“EDUCATION, education, education.” New Labour’s mantra for the 1997 General Election is being reprised now in David Cameron’s outline programme for a prospective Conservative administration. Education is prominent on the agenda, and last month the Tory leader promised “urgent action to improve our schools”. The status of the teaching profession would be raised, and schools would have better teachers, if the Conservatives win in May.
A first step would be to tighten up teacher training, a field in which the recently formed Cathedral Group of church universities is involved. Mr Cameron announced: “We would raise the entry requirement for taxpayer-funded primary-school teacher training from a C grade in English and Maths GCSE to a B, and graduates will need at least a 2.2 in their degree in order to qualify for state-funded training.”
Currently, traditional routes into teaching are through three-year undergraduate degrees which include qualified teacher status, or through a one-year postgraduate certificate in education. Officially, undergraduate candidates need a minimum of two A levels and a C grade in Maths and English at GCSE. Although most institutions set more demanding standards, basic entry qualifications for postgraduate courses do not specify the class of degree required. Many older candidates begin training without A levels or degrees but with qualifications regarded as equivalent in vocational or access courses or through foundation degrees.
According to Anna Fazackerley, education director of the Policy Exchange, a centre-right think tank, one third of undergraduates on courses leading to qualified teacher status do not have A levels. And overall, seven per cent of those on postgraduate courses were accepted with third or pass degrees. “Seven per cent doesn’t sound significant, but it represents 2000 teachers,” she says. “Moreover in shortages subjects, the situation is worse: 17 per cent of maths, 16 per cent of IT places, and 11 per cent of science places go to applicants with a third or pass degree.”
She goes on: “I’m not opposed to the acceptance of candidates with equivalent qualifications, but equivalent to what? The reputation of the teaching profession isn’t helped if it’s too easy to get in.”
The Conservative plans drew a generally positive response from the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers, but with some caveats. “They represent a good aspiration, but there has to be room for exceptions,” says the organisation’s executive director, James Noble Rogers. Ms Fazackerley’s figures are technically correct, he admits, but the third of undergraduate entrants without A levels all hold equivalent technical qualifications, such as a BTech, or have successfully completed access courses. Moreover, he says, while 92 per cent of PGCE places already go to students with a 2.2 or higher (59 per cent have a first- or an upper-second-class degree), there’s still room for exceptional cases.
THE 16 universities and university colleges in the Cathedral Group — 14 are Anglican and two Roman Catholic — all started life as teacher-training colleges. Although they have expanded into other fields over the past two decades, they still train thousands of new teachers each year, including one quarter of all primary teachers.
Tim Wheeler, vice chancellor of Chester University, who chairs the Cathedral Group, says they already have higher than basic entry standards for teacher training, recruit well, and will continue to do so.
Two of the cathedral universities, Canterbury Christ Church and Cumbria, remain the biggest providers of primary-school teachers in England. Chester is smaller, but OFSTED inspectors have given all three top marks for the quality of their teacher training.
Almost 90 per cent of the 2500 students on initial teacher-training courses at Cumbria hold the qualifications seen as basic by the Conservatives, says Simon Asquith, a member of the education faculty’s senior management team. So do a majority of the 2900 students at Canterbury Christ Church, reports the Dean of Education, John Moss.
For the most part, what Chester University requires of its applicants exceeds the Tories’ minimum, says Anna Sutton, Dean of Education and Children’s Services. “For our PGCE primary courses, we ask for at least a 2.1 in most subjects.”
Over the past three years, her department has tightened up its admissions procedure. Rigorous interviews include the university’s own tests in maths and English. “We ask: can they do the job?” says Mrs Sutton. “Have they got the subject knowledge? Are they articulate? Have they demonstrated motivation by voluntary work with children?”
Mrs Sutton, like her Cumbria and Christ Church colleagues, hopes that a future government would leave some flexibility in the system. They would be sorry to lose the framework of equivalence between qualifications that has allowed older students from diverse backgrounds to become teachers.
Mr Asquith says: “Academic qualifications are a good indicator of success, but you’ve got to be good with kids as well. If the qualifications were too strictly enforced, we might be forced to fill our places with qualified applicants whom we might otherwise have turned down as lacking the necessary personal attributes.”
Dr Moss agrees. He remembers refusing a place to an applicant with a Ph.D because he knew he wouldn’t cope in a classroom. Moreover, Christ Church offers a startling 30 routes into teaching, each with different entry demands. It is the professional centre for the intensive Teach First programme, which places high-flying graduates in challenging schools. To be accepted for the scheme, candidates have to commit to two years’ work in the classroom. Although about half stay in the profession afterwards, often moving quickly into senior posts, the rest leave for other pastures, at least for a few years.
In contrast, Dr Moss says, the many people coming into teaching at 30 or older know, for the most part, what they want to do and what they don’t. If their first degree was gained ten or more years before, it does not represent the extent of their subject knowledge. They have determination and — the sine qua non — commitment.