Qualified Teachers

David Ward Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Yes, those are important skills, but they are not the only skills that one needs to be able to impart knowledge.

We all have examples of inspirational teachers who have made a difference to our lives. Mine is my fourth-year junior school teacher, Mrs Chapman, at Staples Road county primary. She was an inspiration and I am still in touch with her. However, there are other inspirational people who have shaped our lives, given us an alternative perspective, encouraged us to aim higher or showed us a world that we never knew existed. Those people have something to offer to our education system.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

How would the hon. Gentleman feel if he turned up at the airport and was told that they did not have a qualified pilot, but they had somebody who was passionate about flying and was really quite good at it?

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Many of the teachers who do not have qualified teacher status are the most outstanding teachers around. It is for schools, head teachers and Ofsted—those who are in the know—to assess the individuals about whom we are talking. They should not be disqualified just because they do not have the relevant piece of paper. We exclude those people at our peril.

Do not get me wrong: QTS is an important and valuable qualification that most teachers should have achieved or be striving for. We are trying to free schools from the burden of bureaucracy. As I said, the best person to assess who is the right person to be teaching in their school and delivering an education that best meets the local needs is the head teacher. We need to move away from command and control from the centre. That should include the opportunity of involving excellent teachers who do not have QTS.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

This debate is about freedoms, and the wider context is that the Deputy Prime Minister has referred to teachers other than qualified teachers. The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the Chair of the Education Committee, who has left the Chamber, spoke of the need for evidence. The Committee has received no evidence in support of free schools or academies—it does not exist, although experts have been to see the Committee. That greater freedoms necessarily lead to improved performance is an ideological belief, but the evidence does not currently exist.

The Secretary of State is relaxed about the freedom to have unqualified teachers in classrooms, but other freedoms that have been extended to free schools and academies could have much more serious consequences. An internal audit investigation team at the Kings science academy has shown how far that can go. The school is free to have unqualified teachers, but it is also free to appoint a principal with no real management or leadership experience, let alone qualifications. It is free to have unqualified teachers, but it is also free to access £460,000 to pay for temporary accommodation in a former independent school, of which the principal’s father was a trustee. No wonder the school is happy about employing non-qualified teachers. The principal was also free to employ his mother, his sister and his father. I do not know whether they teach, but they were employed without any interviews or applications being required.

Yes we should trust head teachers, but should we trust them to that extent? Should we trust them to take on suppliers and contractors with no contracts and no procurement process, to fabricate—that is a euphemism—and make out false invoices? Should they be free to do that? Should they be free to access £10 million of Government funding to refurbish a derelict mill owned by the vice-chairman of the Conservative party? It costs about £5 a square foot for warehousing in a mill in Bradford, but that property company, owned by the vice-chairman of the Tory party, is getting £300,000 a year for leasing that building for 20 years, after which the building will revert to the property company. Should head teachers be free to defraud the Department for Education and HMRC by false claims about pupil numbers, about rent paid to a property company owned—surprise, surprise—by the vice-chairman of the Conservative party, and about tax payments?

The issue is the culture that is in place. That principal was in a situation in which the normal rules do not apply. We are told that there are mechanisms and checks in place to deal with such problems, but when the chaotic and dysfunctional governance arrangements were highlighted, guess who was responsible for dealing with disciplinary action? We are told in a press release from the Department:

“Any necessary disciplinary action is a matter for the school.”

I do not trust it to deal with the problems and sort them out.

The main problem with this whole policy—I opposed academies under Labour and I oppose academies and free schools under this lot—is that the criteria for success are not about raising educational attainment. The criterion for the success of this policy is how many academies and free schools there are. It is claimed that it is a success because there are so many. So when an application is made, the due diligence that we would expect, and that we have a right to insist upon in terms of public accountability, flies out of the window.

The Deputy Prime Minister is right: children have a right to be taught by a qualified teacher. But there are other rights. As taxpayers, we have a right to robust and rigorous due diligence before these schools are opened. This is not about freedom; it is about the privilege of being exempt from public accountability—these are freedoms too far.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

On the understanding that he will speak for two minutes, I call Chris Williamson.