Teaching plans mean more costs

Vice-chancellors have criticised government plans to erode university control of teacher training by directly funding the thousands of training partnerships between schools and universities, writes Phil Baty.

In a joint response to the government's green paper on the future of the teaching profession, Meeting the Challenge of Change, the Committee of Vice-chancellors and Principals and the Standing Conference of Principals warned that "funding partnerships directly would not constitute a more effective use of public funds".

In the joint consultation paper, the CVCP and SCOP said: "Higher education institutions have developed considerable expertise in managing and developing partnership arrangements with schools. Higher education also provides a vital infrastructure of learning materials, libraries, computing facilities etc, to underpin partnerships."

It warned that direct funding of the partnerships would "result in a further loss of economies of scale with existing HEI management arrangements having to be replicated in more than 2,000 partnerships."

The paper recommended that all partnerships should establish joint management or steering committees, also recommended by the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers. Such committees would agree funding allocations and student placements.

The paper welcomed plans to introduce more flexible routes into teaching, with modular postgraduate qualifications and the introduction of teacher-training units in other undergraduate degrees.

In a further blow to the Teacher Training Agency, which has faced calls for its disbandment, the CVCP and SCOP said that the new General Teaching Council "should become the strategic forum for the future development of teacher education and training at all levels."

The CVCP and SCOP mounted a robust defence of higher education's lead role in teacher training provision in the face of growing school-based vocational provision.

"The building of learning communities demands much more of the teacher than a narrow concept of training can provide," the paper said. "It demands increased emphasis on creativity and high-order thinking."