Teaching Quality

Debate between Michael Gove and Nadine Dorries

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I note that the hon. Gentleman did not respond to my point about Richard Cairns not having QTS, and that he did not take the opportunity of returning to the Dispatch Box to apologise for stating things in the House that were not true. We will draw our own conclusions about his reliability as an expert witness.

[Nadine Dorries]

As someone who was educated in the state sector and had the privilege of being able to send some of my children to independent schools at some stages, it has always amazed and upset me that independent school children have had the advantage of a different standard of teaching. I have seen that many teachers in the independent sector have not been formally qualified, but they have brought huge inspiration, expertise and skills from their own field. The children have benefited hugely, as the results show.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Under Labour policy, no state school could poach an outstanding teacher from an independent school. It would put restrictions on getting the best teachers from the independent sector into the state sector, which makes no sense at all.

I know that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central has a passion for independent schools, having attended one, but he says that he also has a passion for what he calls the “forgotten 50%”—those pursuing vocational education. One problem with his policy is that if we were to implement it, we would be going against the Wolf report on vocational education, which his two predecessors accepted. It stated:

“Many schools believe that it is impossible to bring professionals in to demonstrate/teach even part of a course without requiring the presence of…salaried teaching staff”

or qualified teaching status.

“This further reduces the incidence of high quality vocational teaching, delivered to the standards that industries actually require.”

What happened to the forgotten 50% when the hon. Gentleman was coming up with his policy? He forgot about them.

This morning, Professor Alison Wolf appeared in front of the Select Committee on Education and said:

“I would be desperately sorry if the result of this…move”—

by Labour—

“was to actually make it harder, indeed impossible, to get vocational experts into the classrooms to teach their own subject and show their own expertise, because they are the ones who motivate. The fantastic vocational teaching that you see is done by people who have actually worked in the area, can talk to kids and know what is going to happen and know where it is taking them.”

A direct result of the hon. Gentleman’s policy is to knock one of the principal props of Alison Wolf’s report, which is improving the quality of vocational and technical education for the so-called forgotten 50%—and yet he does not care.

The hon. Gentleman should listen to someone who has been Education Secretary and knows exactly the importance of bringing in the maximum amount of talent and what helping working-class children involves. When the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) was on “This Week” in October 2013, he spoke to a musician, Nicola Benedetti, about the importance of securing music teachers who had real talent. He said:

“I think music is a specialist subject. My worry is that many children won’t have the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument. If you find someone who is a great musician but they can’t spend three years getting the proper teaching qualifications, I think you should use them.”

I agree with him.