Education Bill

I think that on the first part of the premise the noble Lord is absolutely right. Sadly, in this country, we have a back-street culture of not celebrating learning. Some of our language—for example, ““too sharp for his own good””—absolutely illustrates that. I am sure that all Governments of recent years have been trying to overturn that, but we have not yet managed to get it into the culture of the country. I think that I would dispute the issue about marriage in terms of where we are in the 21st century and whether it is absolutely appropriate to push people who may or may not wish to get married to check on their qualifications but I am amused by the intervention. I am very grateful to the Minister for responding at Second Reading to my question about the role of higher education in teacher qualifications, given the emphasis in the Bill on training, rather than teacher education. Our two probing amendments are to draw out more detail on the Government’s thoughts on teacher training, especially that taking place mainly in school. Both the induction year and ITT happen away from the close supervision of a higher education institution and school placement that we know from the more traditional routes of PGCE or BEd. A worry has been expressed that qualified teacher status, which will be the preferred route as funding for PGCE is reduced, as has been highlighted in the HE White Paper, Students at the Heart of the System, might compromise that. In addition, the recent paper Training our Next Generation of Outstanding Teachers recognises the importance of the formal HE qualifications, but also allows that where a trainee works at an undergraduate level towards a bachelor’s degree and QTS it generally attracts lower quality applicants than a PG ITT. Will the Minister clarify that, regardless of entry qualifications or QTS student teachers, the course that they will follow must at the very least be a formal HE qualification to ensure that we protect and hopefully improve the standards of teachers, and therefore—if we believe the example of Finland and South Korea—increase the attainment of students and pupils in the system? The paper says that 11 per cent of trainees choose the QTS route. The TDA website says that entry requirements are three GCSEs and a degree, but that degree can be a foundation degree sitting below a bachelor’s degree. I believe most people would expect a degree to mean a bachelor’s degree as a minimum, preferably an honours degree and many, many teachers moving on towards a postgraduate qualification. I am very supportive of foundation degrees in their own right, but if we are moving towards a teaching profession principally of upper-level bachelor’s degrees as minimum and preferably a postgraduate qualification, a foundation degree is not where we should be aspiring for proper HE qualifications. Additionally, the White Paper on teaching training talks about ““providers”” and it is this terminology that has caused us to lay down our probing Amendment 76A. It is essential that we protect the quality of teacher training and the evidence already shows that the quality of teaching and learning for teacher training is of a higher standard than that found in our schools. I therefore ask the Minister to clarify whether the training for trainee teachers will be provided by higher education institutions under the regulation of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education within its constituent subject benchmark statements. Amendment 77, the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, also supports the case made in our two probing amendments. The issues with special educational needs that today’s teachers need to understand are complex and high level and I believe that they must be taught at a degree level. Accordingly, I beg to move Amendment 76ZB.