NUT react to teacher training report

Monday, 8 February 2010 12:00 AM

Commenting on the Children Schools and Families Select Committee report Training of Teachers,Christine Blower General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, the largest teachers' union said;

"It is a pity that the Select Committee should have fallen for the argument that many teachers going into the profession have inadequate prior qualifications and degrees. There is no evidence that young and new teachers are anything other than of extremely high calibre. The high quality of the teaching profession has been confirmed by Ofsted itself.

"We already have the induction year, the purpose of which is to provide the space and support for teachers to develop their professional practise. This does not make them novices and they should not be labelled as such.

"The committee's recommendation that teachers receive a minimum level of ring-fenced spending for their professional development is a very real step forward. The variation in current spending between schools on professional development, between 0.25% to 10-15%, is utterly unacceptable. I look to the Government to translate its recommendations into a financial entitlement for professional development for each and every teacher.

"In the context of the Select Committee's findings about inequitable access to professional development, I find it incomprehensible that they should then propose that every teacher should be subject to a regularly renewable licence to practise.

"Teachers are members of the most accountable profession in England. In fact, they already face an excessive and overlapping number of personal accountabilities. A requirement to have a licence to practise will simply be seen as another unnecessary hurdle to jump on top of everything else they face".

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