some of their colleagues are allowed some specific incentive payments in areas of acute shortage in the short term, while they seek to build up public confidence and understanding that will lead to better salary levels for everyone in the longer term.

It is for teachers themselves to encourage new entrants into their profession and to point out the opportunities, the importance and the satisfaction of the job. All those things are for teachers to do. The Government have a big responsibility in taking a lead regarding teacher shortages. Noble Lords are right to point that out. We shall all listen to what my noble friend has to say about that when he replies. I hope that an important part of the message which will emerge from the debate is that most of what can be done about shortages in the teaching profession can be done by teachers themselves.

4.30 p.m.

Baroness Blackstone

My Lords, there can be few more serious failures of planning, policy-making and administration in the public sector than the discovery that there are too few teachers to achieve our educational goals. Our future depends more than ever on our population being well educated. To achieve this we must value our teachers. We must give them the status they deserve, for we entrust them with the enormously important task of influencing how the next generation thinks, what knowledge it has and what skills it can muster. I was rather sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, should suggest that teachers have been responsible for a change in public perceptions of them. I simply do not believe that that is the case. Teaching our children, and doing it well, is the most important investment any society makes.

This debate, as many of your Lordships have already said, is extremely timely because of the growing public concern about teacher shortages. The publication last week of the senior chief inspector's report, to which many speakers have already referred, has been extensively covered in the press, partly because of his concerns about the grave and growing shortage of teachers. It is also timely because if the Government act quickly to put their house in order, disaster can be averted. If they do not, the position in the mid to late 1990s will have deteriorated greatly. It will not be possible to implement many of the provisions of the Education Act and we shall enter the 21st century with an educational system of which we are ashamed because teaching in some crucial areas will be very near to collapse.

Returning to the present, there are already serious shortages in some sectors and some subjects, as has already been said. Attention has focused on what has become known in the jargon as shortage subjects in secondary schools. Before coming on to them, I want to examine the equally important problem of shortages of teachers of younger children. When Mrs. Thatcher was Secretary of State for Education she introduced a White Paper proposing the expansion of nursery education for all three year-old and four year-old children whose parents wanted it. Since becoming Prime Minister in 1979 she has presided over a government who have done little to support local education authorities in expanding nursery education. I am not sure how to explain her inconsistency, since the circumstances of the 1980s seem to make the expansion of nursery education just as desirable as those of the 1970s.

However, we are now in a situation where even if finance were available in local authorities LEAs would find it very difficult because of the shortage of trained teachers for this age group. We must expand the places to train those teachers in colleges of education. We must recruit more nursery assistants. We must develop schemes to help more women not just to return, as my noble friend Lady Lockwood has already said, but also to stay in the profession by including more part-time opportunities and more part-time posts when the children of those women are very young. What plans have the Government to deal with this problem?

Turning to primary schools, there are now acute shortages, as has already been said, in many inner city areas, especially in London, where the cost of living is now so high that teachers cannot afford to stay in the capital. Recruiting heads and deputy heads of good quality is particularly difficult. This means that standards of leadership are threatened, as well as stable, high quality classroom teaching. It also means that some children are attending school for only four days a week. In Tower Hamlets and some other parts of London some children are out of school altogether. I should like to know what the Government intend to do about this problem since the legislation requires that all children over the age of five should be in full-time schooling.

We are talking about the pupils who most need good teachers in adequate supply because their parents would find it particularly difficult to make up at home any deficiencies at school. I should be grateful if in his reply the noble Viscount who is to speak for the Government would give some indication of how they intend to deal with the special problem of shortages of primary teachers in the inner city.

As the senior chief inspector has said, we must dispose of the myth that all primary teachers are the same. A balanced curriculum requires some differentiation and the national curriculum will make it all the more necessary. As has been said already by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, primary education is desperately short of teachers with expertise in science, technology and mathematics. What are the Government going to do about this? If they do nothing the necessary foundation for effective learning in science and mathematics in secondary schools simply will not have been provided and more, rather than fewer, young people will choose to discontinue these subjects as soon as they possibly can. It is simply no good saying that the existing primary scientists and mathematicians can be used as subject consultants supporting other teachers. Most of them are already teaching for 100 per cent. of the time, and planned non-contact hours in primary schools are as low as 4 per cent.

In these circumstances it is also extremely difficult to provide adequately for in-service training, and the lack of supply teachers further exacerbates the problem. Would the Minister agree that without the opportunity for in-service training the scope for improving the quality of the existing stock of teachers will be negligible? The Government's claims that their legislation will improve standards will then come to nothing.

Turning now to the shortage subjects in secondary schools, we have known for some time about the difficulties of recruiting and retaining physics and maths teachers. This is not a new problem. Other countries have also had a problem in this respect but they have dealt with it much more effectively than we have in the United Kingdom. Here the Government have done too little and too late. I hope that when the Minister responds he will not simply refer to vacancies as an indication of shortages. There are vacancies, but they grossly underestimate the problem. The ingenuity of head teachers is such that they will do everything they possibly can to find a way round the problem, mainly by employing people who are not qualified in maths and physics to teach those subjects.

The Manchester University Survey by Alan Smithers and Pamela Robinson which has already been referred to found that only 45 per cent. of maths teachers and 38 per cent. of physics teachers were well qualified to teach these subjects. This is a disgrace. Poor teaching produces dissatisfied pupils. It is now increasingly difficult to fill physics places at universities and polytechnics. This means that in turn there will be even fewer graduates to go into the teaching of these subjects. In fact we are in a vicious downward spiral, and drastic action is now needed to get out of it.

However, to focus all our attention on physics and maths would be extremely complacent. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford has already referred to religious education; but the proportion of school periods taught by non-specialists in chemistry is 16 per cent; in craft design and technology it is 35 per cent; and in computer studies it is an amazing 82 per cent. There are now serious shortages in modern language teachers. Even English teachers are in short supply. The simple facts are that young people do not want to train to become teachers; that those who do the PGCE to go into secondary teaching end up in other jobs; and that those who start teaching leave in droves to go into other jobs.

Of course demography is not now on the side of the Government as it has been until recently. The number of pupils in primary schools is rising. The number 0121 year-olds is set to fall steeply from now on and the education system will therefore be competing, as has already been said, with many other employers from a much smaller pool of young adults. Unless the Government can rapidly turn round the perception of teaching from very demanding yet low status and low paid work for graduates to highly valued and highly paid work, they do not have a hope.

The noble Baroness, Lady Young—I must say that I agreed with almost everything she said—rightly referred to the extra demands being made on our teachers. We cannot ask teachers to take on a whole lot of new tasks associated with local financial management, testing, the national curriculum, TVEI and changes in the GCSE at the same time as reducing their salaries in real terms and expect them to stay in their jobs. Nor can we expect large numbers of new recruits to come forward. It is sheer lunacy. Teaching in the modern world is already made more difficult as a result of changing values about authority.

Few of us in this Chamber would be able to contain a class of 14 year-olds in the inner city. It requires energy, patience, ingenuity and intellect as well as a touch of charisma. The pay of teachers compares badly with most other graduate employment at all stages and levels. Starting salaries are worse. Elsewhere in the public sector, for example, similar qualified entrants to the police, the Civil Service, the Army and local government all get more. After several years of service the disparities increase. After five years good honours graduates will have increased their salaries in teaching by 45 per cent. and after 10 years by 56 per cent. This compares with figures of 70 per cent. and 110 per cent., on average, for graduates in other professions. Is it then surprising that the teachers' organisations have had to focus a lot of their attention on traditional trade union activity?

Against this background teachers were given an overall increase of only 4.75 per cent. in 1988 as well as a paltry offer so far this year. As we all know, the level of inflation turned out to be considerably higher last year. Teachers must now be paid more not just to maintain their standard of living but to improve it and to attract more people into the profession. All teachers should be paid more, contrary to what the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, said. I see no reason why a generous offer should not be accompanied by a package that requires in return certain concessions from the teachers which help to improve quality. They might include in-service training requirements and some commitment to both extra-curricular activities and school planning outside normal school hours. The Government are very well placed to respond, given the huge Budget surplus. I hope that they will take their responsibilities to our children and their parents seriously enough to do so.

Finally, members of the Government must stop implying that it is teachers who are to blame for all the problems of our society. Doing so will only rebound on them. Understanding their problems, showing sympathy for their predicaments and congratulating them on their successes would go a long way towards improving morale. I end where I started. We shall continue to be short of teachers as long as we undermine their confidence, disregard their difficulties and pay them too little.

4.43 p.m.

Lord Peston

My Lords, this has been an excellent debate, introduced by my noble friend Lord Stewart of Fulham. We have covered a great deal of material on teacher supply. I confess that I have nothing original to add to what has been said on the facts. I must however add my voice to those who say that new initiatives are urgently required. Many of us on this side were critical of it as a Bill, but now that we have the Education Reform Act 1988 it is our duty to make it work. We pointed out last year how dependent it was for its success on teacher supply. And how right we were. It may well be that the Secretary of State exhausted himself getting the Act on to the statute book. Perhaps he is looking for new fields to plough. Until that happens he, and no one else, is the responsible person. He must accept full responsibility for the teacher shortage and the solution to it. We hear that he is pressing the Treasury for new money. We can only hope that he is successful. We must also hope that he does not fall for typical Treasury arguments based on naive views of productivity.

The teacher shortage, as pointed out by my noble friend Lord Dormand of Easington is particularly critical. If allowed to persist, it is a recipe for economic disaster in the next century. This is especially true in regard to the shortage of maths teachers, science teachers and technology teachers. I cannot help but reflect that when the Chancellor introduces his Budget next week he and all the economic pundits will relate the economic success of the nation to interest rates, exchange rates, one penny off income tax or similar things. The Chancellor will probably say nothing about education and teachers except to utter some bromide on pay restraint. However, it is probably that our future standard of living depends more on our teachers than on the conventional economic variables or on anything the Chancellor will do.

It is worth bearing in mind that the teacher today has to cope with violence and truancy. I wonder whether the noble Viscount, in replying to the debate, can tell us anything about the report of the committee headed by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. When will that report be published? The noble Lord, Lord Beloff referred to parents shedding their responsibilities. How right he is. Too many parents are non-supportive. Some are actively antagonistic to the efforts of teachers.

I cannot forbear from adding—other noble Lords have made this point—that we must recognise that there is also an apparent antagonism of the Government towards teachers—even towards the profession, as has been said. Perhaps that is a misunderstanding. I hope it is. It is certainly not too late for the Secretary of State to make clear his total commitment to the teaching profession rather than blaming it. If I dare say this—I do not refer to the noble Viscount here—the Secretary of State would do well to bring one or two of his junior colleagues into line on this matter.

I wish to pursue the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee, and by my noble friend Lady Blackstone. I must stress the problem of young people who are not able to go to school because there is no one to teach them. What a reflection that is on Great Britain in 1989. What is the scale of the problem? Does the Department of Education and Science know? More to the point—I shall be interested to hear the noble Viscount's reply now or later—I am intrigued to know who is to enforce the law when it seems perfectly clear that children must be in school. I have referred to the urgency for action. I can think of no area of education more in need of immediate action than making places available for children who ought to be in school.

Perhaps I may raise a minor technical point. Accounting for its share of the public expenditure White Paper the DES says that it has a great interest in manpower planning. I should like to know whether the DES has a manpower model for teacher supply and what its statistical basis is. More generally, I wish to raise the question of DES statistical work. In my day it was first class. How seriously now does the DES take statistical work? What detailed studies is it undertaking or supporting on teacher supply? In particular, to pursue a point raised by my noble friend Lady Blackstone and by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, do we know how many teachers are teaching subjects for which they are unqualified and in which they are not specialised? Do we know the rate of change of the problem? Is it a growing problem, or has it stabilised? Again, I should be interested to know what the DES has discovered about these matters.

What is to be done? Many noble Lords have made valuable suggestions for training and re-training. They would encourage returners. There is enormous scope for action in that area, as my noble friends Lord Dormand and Lady David have pointed out. The existence of the PIT—I hesitate to use the word again—tells us that there are large numbers of people who are trained to be teachers. They may need some retraining. Nevertheless there is a pool of people available and we must do something about bringing them back. We must also do something—I shall return to this in a moment—about tapping new sources of supply.

Many noble Lords have suggested that we have to look beyond pay. Status, for example, is important. I have spent my working life as a university teacher: I have always been told that I had status. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me repeating an old cliche but I have not noticed that status leads to bills ceasing to fall on my doormat. I have not discovered that I can pay many of those bills with status. Of course, status is important; but it is not a substitute for decent pay. It is important to bring teachers' pay up to a proper level and it is of overwhelming importance to restore teachers' negotiating rights.

In this connection the Treasury must face up to its financial responsibilities. It is curious, to say the least, that a government who make strong, or, as some of us would say, exaggerated, claims of economic success, are unable, or claim not to be able, to afford to pay their teachers properly. Noble Lords have mentioned the market mechanism. Surely we must accept that the market mechanism in this area works. If we want to retain teachers, especially teachers of quality and if we wish to attract first class people away from industry, we must pay them a competitive salary.

Perhaps I may make one or two other points on attracting people from other walks of life into teaching. I do not like to have a closed mind on such matters. I am certainly willing to consider various schemes sympathetically. What is fundamental is that there must be appropriate safeguards. As my noble friends Lord Dormand and Lady David have emphasised, those safeguards are to do with the maintenance of standards. We must have a teaching profession with high standards. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, about other professions was quite fundamental. What is there about teaching that makes everybody say, "Well, I can do it. It requires no special skill". These people have no intention of doing any teaching, I might add. They seem to think that it is the easiest job in the world. Why does that not apply to all the other professions? The answer is, of course, that it is arrant nonsense.

It seems to me that the recruiting standards of independent schools should be no higher than those for which we aim in our maintained schools. If, for example, licensed teaching schemes were particularly good, I should very much like to see them introduced in the independent schools to start with. However, I do not believe that for one moment.

Lord Beloff

My Lords, will the noble Lord give way? When the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, and I were pupils at an independent school, our teachers came direct with first-class degrees. They never underwent any training at all. I owe everything I have done in life to those teachers.

Lord Peston

My Lords, I cannot possibly comment on the connection between the teachers of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, and, for that matter, those of the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, and the enormous achievements of those noble Lords. However, I remind those who are devotees of the writing of Evelyn Waugh that those were the bad old days of the independent schools. Exactly the same kinds of people—not the excellent teachers whom the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, had—went into teaching. The independent schools made it their business to try to bring that to a stop. I am not saying that there have not been inspired people of all sorts, but I do not believe for one moment that that should be used as an argument to detract from professionalism. Since we are on the subject, although it has nothing to do with the main theme, I take the same view about university teachers who could also do with some professional training.

Perhaps noble Lords will forgive me but I must add a word of warning to people entering teaching. They must want to teach. Not wanted are people who have failed elsewhere or who are disaffected and who come into teaching as a way of solving their personal problems. Let me add immediately that that is not true of women returners. The noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, has reminded us of the discrimination against women in teaching, especially when it comes to obtaining positions of responsibility. That is deplorable. It is also inefficient. I re-emphasise the theme that the more we can do to encourage women into teaching the better.

We have talked of the increased burdens on teachers. I do not need to reiterate all of them. However, one is worthy of special mention. The Government pride themselves on deregulation in many fields. One of the more curious consequences of their approach has been to increase bureaucracy and place a greater burden of administration on many people. This is apparent in the Government's approach to the National Health Service where it appears that from now on doctors will have to become accountants. The ludicrous football identity card scheme is another example of the bureaucratic nightmare.

Teachers and researchers in universities are now obliged to become form-fillers, and that is also true of their colleagues in the schools. It seems to me that the Government have failed to create a working environment in which professional people of all kinds can get on with their jobs. In other words, in the context of the present debate, let us give our teachers a chance to teach. They will not let us down.

4.57 p.m.

Viscount Davidson

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham, for initiating the debate on what is a vitally important issue, and for the very fair way in which he introduced the subject. It was in July 1986 that the Secretary of State for Education and Science issued his consultative document called Action on Teacher Shortages, and introduced an action programme to boost teacher numbers in maths, physics and technology. I therefore welcome this opportunity to remind your Lordships of the robust action taken by the Government, and to assure the House that we have no intention of seeing our education reforms put at risk for lack of teachers.

As the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham, reminded us, teacher shortages are not a new phenomenon. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, that the position we now face is that we have enough teachers overall but there is a lack of specialist teachers of some secondary subjects, particularly in London and the South-East. I remind noble Lords that the pupil to teacher ratio at 17 to 1 is now the lowest that it has ever been. We have more teachers relative to pupils than ever before.

Unlike the opinion expressed by some of your Lordships, I have to tell the House that the Government have faced up squarely to the problem of a lack of specialist teachers. We now have an energetic teacher recruitment publicity campaign which, by advertising, special publications and careers fairs, aims to interest more people in teaching. That campaign is led by the Teaching as a Career Unit which is able to offer individual counselling and advice to those wishing to come into teaching. We have encouraged local education authorities to focus their recruitment efforts on qualified but out-of-service teachers who might wish to return to teaching, some on a part-time basis. We have encouraged mature entrants seeking to enter teaching—particularly those changing from other careers—and have supported them by the establishment of new courses of initial training geared to their needs. We have made available special bursaries for trainee teachers in the shortage subjects. As a special measure we have extended the bursary to chemistry this year. There are many other measures which the Government have initiated or supported. We consulted on our action programme over two years ago and have followed up all the useful ideas which were put to us.

Our action programme has not neglected the problem of shortages on the primary side. The position here is complex. There is no overall national shortage. Indeed, recruitment to courses of primary initial teacher training is buoyant—teacher training institutions recruited 9 per cent. above the targets set for 1988 and 12.5 per cent more trainees on the primary side in that year than were recruited in 1987. Again this year recruitment on the primary side is very healthy with applications to courses of teacher training up 10 per cent. over the same time last year, and with many courses, at this early stage, already being full. The problem of the supply of primary teachers is a regional one: difficulties in recruiting sufficient teachers are mainly to be found in London and the South-East, as the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham, said. The same problem occurs in other professions and industry as a whole.

Clearly, the high cost of housing is a factor. There is no easy answer to this. But much can be done by good recruitment measures such as seeking to attract former teachers who already live locally and by offering part-time employment. Other incentives, such as help with housing costs, are already being adopted by local education authorities who have discussed these matters with the department and the Teaching as a Career Unit.

The noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee, referred to the position in some parts of London. With regard to Tower Hamlets, I can tell him that of course the Government are concerned if children are not receiving the education to which they are entitled. We welcome the initiatives to recruit teachers which Tower Hamlets Council, soon to take over as the education authority, has announced in its development plan. The Inner London Education Authority, which is currently responsible for provision in Tower Hamlets, has 1,000 unattached teachers. They could be deployed in schools in Tower Hamlets.

As regards Waltham Forest, the Government are aware that the local education authority is trying very hard to recruit teachers. We welcome its endeavours. We hope it will receive all the encouragement locally it needs in its efforts to do better. Recruitment of a teacher is not the end of the matter. Schools and the local authority must make more effort to retain staff by providing continuing support for the classroom teacher and enhancing the attractions of teaching in Waltham Forest.

The Government are not complacent about the problem of teacher shortages. But neither are they defeatist. We know there is a real job to do and we are determined to do it. The action which we have taken so far represents a coherent strategy to tackle teacher shortages. But we have to look not only to remedying present shortages, but also to the anticipation of future shortfalls which might arise unless remedial measures are taken.

Turning now to the future, the prospect of the 1990s is one of increasing primary numbers, up by some 640,000 by the year 2000. Secondary numbers will also be rising from 1991 onwards, although by the year 2000 they will only just have reached the level of secondary pupil numbers in 1988.

The memorandum which the department recently produced for the Education, Science and Arts Select Committee in the other place, spells out the relevant demand and supply factors. I suggest the noble Lord, Lord Peston, has a look at that. The introduction progressively of the national curriculum will alter the balance in the required subject expertise in secondary schools. Demand in individual subjects will depend upon the timing and phasing of the implementation of the national curriculum, particularly in respect of extension to years four and five in secondary schools. But it is already clear that we will need to plan for more provision for modern languages and music and that there will be continued pressure for teachers with subject expertise in technology, maths, physics and chemistry. On the other hand, there will be less demand for teachers in some other subjects such as home economics and physical education.

For the primary sector, most teaching is provided by the general class teachers. To provide primary teachers with the extra subject expertise and support in foundation subjects the Government are supporting in-service training through the LEA Training Grants Scheme and the provision of advisory staff through education support grants.

On the supply side, we shall need to recruit more intensively from other sources of potential teachers in addition to new, young graduates. There is likely to be intense competition for highly qualified manpower as the relevant population of young people falls by about a third over the 1990s.

Perhaps I may now attempt to answer some of the questions which have been raised in this useful and wide-ranging debate. There may be some which can be better answered in a letter, and if that is the case I shall of course undertake to do so.

The noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham, referred to the supply and demand projections for teachers in the department's memorandum to the Select Committee in another place, which I have also just referred to. Let me say first of all that those projections are illustrations only and must be seen as highly uncertain at the moment. The department needs to do much more work on those projections, as further data become available. We have tentatively identified subjects in surplus and deficit. All of these will be subject to reconsideration, including our projected surplus for RE teachers. But the projections have allowed us to identify the subjects likely to be in shortage, and this allows us to plan now to overcome these problems.

The noble Lord also referred to the recruitment incentive in grant-maintained schools. Grant-maintained schools will have an element in their budgets for recruitment. The entrepreneurial drive that has led schools to seek grant-maintained status will help. It will be up to them to make themselves attractive to potential teachers.

On the question of teachers' pay, which I know many of your Lordships have raised, I have to say that the interim advisory committee reported in February. The Government have accepted its recommendations in full. Those recommendations will mean a 6.3 per cent. increase to the teachers' pay bill. This comes on top of an extra £100 million in 1989–1990 due to changes introduced in 1987 and 1988. The pay bill will therefore be 7.5 per cent. higher overall in 1989–1990. The report's recommendations will mean an increase of over 40 per cent. in teachers' pay since March 1986.

The IAC has again endorsed the Government's view that the right criteria for determining pay are recruitment, retention and motivation. The committee found that overall retention of teachers was adequate and that the rate of departure from education was generally low. There is certainly no evidence that teachers are leaving in droves. The new pay structure is now widely accepted. It provides an increasingly flexible base on which to build future pay arrangements. This means for individual teachers that all teachers will get at least 6 per cent. extra in 1989–1990. Heads and deputies will get an extra 7.5 per cent. Most secondary heads will get nearly £2,000 extra, some even more.

Incentive allowance will rise in value by 7 per cent; 27,500 additional incentive allowances will be introduced in September 1989. That is 9,500 above existing plans. Over 20,000 extra teachers can look forward to receiving A allowances this September, giving them increases of at least 12 per cent. Teachers on the top of the main scale who are promoted from a B to a C allowance in September will see their salaries rise this year by nearly 15 per cent.

My noble friend Lady Young was correct to point to the time which, with the introduction of the national curriculum, teachers will need to devote to assessing their pupils. We are conscious of that, but the fact is that teachers assess their pupils now. Much of the new forms of testing will therefore be replacement activity and not an additional burden on teachers.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford asked about the supply of RE teachers. There are sufficient teachers of RE, but not all of them are so deployed to teach the subject. It is a matter for schools to deploy RE teachers sensibly across the school. The existence of qualified teachers of RE in a school represents a resource for the teaching of the subject. Primary school teachers are generalists. It is up to local education authorities to concentrate more resources on in-service training in RE. The Government are supporting expenditure of over £1 million this year on in-service training for RE. Local authorities are adding further expenditure. The plain fact is that they can provide substantial in-service training and they are doing so.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, spoke about the problems of women teachers. The noble Baroness was absolutely right to remind us that women teachers, including those seeking to return to teaching, are a most valuable resource. I agree entirely with her that they should be seen and treated as such. Perhaps I could just mention that out of the speakers in this debate, five have been noble Baronesses.

My noble friend Lord Beloff, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Dormand of Easington, called for the establishment of a general teaching council. The Government are aware of activity which seeks to establish a general teaching council for England and Wales. The Secretary of State and his ministerial colleagues have consistently made it clear that they will consider a specific proposal from others for a GTC that commanded widespread support from, and was likely to serve the interests of, all relevant parties, including parents and employers as well as teachers. I have to tell the House that no such proposal has yet been submitted.

The noble Lord, Lord Dormand, spoke about quality in the proposals for new routes to qualified teacher status. The Government are not in the business of lowering teacher quality. Indeed, under our proposals teacher training will be compulsory according to individual needs. The routes available now, which our proposals will replace, have no such training requirement.

The noble Lord also referred to teacher unemployment 10 years ago and teachers taking early retirement now. He is right. However, secondary pupil numbers fell, and are still falling, and primary pupil numbers fell until 1985. There were too many teachers for the pupils in the schools, and I repeat that the pupil to teacher ratio of 17:1 is now better than ever before.

The noble Baroness, Lady David, asked about the retraining of teachers returning to teaching after being away from the profession for a time. The retraining of returning teachers is the responsibility of local education authorities as employers. The Government support such training through the LEA training grant schemes. So far as concerns licensed teachers, we shall have to await details of training requirements in the draft regulations for licensed teachers. We shall be advising on the content of training for licensed teachers. I expect that grant-maintained schools and CTCs will wish to follow that advice. I cannot say more on that point at the moment.

The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, spoke about the provision being made for nursery education. I remind the House that the proportion of under-fives receiving education rose by some 25 per cent. between 1979 and 1988.

The noble Lord, Lord Peston, asked about my noble friend Lord Elton's report on truancy. I can tell him that that report is due to be published soon. I do not wish to comment in advance of publication. However, I shall send the noble Lord a copy of the report as soon as it is published.

I have already mentioned the question of department statistics and I refer the noble Lord to the DES memorandum to the Select Committee.

What then will the Government do? The Government intend to consolidate, strengthen and develop our present measures to combat teacher shortages. In particular the Government aim to concentrate on four sources of supply other than new, young graduates. First, we shall be encouraging local education authorities to use the training grants scheme to re-train teachers of subjects which are in surplus to become teachers of shortage subjects. That will allow schools and local authorities to employ the existing teacher force to best effect.

Secondly, it has already been demonstrated that teaching is a very attractive career option for mature people either re-entering the labour market or contemplating a career change. For example, the department's campaign in March last year, specifically targeted at potential mature entrants, attracted some 15,000 responses and mature entrants make up some 30 per cent. of all those starting courses of initial teacher training. We aim to build on that undoubted success in attracting mature people.

Thirdly, former serving teachers returning to the profession already make up some 50 per cent. of new teaching appointments each year. That level has been achieved without any specific measures designed to attract back out-of-service teachers. With proper publicity for employment opportunities, good employment practices—such as offering part-time teaching—and support and training measures, we should certainly be able to attract back many more re-entrants to the profession.

Fourthly, the directive adopted by the EC Commission on the mutual recognition of higher education diplomas will allow for a greater mobility of the trained teacher force across the European Community. That will allow employers greater scope to recruit teachers from other countries in the Community. Most obviously teachers from those countries could make a contribution to our need for additional modern language provision, as my noble friend Lady Young said.

Our proposals for the new licensed teacher route to qualified teacher status will help in attracting mature entrants as it clarifies the routes into teaching and helps to ease the path of those seeking to enter the profession. Draft regulations on how the scheme will operate will be issued soon with a view to a start of the scheme in September this year. One other proposal, which the department will be discussing with the interests concerned, may also help in providing more flexible ways of entry into teaching—experimental schemes of school-based training. The idea here is that local education authorities and training institutions would jointly devise schemes which lead after two years to a postgraduate certificate of education but with as much of the training as possible conducted in schools themselves. Trainees would be paid a salary for their contribution to the work of the school rather than a grant. It is hoped that pilot schemes could be started in September 1990.

In sum, the Government are now acting determinedly and positively to tackle present teacher shortages. We also aim to develop our present measures further to ensure that schools have the teachers they need to deliver the national curriculum to their pupils as it is introduced over the 1990s.

5.15 p.m.

Lord Stewart of Fulham

My Lords, I should like to express my gratitude to those noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and to those who have attended it. I hope that the debate has been useful to the Government and that we shall see results—I believe the term is "in due course". I believe that a table ought to be published indicating what is the precise degree of urgency of the phrases "in due course", "shortly", "at the next opportunity" and "not this Session".

The noble Viscount was kind enough to say that I had made a fair approach to the problem. Since I charged the Government with fudging the figures about the possible intake of teachers and described the Secretary of State's attitude to the teaching profession as contemptuous, I am quite prepared to accept the noble Viscount's assessment of the nature of my approach.

I am particularly indebted to those noble Lords who dealt with the problems of primary school teachers, to which I am afraid I did not pay sufficient attention in my original contribution. I am glad to have that omission remedied.

The noble Viscount set out a great many of the schemes, large and small, that have been devised for dealing with teacher shortage. I accept that the Government are now applying their minds to the various problems such as drawing former teachers back into the profession and attracting young people. However, I am afraid that they are still playing Hamlet without the prince.

The noble Viscount depicted the pay settlement in the most glowing terms that the figures allowed. It still remains true that the profession will be competing at great disadvantage with the other occupations trying to get hold of those young people. The Government have not solved that problem.

I also noted that there was no mention—unless my hearing misled me—of restoring the negotiating machinery for teachers. I believe that that is a serious omission and one that the Government must redress.

I thought that the Government's attitude towards the suggested general teaching council was rather poor spirited. The Minister said that so far no-one had produced a scheme which had the degree of agreement that the Government want. There was no suggestion that the Government themselves might try to remedy the deficiency. They do not appear to be taking the initiative in setting up such a council; they seem to be waiting for somebody to put forward a scheme and then pointing out that that scheme is insufficient. I think that the Government ought to do rather better than that. Both the negotiating machinery and the teaching council are essential to the proper development of the professionalism of the teaching profession.

I noted what the Minister said about grant-maintained schools. I must still press my view that whereas I could envisage a local education authority setting up hostels for teachers to meet accommodation difficulties, I do not see how a grant-maintained school, which may be concerned with only one or two teachers, would be able to do that. I do not believe that the Government have considered how far having grant-maintained schools is weakening the opportunities to apply some of the various remedies that have been put forward for alleviating teacher shortage.

My Lords, I must not attempt to recapitulate the whole debate. I see that we are approaching the proper time for it to end and I hope that we have used our time well. I repeat my thanks to those noble Lords who have helped in the debate and beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.