Training coup bid

THE GENERAL Teaching Council will today make a bid to control the training of university academics in a move which is already meeting widespread resistance in higher education, writes Alison Utley.

The GTC, in its response to the Department for Education and Employment's consultation on teaching standards, says: "The government needs teachers who are committed to being truly professional."

It goes on to propose that within the remit of the GTC, all trainers of teachers in higher education should be required to gain GTC registration and all lecturers should be encouraged to attain registration. "The act should give scope for the GTC to devise the long-term professional requirement for teaching in higher education, incorporating the appropriate professional bodies."

The Association of University Teachers said it was opposed to any GTC involvement in the new lecturers training scheme being devised.

"The GTC will be dominated by schools interests and it would be a great mistake to write in to its legislation any control of the accreditation of lecturers," said Paul Cottrell, assistant general secretary.

That feeling was echoed by Roger King, vice chancellor of Lincolnshire and Humberside University and chair of a vice chancellors working group on teaching and learning. "The accreditation of teaching in higher education must come from institutions themselves, not the GTC," he said.

Professor King stressed that the new Institute for Learning and Teaching, recommended in the Dearing report, was already being developed and its main initial function would be to come up with an accreditation framework.