Tristram Hunt
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(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House endorses the view that in state funded schools teachers should be qualified or working towards qualified teacher status while they are teaching.
In moving this motion, the Opposition call on the Government to uphold the highest standards in our schools. We are delighted that the Deputy Prime Minister—if not his Schools Minister, as we never quite know on whose side he is talking—appears finally to have accepted the Labour party’s position on ensuring qualified teacher status within our schools. As if we needed any further proof of the importance of this point, events at the Secretary of State’s Al-Madinah free school in Derby—where the teaching was inadequate, the school dysfunctional and the care of those with special educational needs a disgrace—proved that right.
This afternoon I shall set out the importance of having a professionally qualified teacher work force; the role that this work force play in allowing children in our schools to reach their full potential; and to urge the Liberal Democrats to rediscover their progressive credentials. I hope to do so succinctly, Mr Speaker, so that many of my colleagues can contribute.
Andrew Percy
Yes, and one with qualified teacher status—unlike, perhaps, some others.
May I press the shadow Secretary of State on that issue of qualified teacher status? I taught at a time when we had a Labour Government and, at that time, we saw a massive increase in the number of unqualified teachers, a massive increase in the number of instructors, and a massive increase in the number of teaching assistants taking classes when planning and preparation time was introduced. What has changed the hon. Gentleman’s mind?
Tristram Hunt
Today we are focusing on the future. Under future Labour Governments, we will have qualified teachers in our classrooms. I find it extraordinary that Government Members do not want the best-qualified, best-trained teacher work force in the world.
In 2010, when the British people lent the Prime Minister their trust and he used to talk about things like the big society, the Government believed in having a motivated, professional teacher cohort. At that time, the Prime Minister rightly said that
“the most important thing that will determine”
whether children succeed at school
“is not their background, or the curricula, or the type of school, or the amount of funding. It’s who the teacher is.”
Sadly, since then the Secretary of State has focused entirely on curricula, school structure and reducing funding, and has done little to support the skills and capacities of our teachers.
Tristram Hunt
I should be delighted to give way to my hon. Friend the. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman).
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Before my hon. Friend gives way to a Government Member, may I remind him that in the past a Labour Government went out of their way to secure talented teachers from a much broader background? They introduced all sorts of ways of getting into teaching that were innovative and good, and I saw real changes in our teaching force as a result. We did some very good things, and they did not lead to the employment of unqualified teachers..
Tristram Hunt
My hon. Friend has made the crucial point that Teach First was a Labour innovation. We believe in innovation, but we also believe in some basic standards in our schools.
The Secretary of State used to praise teaching standards in Finland, South Korea and Singapore, saying:
“In all those countries teaching is a high prestige profession.”
How would the Government ensure that it remained so?
“By making it difficult to become a teacher.”
But what has the Secretary of State done in office? He has done everything possible to make it as easy as possible to assume control of a classroom. He has undermined the profession, sought to remove teacher training from universities, and adopted a policy of wholesale deregulation. That has led to a 141% increase in the number of unqualified teachers in free schools and academies. The surprising truth is that under this Government, people need more qualifications to get a job in a burger bar than to teach in an English school. While I salute the efforts of restaurant chains to improve the skills of their work forces, I should like history teachers, as well as hamburger restaurant managers, to have some basic qualifications.
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is, in my opinion at least, a fine historian. He will recall that when he was at school he was taught by a very fine teacher, Terry Morris, who was the head of the history department. Will he tell the House whether Mr Morris was a qualified teacher, or simply an inspiration?
Tristram Hunt
The great thing about qualified teachers is that they can be both qualified and an inspiration. [Interruption.] I know that the Conservative party is developing something of an obsession with me, so let me say that if Conservative Members want to invite me to a special session of the 1922 Committee to talk about my past and history, I shall be more than willing to take up their invitation.
Why does the Labour party believe in having qualified teachers in our classrooms? The Secretary of State’s 2010 White Paper put it best:
“The first and most important lesson is that no education system can be better than the quality of its teachers. The most successful countries…are those where teaching has the highest status as a profession’’.
In Finland, the world’s highest-performing education system, teacher education is led by universities, and all teachers are qualified to Master’s level. In Singapore, all teachers are fully trained and have annual training entitlements. The most effective way in which to improve our children’s education is to boost the quality, elevate the standing, and raise the standards of our teaching profession. We need to train teachers up, not talk them down.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has just alluded to the very point that I wanted to make. The Secretary of State thinks that it is okay for us to have unqualified teachers, but also lauds the Finnish system, under which the minimum retirement for a teacher is to be a qualified professional with a Master’s degree.
Tristram Hunt
That is exactly the difference between the parties. We believe in professionalisation rather than deregulation. We believe in going up the value chain rather than deskilling. The point is simple: good teachers change lives. They engender aspiration, curiosity, self-improvement and a hunger for knowledge. It is teaching that awakens the passion for learning that a prosperous society and a vibrant economy so desperately need. The Secretary of State should heed the words of Andreas Schleicher of the OECD, who has argued for teaching to be elevated
“to a profession of high-level knowledge workers, who work autonomously and contribute to the profession within a collaborative culture.”
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I hope that the whole debate will affirm the importance of teachers, qualified teachers, and the teaching profession. The hon. Gentleman is new to his post and fairly new to Parliament, but can he confirm first that under Labour an Act was passed which allowed unqualified teachers to work in schools set up by Labour, and secondly that there are fewer unqualified teachers in our schools now than when Labour was in government?
Tristram Hunt
Last year, the Liberal Democrats had a chance in the other place to support qualified teacher status. We have now heard the Deputy Prime Minister say that they believe in it. The only answer that interests me now is whether Liberal Democrat Front Benchers will vote for their values this afternoon.
The use of the word “profession” is important here, because we take a different view from the Government. We believe that teaching is more than a craft. Personally, I am full of admiration for craftsmen and craftswomen—I represent Stoke-on-Trent, where, according to J.B. Priestley, the greatest craftsmen and craftswomen, the master potters, lived—but we think that teachers need to know about more than just classroom technique. Teachers need to know how children develop, how subject knowledge can be adapted for children of different ages and how pupils with special needs can be supported, and they need an understanding of the latest research on learning.
I applaud the Government’s focus on ensuring that teachers have good subject knowledge, but—as you well know, Mr Speaker—they also need the attributes that will secure discipline and authority in the classroom and produce a safe learning environment. Those are the qualities that qualified teacher status can help to provide, and they can ensure even higher standards and happier school days for young people. That is certainly the view of the chief inspector of schools. Last year, Sir Michael Wilshaw, the man who had been hand-picked by the Education Secretary to head Ofsted, told the Education Committee:
“I would expect all the teachers in my school to have qualified teacher status.”
We all know experts in their field whom we would not trust with the teaching of our children. The hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) is a not unoriginal scholar of the Plantagenets, but I am not sure that he could deliver a history course for six-year-olds. The hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) has a background in aviation, but I would not necessarily trust him with year 7. A great mind might produce a great teacher, but a common standard of training is far more likely to ensure that that is the case most of the time—and that is why the motion is in favour of delivering a qualified teaching profession all the time.
Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
I think I am right in saying that my hon. Friend took part in the Teach First initiative this year. I did, and I hope that I was able to give something to the young people with whom I spent an hour. They certainly gave a great deal to me. However, what I learnt most from were the skills that the teacher displayed in the classroom, and the ability of that teacher to connect with all the children. Is that not why the debate is so important?
Tristram Hunt
My hon. Friend makes a brilliant point: that pedagogy, as well as subject knowledge, is absolutely essential. It seems bizarre that we simply do not want the best-skilled teachers possible.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
First, may I reassure the hon. Gentleman that I do not have an obsession with him? I speak as someone who also has a PGCE to my name on top of my degree, but please do not confuse being qualified and being able to teach pupils with bits of paper. I have seen plenty of excellent teachers without PGCEs and some pretty poor ones with, and I think the hon. Gentleman is getting the two rather mixed up.
Tristram Hunt
This is about reducing the risk in the teaching system. This is about making sure we go up the value chain in terms of qualifications and teacher capacity.
As it has been raised, let me deal with the issue of non-qualified teachers in the private sector. First, figures from the Independent Schools Council show that 90% of those teaching in such schools have a teaching qualification and over 70% have qualified teacher status. Secondly, if head teachers in the private sector wish to employ teachers without QTS, that is their decision. But a Labour Government will demand a minimum standard of QTS for those teaching within the state system. As Secretary of State for Education, I am not going to allow for the deregulatory free-for-all which produces the likes of Al-Madinah.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Has the hon. Gentleman made any assessment of the quality of the teachers we are talking about here, who will be sacked after two years? There are fewer than there were when his party left office, we have a tightened-up the Ofsted regulation regime, and there is no place to hide on data and exam results, so I put it to him that a head teacher would employ a non-QTS teacher today only if they were above-average and were delivering a brilliant service to children in the classroom.
Tristram Hunt
When those teachers get into school, we want them to train up for QTS. This is simply about going up the improvement chain. It seems to me entirely uncontroversial.
Let me also stress that our plans do not affect the artists, the actor, the footballer, builder, business man or, dare I say it, historian—missing the more incisive quality of debate which a year 5 can provide—who comes into a class to inspire young people about their subjects. For those teachers holding that enormous responsibility for the learning outcomes of young people, however, we would expect, like Sir Michael Wilshaw, a minimum baseline qualification.
So let me return to the core of this motion: how do we deliver improvements in our schools system and close the attainment gap? The answer is great teaching. Part of that is strong leadership; part of that is the innovation that comes from Labour’s Teach First policy; part of that is autonomy; but it is also about further professional development: about stretching our teachers, about learning to improve at every turn.
Achieving QTS is not the whole answer. It does not in itself, as the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) said, guarantee excellence. As the Secretary of State well knows, passing a driving test does not mean that all new drivers will avoid accidents, but this is not a reason to remove the requirement to pass a test. Removing the expectation of QTS means we endanger the status of the teaching profession at a time when we need to raise the status of teaching if we are to succeed in what the Prime Minister calls the global race. The countries with the most successful education systems are going up the value chain, not deskilling. They are raising the status of teaching, not opening the door to our classrooms to anyone who just wants to have a go.
We have brought this motion to the House because the Labour party is passionate about education. From the earliest days of Robert Owen and the co-operative movement, from our history in the mechanics institutes and the mutual improvement societies, from the Workers Educational Association to the trade union movement, academic and vocational excellence is engrained in the Labour movement’s DNA. So too with the Liberals: stretching back to the Forster Education Act, or the role of education in that positive vision of freedom enunciated by T. H. Green and L. T. Hobhouse, or John Maynard Keynes’s ambition for post-war cultural enrichment, social mobility and progress has been part of the Liberal creed. While the Tory Party supported King and class, our parties are parties of the word—of a belief in the liberating potential of education—which is why it is so depressing to see a once-progressive party sign up to this narrow vision of education: of deregulation, of dumbing-down and a lack of ambition for our schools.
Great teachers broaden horizons, motivate students, and help young people achieve their potential. It is time for the Liberal Democrats to show the parents, pupils and teachers of this country whose side they are on and to vote for their values this afternoon. In the Labour party, we have made our choice: professionalism not deregulation; a qualified teacher in every classroom. I commend this motion to the House.
Michael Gove
In a second.
The difference between Liberal Democrat and Conservative policy, however, is not as big as the difference between those on the Labour Benches. In particular, I mean the difference between the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central on one side and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central on the other. We all know that the hon. Gentleman is a distinguished historian of the civil war, and he knows all about a body politic being racked by internal division. What a pity that it is his body politic that is being so racked.
Let us listen to the cavalier Tristram, talking to Conservative-supporting The Mail on Sunday. He said:
“What I am saying is if you want to do that”—
that is, set up a free school—
“when we are in government we will be on your side. There has been this perception that we would not be, and I want people to be absolutely clear that we are…putting rocket boosters on getting behind parents and social entrepreneurs…We are not going…back”—
no turning back—
“to the old days of the local authority running all the schools—they will not be in charge.”
Three cheers for the cavalier.
Then the puritan—the roundhead—Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central suddenly popped up a few hours later on the BBC talking about the free schools that he had been lauding just a few hours earlier. He said that
“you have…a system which allows…irregularities”
and
“allegations…because there’s no oversight there.”
He said that it was a “dangerous ideological experiment”, yet only a few hours before, it was an ideological experiment with which he had fallen in love. One of the flaws in this ideological experiment, he said—
Michael Gove
In a second—[Hon. Members: “Give way.”] No, I think that the House is enjoying this section of my speech. I will conclude it in just a moment.
The hon. Gentleman said:
“We are not going to go back to the old days of the local authority…they will not be in charge”,
but then on Thursday he said that the problem with free schools was that local education authorities had no role in monitoring those schools. Within four days there has been a complete U-turn, a reversal, as the civil war in the Labour party between those who believe in excellence and those who believe in the unions is embodied in one man. In four days there has been one U-turn and no answers. I am very happy to give way now.
Tristram Hunt
I am delighted that the Secretary of State has finally given way. Let me be clear that the difference between our policy and that of the Government is that we believe in social enterprise and innovation but also believe in having qualified teachers in the classroom and systems of financial accountability and transparency, so that we do not end up with the chaos that we saw at Al-Madinah and Bradford. Let me go back to his earlier point, however. When did the division in the coalition between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives on qualified teacher status first emerge? Can he talk us through the history?
Mr Stuart
I agree with my hon. Friend. The shadow Secretary of State has come into post at exactly the same time as his party has lurched to the left, and he has inherited this policy. I put it to him, as someone who has taught in schools as a non-QTS teacher, who benefited from non-QTS teachers as a pupil and who has suggested in recent days that he might send his children to schools that have inspiring non-QTS teachers in place, that his heart really is not in this.
Tristram Hunt
There is a world of difference between an external speaker coming into a school to explain history, politics or geography and someone in charge of the learning outcomes of an entire class. I would have thought that the Chair of the Education Committee knew that.
Mr Stuart
The hon. Gentleman would not answer questions about the teacher who taught and inspired him, but he was more than just a visiting lecturer.
My children attend an independent school and have non-QTS teachers. I want to ensure that every school can access people who can inspire pupils within a system of accountability. If the shadow Secretary of State told me, “We’ve carried out an assessment and got the evidence, which shows that some head teachers are taking on unqualified teachers just to save money and sticking them in classrooms with low-ability children, which is letting them down”, I would be the first to congratulate him. I would say, “Yes, let’s look at the right policy response, but let’s not sack top teachers who happen to be non-QTS teachers if we can possibly help it.”
I would even accept the hon. Gentleman’s argument if he could show me, on any kind of evidence base, that widespread numbers of non-QTS teachers are letting down our kids. I put it to him, who has been in post for a matter of days, that there is no such evidence base. On the contrary, the evidence base shows that non-QTS teachers in state schools in some of our toughest neighbourhoods are inspirational. There are often teachers who have left the independent sector, where he went, where I went and where my children go, in order to try to make a contribution in state schools in challenging circumstances. Under the Opposition’s policy, if those people do not put themselves through the many hours required to pass QTS, they will be sacked. That is absolutely wrong. He should not deny the consequences of his policy: it will lead to the removal of outstanding teachers from state school classrooms. It will almost certainly see them turning up in independent schools, where they are needed least, rather than most. That is the central flaw in his argument, and I think that he sees it.
It is early days in the hon. Gentleman’s new post. I suggest that he has inherited a dreadful policy that is entirely against what he and I believe, which is that we should be transforming education for everyone in this country, and most of all for those from poorer homes who too often have been left behind.
Pat Glass
I am not going to give way any more because there is so little time.
The history of Labour in office and unqualified teachers shows that in the vast majority of cases, great non-QTS teachers went on to become qualified through the licensed or the classic routes. Government Members say that free schools and academies are now free to employ teachers who have a master’s degree or a doctorate, and is that not a good thing? I am not altogether sure about that. I have a master of science degree, but a working knowledge of maths and statistics does not make me a teacher. Without a bachelor of education degree I would not have the skills and knowledge to understand child development, the science of teaching and learning, how children learn, and classroom management and managing behaviour, or to identify the needs of children with special educational needs and how to meet them. I would not know about differentiation, delivering a programme of study across a range of abilities, or assessment—that is, knowing what a child can and cannot do, and what they need to do next. Important as those things are, I would also not have the credibility and trust of my professional colleagues, of parents, or, more importantly, of young people themselves. Pupils know very quickly who is qualified and who is not, and who is experienced and who is not, and that affects their behaviour and how they learn in the classroom.
The problem with this Government is that they think anybody can teach. I know from experience that as soon as we move away from the classroom it looks really easy, but it is not. Teachers are people who stand up in front of classrooms every day and deliver great lessons. I do not pretend to be a teacher in terms of that definition. Being qualified does not make a great teacher; it takes more than that. [Interruption.] I am glad that Government Members agree with me. As has been said, this is not necessarily about the qualification of teachers. Every teacher does not have to be qualified to deliver a great lesson, but surely good qualification is the basis of a state-run system. [Interruption.] Having anything else leaves our children open to—[Interruption.] Does my hon. Friend want to intervene?
Kevin Brennan
I will make a little progress first because of time, but I might take an intervention later.
There are not many Liberal Democrat colleagues here, but I welcome those who have turned up. Being asked, as I understand they have been, not to support the Opposition motion—one hon. Gentleman said he was not going to support it—is not good for their health. It must drive them to distraction to be asked to perform such feats of intellectual and political contortion of believing one thing and voting for another just to save the blushes of the Tory Secretary of State for Education. He is not in his place for the winding-up speeches, despite taking half an hour of our time earlier on.
The Secretary of State is happy to trash, on a daily basis, the Liberal Democrats’ fundamental principles and beliefs on education policy, yet they have to turn up to bail him out. There can be no more tortured example of that than the Minister for Schools himself, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws). [Interruption.] I welcome the compassion from Opposition Members. The week before last he came before this House and stoutly and enthusiastically defended the policy of allowing non-qualified teachers to teach in our taxpayer-funded schools. In fact, he spoke with such passion and conviction that I understand from press reports that some of his Conservative colleagues in the coalition actually believe he meant what he said—they took him at his word. He is shaking his head, but I read it in a newspaper.
Then, the Minister’s right hon. Friend, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, let it be known that he disagreed with his other right hon. Friend, the Deputy Prime Minister. I know they bear a striking resemblance to each other, but they must surely be two different people. When the Schools Minister heard what his leader had said, he had a slight problem. Did he, in fact, still agree with himself on whether teachers should be qualified? Last week in Westminster Hall and in the Education Committee, we got an answer of sorts: he had agreed with himself all along; when he came to the House he was not telling us what he believed, but what his Tory Secretary of State boss believed. Some months earlier, we were told, the Schools Minister had proposed a motion to the Liberal Democrat conference—[Interruption.]—I welcome the Secretary of State back to the debate, and I apologise for mentioning him in his absence—but when we checked this, it turned out he had not proposed a motion at all, although he claimed he was involved in its drafting.
I know that the Schools Minister is a very, very clever man. He has a first-class degree from the university of Cambridge.
Kevin Brennan
As my hon. Friend reminds me, and as the Schools Minister insisted on reminding us in Westminster Hall last week, he has a double first from the university of Cambridge. But what I had not realised until now was that having a double first meant he was so clever he could hold two completely opposite beliefs in the same brain at the same time. [Laughter.]