Curriculum wars

What would a Labour government do with initial teacher training? Well, probably bring in a national curriculum for a start, says Michael Barber.

Last week the Government announced that it had asked the Teacher Training Agency to prepare a national curriculum for initial teacher training. Gillian Shephard described this as "the biggest-ever shake-up of teacher training." Given the imminence of a general election, the announcement demands consideration of the question: what should Labour do? Should it oppose the plan or build on it? And how will it fit with Labour's overall school improvement strategy?

In part, the announcement can be seen as electoral posturing. It is clearly one of a series of education announcements which will run through at brief intervals until an election is called. But it is also an indication of something deeper and more significant.

After ten years of unrelenting educational reform, both the major political parties are increasingly conscious of the need to rethink the teaching profession itself. A combination of pressure for higher standards, changes in the use of technology and para-professional support and growing concern about teacher supply will ensure that this remains a high priority for the forseeable future.

Labour's immediate response to Gillian Shephard's announcement was to counter-attack. "They have taken 17 years to come up with proposals on what is taught in teacher training colleges. Most people will be amazed that there is not already a core curriculum," says David Blunkett. He also pointed out, with some justification, that Mrs Shephard's renewed interest in initial teacher education followed his own suggestion, at the National Association of Headteachers conference in May, that initial teacher education needed an "urgent rethink".

On that occasion he argued: "Teachers must be taught more about how to manage a class, including how to teach a whole class . . . Teaching the basics from the start must be the overriding goal . . . We need to review the amount of time that trainee teachers spend on acquiring these core skills."

It must therefore be anticipated that Labour, if it is elected, will want to proceed with the introduction of a national curriculum for initial teacher education, along the lines Mr Blunkett has described. Even within the teacher education sector where, after all the recent criticism, there is some sensitivity, few would dispute the need to seek improvement in these crucial areas.

The extent to which the present state of affairs is satisfactory is a matter of dispute. Perhaps the most positive picture emerges from the perceptive and thorough Economic and Social Research Ccouncil-funded modes of teacher education project led by Geoff Whitty. That report showed that, for example, 82.5 per cent of students believed that, at the end of training, they were well or adequately prepared to teach reading. Among headteachers, 81.5 per cent believed their new teachers were well or adequately prepared to teach reading.

This evidence suggests that the more lurid rightwing critiques are wide of the mark, but nevertheless it provides no grounds for complacency, especially as it deals with perceptions rather than pupil outcomes. Evidence from elsewhere suggests there is room to do significantly better. In New Zealand, for example, where the teaching of reading is better than in the United Kingdom, trainee teachers spend twice as long on learning to teach reading as their counterparts here. Whether this makes a convincing case for proceeding with a new curriculum depends on its nature.

Mr Blunkett - unlike his Tory counterparts - has consistently emphasised his commitment to partnership between schools and higher education in initial teacher education. Labour would therefore presumably aim to develop a national curriculum for teacher education which inspires both sides of the partnership.

At the moment, the evidence suggests that the headteachers would enthusiastically welcome a renewed attempt through regulation to emphasise the basic skills in teacher training. Those on the higher education side of the partnership are likely to be less enthusiastic. Higher education institutions have, after all, only just implemented the Government's 1993 regulations on the content of primary teacher education. They can be forgiven for believing, therefore, that the Government itself bears substantial responsiblity for the present state of affairs.

Furthermore, teacher educators have been given little or no credit for the fact that a broadly positive picture of their current efforts emerged from the recent round of Ofsted inspections.

Certainly, much of the criticism levelled at initial teacher training has been based on outdated or misconceived notions of what takes place. If sensitivity among teacher educators is understandable, instinctive defence of the status quo is less so. After all, when the regulations now in force were introduced they were opposed as an unnecessary imposition. They hardly form, therefore, the basis of a principled defence.

Mr Blunkett ought to be able to develop a new vision of the higher education contribution to teacher education which meets his central objectives of raising standards, especially in the basics in primary schools (and most especially in disadvantaged areas), and simultaneously gives teacher educators and their partners faith in their future.

This would involve first of all recognising that in order to give greater emphasis to the basics in initial teacher training he would also need to relax the course criteria in other areas. The problem, in other words, with the present criteria is their failure to prioritise.

Second, an incoming Labour government would need to recognise that however good a one-year Postgraduate Certificate in Education is, it can never be enough. Part of the problem with the initial teacher training debate is that it revolves around trying to fit the many elements of good teacher preparation into an impossibly short time.

Labour ought to consider introducing a new, more structured, induction at the end of which Qualified Teacher Status would be awarded to those who meet the criteria. The abolition of induction in 1993 was based on the misconception that someone's fitness to join the profession was synonymous with a particular school's willingness to employ that person. This is clearly not the case, especially in a time of budget stringency. Mr Blunkett acknowledged this at the National Association for Head Teachers conference. "Labour will consider the introduction of a new induction year - during which clear monitoring would take place. QTS would be given only after the first year of teaching had been satisfactorily completed."

Third, Labour could greatly enhance higher education's contribution to both initial teacher training and education more generally by setting out a convincing strategic view of how education research might evolve and make a major contribution to a national crusade for standards.

Speaking at the Institute of Education in 1995, Tony Blair pointed to the centrality of research.

"[Our] leadership should be on the basis of partnership with all parts of the education system . . . And partnership should extend to the research community so that we root education policy in research fact, not political prejudice."

This is an important indication that a change of climate can be expected if Labour is elected. The pressure for change and the drive for standards would remain intense - necessarily so - but if teacher education researchers demonstrated a readiness to sign up to the crusade, a creative and fruitful partership could emerge. Labour's plans need to be seen in this wider context.

Michael Barber is professor of education at the Institute of Education, University of London. His book, The Learning Game: Arguments for an Education Revolution, will be published by Gollancz next month.