Govt policy 'won't deliver better teachers'
By politics.co.uk ttaff
Current government policies will fail to deliver better teachers, a centre-right think tank has warned.
A new report published by Reform this morning suggests that unless a series of quangos and regulations are scrapped the quality of teaching cannot improve.
"Michael Gove and his team have a priceless opportunity to raise standards because so few English state schools make effective efforts to improve the quality of the teaching staff," said Dale Bassett, research director at Reform.
"They can learn from the successful schools which take responsibility themselves and avoid the advice given by the expensive national agencies.
"Ministers need to remove this bureaucracy if schools are to find the zeal for improving teaching that is so badly needed."
The report praises the government for its plans to bring new teachers into the profession, including by expanding Teach First and academies.
But ahead of this month's white paper on education, the think tank suggested restricting Ofsted's role to monitoring the quality of teaching and management, bringing to an end government attempts to control the quality of the teachers themselves.
National pay and conditions should be scrapped, according to the group, so that head teachers have full control over salaries and staff numbers.
