Training courses at risk from Gove's axe
Education secretary halves places for art and business studies
Dozens of teacher training courses are at risk of closure after the Government’s “disastrous” cuts to the number of entry places, experts have warned.
Education secretary Michael Gove this week almost halved the number of secondary art and business studies trainee places, while places on music, RE and PE courses have been cut by one-third.
Courses could “easily” close as a result, leading to teacher shortages in certain subjects, according to the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET).
Mr Gove has increased the number of places on primary courses by almost 1,000 to 19,730, in response to the rising birth rate, but there will be at least 5,000 fewer secondary trainees from this September, down from the 20,000 currently on courses.
The Government’s preference for academic “core” subjects is reflected in this year’s teacher training place allocations. Maths places are unchanged, modern foreign languages are up by 7 per cent, and science and English places are down 11 and 13 per cent respectively.
However, business studies places are down by 45 per cent, art by 40 per cent, music by 31 per cent, RE by 30 per cent, and PE and design and technology by 24 per cent.
While university places are culled, the number of places on the elite Teach First course, which costs almost £20,000 per student, are being doubled.
UCET executive director James Noble Rogers said: “This could easily mean the closure of dozens of courses; many have less than 30 students and some less than 15. Further cuts will make them financially unviable for universities.
“Once closed, it’s very hard to get these courses back, so this could cause problems when the secondaries start to experience the same boom in pupils currently seen at primary schools. We consider this to be a cut in frontline services.”
Subject associations for art and business studies have warned that the cuts could make training “scarcely viable” in some areas of the country.
John Steers, general secretary of the National Society for Education in Art and Design, said: “This will mean courses will close, and the end to much local provision.
“This is pretty disastrous. This is to save a few bob, but it will damage the entire infrastructure.”
Universities may resort to trading places to keep courses going. Huddersfield University has already “given away” its six history trainee places to another institution to boost its business studies numbers to 20.
NUT general secretary Christine Blower said: “This will send us back to the days of boom and bust in teacher supply, which we have actually been able to avoid in the last few years.”
A Department for Education spokesman said: “The number of secondary school pupils is declining and will continue to do so until 2015.
Consequently, the number of secondary teachers required in these subjects is also declining. Our targets will meet the expected demand from schools for new teachers in these subjects.”
BURSARIES - On the scrap heap
Bursaries for teacher training have been scrapped for all subjects except science, languages and maths.
Teachers who train in physics, chemistry, engineering or maths will now receive £9,000.
Those training in biology, combined or general science or modern foreign languages will receive £6,000.
Comment (3)
Quote: 'The Government’s preference for academic “core” subjects is reflected in this year’s teacher training place allocations. Maths places are unchanged, modern foreign languages are up by 7 per cent, and science and English places are down 11 and 13 per cent respectively.'
This is rather misleading. At present we have no word about the future of enhancement programmes, which cover mathematics, physics & chemistry yet all these subjects that have been identified as “vital to the economy”.
Without the Maths Enhancement Courses (MEC's) run at a huge number of universities including UEL, Sussex, St.Mary's, Liverpool Hope, Cumbria, Manchester Met. etc etc there would have been a SERIOUS shortage in mathematics teachers in this country. The same can be said for physics and science.
If Gove cuts these enhancement programmes the country will face a SEVERE SHORTAGE of mathematics, physics & chemestry teachers starting in 18 months time not in 2015.
Quote: “The number of secondary school pupils is declining and will continue to do so until 2015. Consequently, the number of secondary teachers required in these subjects is also declining. Our targets will meet the expected demand from schools for new teachers in these subjects.”
After 2015 the number of secondary school pupils will start to rise again; if you cut the capacity to train new teachers too drastically now, as Gove, is doing you WILL have shortages after 2015. The 2011/12 cohort will have only been teaching for 3 years when numbers start to rise agin; these number changes are a temporary blip rather than a structure change
Gove has made sure that academies & so called 'free' schools can employ unqualified teachers if they wish. As these schools buy-in more & more 'services' from the private sector CHEAP unqualified teachers will look like good ways of cutting cost.
The independent sector is often held up by Gove as a model for the state sector. The independent sector don't HAVE to employ qualified teachers, however over 90% of teachers in HMC schools ARE qualified by having a PGCE and QTS. THEY recognise quality!
Earlier this week Gove told universities to prioritise students with the “best academic qualifications” when awarding postgraduate training places this year. Wake up Mr. Gove in all but the shotage subjects this has been the case for the past 15 years. There is no need to re-state something as a 'demand' if people are already doing it. However, by placing a 2:2 requirement on maths & science which already cannot recruit enough graduates & chooping their golden hello Gove will be making a bad-problem of under recruitment MUCH MUCH WORSE!
I can cite numerous research studies which have found no link between class-of-degree and quality of teacher measured on several scales including Ofsted criteria. Gove cannot name any study which backs up his idea that good degree from good university=good teacher.
What does Ofsted say?
Ofsted has a statutory duty to inspect initial education of teachers for schools and publicly funded training of further education teachers.
2009/10 marked the second year of the current cycle. In total, 151 initial teacher education programmes were inspected, including 41 primary, 45 secondary and 26 further education programmes. These programmes were delivered by 39 higher education institution-led partnerships which mostly offered training in more than one age phase and 22 inspections of school-centred initial teacher training partnerships all but one of which offered training in a single age phase. In addition, 39 employment-based
routes were inspected, of which 23 were linked to a higher education institution and 16 were linked to a school-centred initial teacher training partnership.
KEY FINDING..........''There was more outstanding initial teacher education delivered by higher education-led partnerships than by school-centred initial teacher training partnerships and employment-based routes.''
This is a very recent EVIDENCED BASED look at the state of teacher training by Ofsted who are very critical of schools, colleges, universities when they think they need to be. I presume Gove will ignore this report because it doesn't suit his agenda.
The idea of school & university PARTNERSHIP is a very powerful one. Gove simply cannot match this idea so he has decided to destroy it.
Schools or universities on their own can easily stagnate; there is a lot of evidence that NQT's and trainees bring new skills and knowledge INTO schools. I have no idea where new teaching skills and new teaching knowledge actually fit into the new Gove model; he sees teachers as full of knowledge the day they pick up their good degree from a good university.
The whole idea of an 'Evidenced Based' policy agenda has bypassed the Tory-Con-Dem party. Gove has evidence of the 'success' of the 'Teach First' model but his department are deliberately not going to publish it until next summer, meanwhile he is going to at least double the number of Teach First places available.
Michael Gove is not stupid but he is devious. He is pushing through an agenda of elitism wrapped up as (his version) of 'quality'. If you argue against his elitist agenda you appear to be arguing against 'quality' and therefore appear in the wrong. Very devious tactics and very effective!
Teach First is an expensive route into teaching designed more as an 'outreach programme' than an ITE course. I note that the ConDem's are deliberately not releasing statistical evidence of its 'success' until they have released their plans, next week, to expand it. Anecdotal evidence indicates that only 50% of teachers remain in state school teaching having entered by the Teach First route; by ITE measures of ‘success’ that isn’t very good.
Implying to lay people that PGCE students spend all their time in college and never in schools, Gove is slowly building opposition to ITE provision in Higher Education. In this way he is building his case for his ideas of ITE taking place entirely within schools.
What is really frightening about Gove is the following quote last week: 'They will be abolished for all students other than those training to teach secondary school science, engineering, maths and foreign language subjects, which are highly valued by universities and employers.'
Gove doesn't seem to be even aware that there actually isn't a PGCE or GTP in 'engineering'!!!!!!!
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15:41
4 February, 2011
Brooke Bond
Agree entirely with comments, I do however take issue with the last comment. Engineering is available as a PGCE. It is delved by Nottingham Trent University (http://goo.gl/IqZ2T), Liverpool JMU, Sheffield Hallam University and The University of Sunderland and more information is available at http://www.teachengineering.org.uk/. It is interesting however that if Engineering is important and deserves a £9000 bursary, why have they cut the numbers of trainees for 2011/12?
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23:06
4 February, 2011
paulboyd
paulboyd,
I stand corrected. I wasn't aware of the Engineering PGCE. Thanks for filling in a gap of mine.
The overall Maths PGCE numbers have also been cut for 2011/12 which is also very strange given there has been a shortage of maths teachers every year for the past 30 years..............joined up thinking? I don't think so.
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13:00
7 February, 2011
Brooke Bond