§ Mr. Jim CunninghamTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans she has to ensure that teaching assistants receive adequate ongoing training throughout their careers. [57290]
§ Mr. TimmsInduction training was introduced for newly-recruited teaching assistants in 2000, funded by the DfES. National Vocational Qualifications, based on the new National Occupational Standards for Teaching Assistants, are expected to be in place later this year. Training opportunities are being considered as part of wider work on the development of new roles and career structures for teaching assistants and other school support staff, which will be the subject of consultation later this year.
§ Mr. Jim CunninghamTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans she has to introduce a career structure for teaching assistants. [57287]
§ Mr. TimmsI refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) on 29 April 2002,Official Report, columns 579–80W.
§ Mr. Jim CunninghamTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps she has taken to encourage more people to enter into a career as a teaching assistant. [57288]
§ Mr. TimmsA working party involving representatives of teachers and support staff, the local government employers and other Government bodies, is currently 279W considering the roles, responsibilities and career development of teaching assistants and other school support staff. Proposals for improving career structures for support staff will he published in a consultation paper later this year. Provisional figures for January 2002 show that the number of teaching assistants in maintained schools is 103,624, an increase of 61 per cent. since 1998, and that the Government's target for increasing the number of school support staff by 20,000 in this Parliament was exceeded by 6,000, four years early.
§ Mr. Jim CunninghamTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when she expects the School Workforce Remodelling Working Party to report. [57289]
§ Mr. TimmsThe School Workforce Remodelling Working Party was not set up to work towards a report. Rather, it was established last December so that key stakeholders could meet to consider issues raised by the Secretary of State in her Social Market Foundation pamphlet—"Professionalism and Trust".
The Working Party's debates have been wide-ranging, from the future deployment of teaching assistants through to reforms to teachers' contracts to deal with workload issues and the status of the teaching profession. The Working Party will shortly be debating the report on teacher workload from the School Teachers' Review Body which we published on 8 May.