§ Mr. SillarsTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last met the Eduational Institute of Scotland to discuss educational issues; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Michael ForsythMy right hon. Friend and I met representatives of the Educational Institute of Scotland on 28 January when we discussed with them issues of importance for education. The EIS raised a number of points to which my right hon. Friend and I responded as follows:
National Testing. The tests have been drawn up with assistance from serving teachers and are designed to fit with the normal assessments already carried out in most primary schools. They have no pass/fail element; the results will be confidential; schools can select test materials most suited to pupil ability. We urged that the misleading information which the institute had circulated to schools be withdrawn.
286WTeacher Supply. The Government have taken a series of measures to anticipate possible teacher shortages in the years ahead, including national recruitment campaigns with radio and press advertising plus direct contacts with university undergraduates and with schools. A new campaign this year will be aimed at priority subjects in secondary schools. Pay and conditions are obviously relevant to the attractiveness of teaching as a career, but are a matter for local authorities to determine. We support the current review of the role of the teacher in the 1990s. Education authorities and teacher unions have their part to play in supporting and encouraging potential recruits to the teaching force.
5–14 Development Programme. We welcomed the broad support from EIS for the programme. We pointed out that there had been recognition of a 10.8 per cent. increase in the overall assumed costs of education in local authority expenditure for 1991–92. We refuted claims that curriculum development within the programme was assessment dominated. Staff development had been identified as more pressing for some areas of the programme than for others.
Staff Development and Appraisal. National guidelines for staff development and appraisal allowed authorities to tailor their schemes of implementation to suit local needs and circumstances. Appraisal is fully situated within staff development and will play a central role in identifying teachers' professional training needs. Career review is only one of the functions of appraisal, but we were interested to learn that EIS did not exclude evaluation of performance as part of career review. The extra resources being made available to authorities of £2 million and £4 million in the 1991 and 1992 aggregate external finance settlements respectively recognised the new tasks for authorities arising from the guidelines.