David Cameron's plans for school teachers.David Cameron's latest announcement of a "brazenly elitist" approach to teaching standards is a spectacular "Golden Collection" of snobbery, incompetence and misconceptions all in one.
The plan says that under a Conservative administration, no one with less than a 2:2 degree would be granted taxpayer’s money for postgraduate teacher training.
While that may make some sense, the bad bit is this: only maths and science graduates from the 25 best universities who go into teaching will have their loans written off - a scheme that would automatically rule out graduates from most former polytechnics.
Now, scratch beneath the headlines of "noble profession", "elevate the status of teaching in our country" and "best brains" - who would disagree with that - and you can see why Cameron's Etonian Grand Plan contains more holes than Swiss cheese. In succession:
1) the shallow, outdated, misled, based-on-nothing assumption that a 'good degree' is what makes you a good professional;
2) the total lack of a correlation between a good grade obtained when you are 20,21 or 22 and the ability to inspire interest and passion amongst pupils for the rest of your career;
3) the frankly vile discrimination against bright and inspired graduates who did not have the financial means (read: wealthy family) to attend one of the 'Top 25' universities in the country;
4) the effect that this could have on former polys - officially, literally, relegated to proper 'inferior' status - with the knock-on effect this will have on hundreds of thousands of degrees.
This is the crucial bit: the Tories are not saying that don't want to deter people not capable of teaching, whether they be from university or polytechnic -which would be commendable. They are saying that this will exclusively apply to people from former polytechnics.
The plan says that under a Conservative administration, no one with less than a 2:2 degree would be granted taxpayer’s money for postgraduate teacher training.
While that may make some sense, the bad bit is this: only maths and science graduates from the 25 best universities who go into teaching will have their loans written off - a scheme that would automatically rule out graduates from most former polytechnics.
Now, scratch beneath the headlines of "noble profession", "elevate the status of teaching in our country" and "best brains" - who would disagree with that - and you can see why Cameron's Etonian Grand Plan contains more holes than Swiss cheese. In succession:
1) the shallow, outdated, misled, based-on-nothing assumption that a 'good degree' is what makes you a good professional;
2) the total lack of a correlation between a good grade obtained when you are 20,21 or 22 and the ability to inspire interest and passion amongst pupils for the rest of your career;
3) the frankly vile discrimination against bright and inspired graduates who did not have the financial means (read: wealthy family) to attend one of the 'Top 25' universities in the country;
4) the effect that this could have on former polys - officially, literally, relegated to proper 'inferior' status - with the knock-on effect this will have on hundreds of thousands of degrees.
This is the crucial bit: the Tories are not saying that don't want to deter people not capable of teaching, whether they be from university or polytechnic -which would be commendable. They are saying that this will exclusively apply to people from former polytechnics.
8 comments:
Claude, I must say one bonus of the election approach is that at long bloody last D-Cam is having to actually talk policy and is making a horrible mess of it, stumbling from one bad idea to the next and trotting out some real Tory tripe.
They may still win but at least they are giving us some material to attack on.
If teaching needs to be addressed, then it is who is allowed to train to be a primary teacher, like my cousin. She is in a class full of people who got Ds in their GCSEs. She said they can't spell, they can't multiply or divide. The thought of such people teaching my future children scares the shit out of me!
Yes, did you also hear him saying that people from banking backgrounds should be fasttracked?
Because they've made such a roaring success of having their previous careers and being in charge of things.
the shallow, outdated, misled, based-on-nothing assumption that a 'good degree' is what makes you a good professional;
True true no problems of this sort in the private sector and they do much better. In any case if a 2.2 is supposed to be an elite then so is finding your arse with both hands .
The true goal of the Conservative Party is to break the grip of the teaching Unions whch depend on the fear amongst most teachers that they could not hack it in the real world .
Yes Newmania, because top managers, stockbrokers and bankers would hack it in the real world...
It's people like you holding teachers in contempt that are partly to blame for the low esteem teachers are held in today.
the total lack of a correlation between a good grade obtained when you are 20,21 or 22 and the ability to inspire interest and passion amongst pupils for the rest of your career;
We have been trying to recruit teachers for decades on the basis of inspiration, passion and being interesting.
Perhaps it is time we at least considered the possibility that children might do better if we recruited people who knew their subject instead?
Sorry OldAndrew, but I remember several 'high-flyer' teachers, those with degrees in their teaching subject (they were fairly unusual in my school). They were all pretty useless. Teaching is more than just the knowledge, it is a craft, and you need to learn that craft, and preferably have it as a vocation. And for all my teachers lack of specialism in a particular dgree subject, they did successfully teach us up to A-level, because they were good, committed teachers.
I'm not short of anecdotal evidence for academic highflyers who can't teach and teachers with poor degrees who can. But these anecdotes usually involve comparing experienced teachers with inexperienced ones because, of course, the better qualified are better able to get out of teaching and experience is even more important than qualifications.
But try comparing new teachers with each other and try looking at results rather than the mere impression of good teaching and the anecdotes quickly go the other way. It is at its most noticeable with A-level classes where the class who are smarter than their teacher and know it is a common phenomenum.
That said, there is a bigger issue here, what do we want teachers to do? If the point of a teacher is to explain an academic discipline then academic ability is very, very important (even for teaching weaker students). If the point of teaching is to entertain, baby-sit or to be a substitute parent or social worker then maybe it is less important. Perhaps that is the real reason for disagreement.
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