Teacher Training Curricula (Hansard, 17 July 1997)

§ The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Baroness Blackstone)
My Lords, as our White Paper, Excellence in Schools, made clear, improving the skills of our new primary teachers in English and mathematics is critical to raising pupil achievement in the key areas of literacy and numeracy and achieving our literacy and numeracy targets. All initial training providers will be required to introduce the new training curricula for all courses from September 1998. I am delighted that a number of major providers have committed themselves to introducing the curricula from this September. Their experiences will set a standard of best practice for the system.

§ Lord Quirk
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Would she agree that any curriculum is only as good as its delivery, both by those responsible for teaching it and to those who are going to be? And, if so, which body will she be charging with the task of monitoring the ability and willingness of teacher trainers to instruct their trainees, the future teachers, in these new curricula?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, yes, of course, I agree that, if it is to be effective, the curriculum will depend on the way in which it is delivered, who delivers it and how well it is delivered. We have already written to institutions making clear the new requirements that they must meet, and we shall issue a formal departmental circular confirming those requirements.
All training provision will continue to be subject to rigorous inspection by Ofsted, which will ensure that providers meet the new requirements. The White Paper makes clear that firm action will be taken where provision fails to meet the new standards.

§ Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, as the poor quality of much of our initial teaching training over the past 30 years or so starts to be generally recognised by the public, would the Government reconsider the proposal to allow mothers, whose children have grown up but who in their day achieved good degrees or good 1081 A-levels, to teach in our schools, perhaps after the very briefest of teacher training courses outwith the existing teacher training institutions?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, the noble Lord suggests that the quality of teacher training has been inadequate for a long time. I must remind your Lordships' House that the noble Lord's party was in government for 18 years and perhaps took rather a long time to rectify some of those problems. The new Government are doing so immediately.
The noble Lord asked a question about the training of mothers who wish to return or take up a job in teaching. It is just as important that women, even if experienced as mothers, should receive proper training to be teachers as it is for any young person who wishes to join the profession.

§ Lord Parry
My Lords, will my noble friend accept that there are two further dimensions in relation to the question asked by the noble Lord opposite? First, some of the best and most experienced teachers in the land have been bought early out of service in order to solve financial problems which have existed over a number of years. They now provide a pool of people who might well come into service in giving voluntary assistance with, for example, reading problems. But it is highly dangerous to suggest that we might inject into our professional teaching service a group of people who are not subject to the controls and disciplines which exist in the rest of the system.

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, I share my noble friend's regret that qualified and experienced teachers have been forced into early retirement in some parts of the country as a result of shortage of funding.
As regards the second part of my noble friend's question, it would be extremely desirable if some of those teachers were available to be recruited back into the profession; and if they are not available, that they might do some voluntary work. But of course it is important that all teachers in our schools are trained properly for the job in hand.

§ Lord Pilkington of Oxenford
My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness's reply and much in the Government's initiatives. However, perhaps I may underline the worries expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Quirk, about how those matters will be implemented. Is the noble Baroness prepared to come back to the House in two years' time to report on how successful those initiatives have been? The Ofsted inspections may not be sufficient and may need to be considered in greater detail.

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, would like to table either a Starred Question or an Unstarred Question or, indeed, a Motion for debate, of course, we should be delighted to answer him.

§ Lord Pilkington of Oxenford
My Lords, I admire the elegance of the noble Baroness in many ways, but 1082 this is a serious question which the Minister should be prepared to answer. Surely the Minister is prepared to report on an initiative.

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, I have just given what I hoped was a helpful answer. I said that if the noble Lord wishes at any time to raise the matter of how successful is initial teacher training for primary teachers, particularly with respect to the preparation of teaching English and mathematics, the Government will be delighted to provide all the information that they have available.

§ Lord Quirk
My Lords, in view of the lengthy article in the Scotsman recently, deploring, to my utter surprise, the present standard of school teaching north of the Border, has she considered commending the new teacher training procedures to her right honourable friend Mr. Dewar?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, as the noble Lord acknowledges, teacher training is the responsibility of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. I shall ask him to write to the noble Lord about the arrangements. However, I am sure that he would permit me to say that, while we do not always go about things in the same way north and south of the Border, there is absolutely no difference in our commitment to raising standards in education.