Closure on cards for 100s of PGCE courses
Those with just a few students are ‘potentially unviable’
More than 300 PGCE courses are at risk of closure after civil servants decided they are “potentially unviable”, universities have been told.
Academics say they have serious concerns about the decision by the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) that could lead to courses with small numbers of students being shut. The identified courses, which all have a maximum of 10 places, could be dropped from 2013, raising fears that expertise will be lost and that parts of England will be left without training provision in some subjects.
Education secretary Michael Gove has cut the overall number of places on secondary PGCE courses because of falling pupil numbers and the policy of schools taking on a greater role in training new teachers. This has led to at least 332 courses being allocated 10 places or fewer, particularly in subjects that do not form part of the English Baccalaureate, such as music, art and design and technology. In future, only school-based courses will be allowed to run with small numbers, universities were told in guidance distributed by the TDA.
Some smaller courses “have been identified as potentially unviable due to their small size”, according to the agency. The “re-engineering” of allocations means there is “no guarantee” universities will be allocated places in small cohorts from 2013-14 onwards.
“Whilst we have allocated places at this level for 2012-13, we do not see this as a sustainable position in the long term as the current pressures of falling secondary targets and concentration of provision in school-led provision will intensify,” the guidance states.
TDA officials believe universities will make “independent assessments of their own position and consider their participation in their current spread of subjects in 2012-13”. “We anticipate a period of volatility in allocations as providers make these decisions,” the guidance says.
The average size of a secondary PGCE course has been falling - it was between 23 and 25 places in 2000-01, but will drop to below 14 this year. The TDA confirmed that the future of some larger courses may also be reviewed.
James Noble Rogers, executive director of the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers, said putting courses under threat of closure was “destabilising” and was a “big concern” after cuts to allocations this year. “Those who run courses ought to make the decision about whether they are viable or not,” he said. “Some subjects complement each other, so running them with small numbers is not a big problem.”
Peter Tymms, head of the school of education at Durham University, said he was “very worried” about the low quotas given to his secondary PGCE courses in history, music, PE and RE. “I know of other universities that have single-figure quotas for all courses across the board,” he said. “Once you lose the expertise to run these courses, it’s difficult to get it back.”
The number of places allocated to design and technology courses has fallen by 34 per cent since 2010-11. Andy Mitchell, assistant chief executive of the Design and Technology Association, said teachers felt this was a “major cull” that could not be explained purely by demographics.
“Cuts have been made exclusively in higher education. We estimate around 20 universities have been allocated fewer than 10 places for design and technology PGCEs,” Mr Mitchell said. “If courses close, it breaks up a community of people responsible for research and developing the curriculum.”
Pam Tatlow, chief executive of the Million+ group of post-1992 universities, has written to Mr Gove and universities minister David Willetts to highlight the organisation’s “serious concerns”. Ms Tatlow said current teacher training policy from the government was “worryingly ad hoc” and “is seriously undermining the capacity of universities to plan strategically”.
A spokesman for the TDA said it would work with universities to determine which smaller courses should survive. “The identification of smaller cohorts is not an automatic signal that these places will necessarily disappear next year, rather that these are the obvious cohorts to be reviewed,” he said.
“When one considers the reduction in cohort sizes over the past few years and looks at the future of initial teacher training, we must consider alternative processes in allocating places to safeguard quality.”
SMALL CHANGE
34,585 - Number of PGCE and undergraduate teacher training places for 2012/13
5.6% - Cut to teacher training places for 2012/13 compared with 2011/12
92 - Number of universities offering PGCE courses in the UK
2,000 - Approximate number of students taught on courses with 10 or fewer places.
Original headline: Closure is on the cards for hundreds of PGCE courses
Comment (6)
Lie number one.............Quote: 'Education secretary Michael Gove has cut the overall number of places on secondary PGCE courses because of falling pupil numbers and the policy of schools taking on a greater role in training new teachers.'
Gove is cutting overall number of places on secondary PGCE courses for purely IDEOLOGICAL REASONS. Yes there are falling pupil numbers but this isn't reflected in his overall ITT numbers which remain basically constant. He is simply moving teacher training provision out of universities.
I take it Kerra Maddern is simply feeding Tory PR press releases directly into the TES without actually checking what Gove has written.
Kerra seems happy to help Gove carry on destroying Initial Teacher Training in universities, but could well do with examining EVIDENCE and remembering what Ofsted said one year ago.
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 is deliberately choosing 'second best' & 'third best' methods of training teachers in this country ahead of the 'first best' method of schools & universities in PARTNERSHIP.
Somebody needs to challenge this in terms of value-for-money; if ever there was waste taking place THIS agenda of Goves is it!
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14:31
20 January, 2012
Brooke Bond
Additional points:
1. The loss in PGCE places since May 2010 when Gove broke into his office (remember he wasn't elected!) is in the order of 33% overall. The TDA and Gove have tried to cover this up by quoting reductions in smaller time periods and deliberatly adding together PGCE & GTP numbers.
2. The overall Maths PGCE numbers were cut for 2011/12 have also been cut again for 2012/13 which is also very strange given there has been a shortage of maths teachers every year for the past 30 years while I have been a teacher! How short sighted is Gove?
3. In the next couple of years we will see a slight dip in secondary numbers but 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 when he isn't in office. These number changes are a temporary blip rather than a structure change
4. 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. I think we all know where this is going!
5. 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; why doesn't Gove?
6.Teaching is far more than just learning a craft, it is about personal development; evidence shows that, to quote Ofsted: ''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.'' It isn't a school verses university argument as Gove presents it is a choice between a school/HEI partnership & a school on it's own; if you have a limited view of the teaching profession I can see the school-only model looks inviting. But how does a profession develop? Ask doctors; would you want to be operated on by one doctor who'd met a couple of doctors & they'd shown him one-way to do your operation? Or do you prefer being operated on by professionals who have been mentored by small numbers of doctors but also developed by exposure to ideas from the whole profession? THINK about it.
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14:49
20 January, 2012
Brooke Bond
Every now & then it is good to look at Gove the man. It is worthwhile seeing & listing his many gaffs. Surely his many cock-ups will leave Dave red-faced one too many times soon.................then we can get back to educating kids.
By any objective measure of ministerial ineptitude, the Education Secretary would come out near the top. On 11 February 2011, in a long line of "bad news" linked to the coalition's education reforms, Gove was defeated in the high court over his decision to scrap part of England's school-building programme, and his failure to consult on it. It is worth quoting from the stinging verdict of Mr Justice Holman: "In my view, the way in which the Secretary of State abruptly stopped the projects . . . without any prior consultation . . . must be characterised as being so unfair as to amount to an abuse of power." Yes, "abuse of power". Strong stuff.
Only last week Gove was caught trying to spend £60 million of public money on a new Yacht for the richest woman in the Western Hemisphere. When school budgets are being slashed, teachers made redundent and school building programmes stopped most parents will be wondering how Gove came even to suggest this idea! The Tory PR machine went into overdrive trying to turn the bit about 'public money' into 'private money' despite the letter from Gove clearly indicating it was 'public money'! In addition the Gove bible project was exposed by the newspapers last week as a rather unfunny 'joke'; an embarrassing idea that never got off the ground.
Gove continues to exert a huge influence on Cameron. The Education Secretary, a dyed-in-the-wool neocon hawk on foreign policy and all things Islam-related, was a key driver behind the Prime Minister's recent speech on extremism - though I have yet to understand how his enthusiasm for faith schools fits with a passion for "muscular liberalism" and ending "state multiculturalism". Maybe Gove could explain that one day!
For now, Gove is Teflon. His membership of the Cameron inner circle, makes him untouchable; so does his fawning constituency in the media - he is a former Times columnist and former tea-boy on Radio 4 Today programme..
In the words of one seasoned observer, he is the "golden boy" of Cameron's cabinet. Gove, however, has the reverse Midas touch: everything he touches turns to dust.
Consider his record at the Education Department since May 2010. To begin with, he claimed more than 1,000 schools had applied for academy status; it then emerged that only 153 had done so. Under cross-examination by his then Labour shadow, Ed Balls, he was forced to apologise repeatedly in the Commons after giving MPs incorrect information about which school rebuilding projects were to be axed.
In October 2010, he caused an outcry when he announced that he would no longer fund School Sport Partnerships, only to do a U-turn in December. He announced the axing of a £13m annual grant for free books that benefits 3.3 million youngsters a year, only to perform another U-turn over Christmas 2010, amid accusations of "cultural vandalism".
Despite his gift of the gab, Gove has a habit of making gaffes. In a Commons debate on 19 January, he told MPs that it "would be wise" for people in Hull to vote Liberal Democrat - and not Conservative - in the May local elections.
“He is not as clever as he thinks he is," a cabinet colleague said, adding: "But he does have the ability to make the absurd sound intelligent." Gove aspires to be, in the words of the ultra-conservative historian and author Andrew Roberts, "the most radical education secretary since Shirley Williams". (Gove has turned to Roberts for advice on the history curriculum.)
"There is a contradiction at the heart of the Tories' policy on education," according to the former shadow education secretary, Andy Burnham. "They talk about freedom and autonomy for schools and parents but their approach is more top-down and prescriptive than ours ever was."
The Education Secretary, in Whitehall, decides on the status and funding levels of academies and "free schools". Gove's English Baccalaureate takes choice away from students by specifying a narrow range of GCSE subjects that will qualify them for the award. The Education Bill granted the Secretary of State more than 50 new powers. So much for people power and the "big society". Gove is power mad!
I could mention the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) fiasco but what is the point? In opposition, Gove made an explicit pledge: "Ed Balls keeps saying that we are committed to scrapping the EMA. I have never said this. We won't." Gove has since scrapped the allowance - Burnham received legal advice suggesting that the earlier pledge may have given rise to a "legitimate expectation" by students that these payments would continue. Those students who are set to lose their EMA midway through a two-year course could have a legal case against Gove.
Cameron, however, values loyalty and protects his friends. But he also sees himself as the "heir to Blair". The former Labour prime minister was willing to cut his friend and confidant Peter Mandelson loose in the second year of his government, in 1998. Would Cameron ever do the same with Gove?
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15:02
20 January, 2012
Brooke Bond
I agree with all of the above and especially point 3, when the shortfall of teachers is realised in a couple of years Michael Gove if he is still there which i doubt will look like a real 'plonker'.
We have seen it all before and it could all go horrible wrong.
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20:48
20 January, 2012
benedict16
Could isn't the word. It 'is' going horribly wrong.
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16:12
21 January, 2012
Brooke Bond
The problem is that Gove (nor anyone else put in charge of schools either minister or shadow minister) doesnt understand how teaching actually works. look at the previous professions of the minister in charge of education
Journalist
Economist
Career politician
Economist
Career politician
we have to go back to 2002 for the last person in charge of teachers who understood teaching. Ridiculous!
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8:35
23 January, 2012
sjg25