The following article was published in 2008. I’ve republished it now because:

• Although specific references have dated, such as the document mentioned, the National Strategies and the official agencies involved, the crux of the arguments still stand.

• It advocates online learning, which indicates how scarce it was back then (else why would I mention it?)

• It’s a decent rant, and I like a good rant!

Enjoy!

A new document from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (the precursor to the Department for Education) sets out the agenda for a Masters requirement for new teachers. I think this is to be welcomed, but I do have some misgivings.

The document in question is Being the best for our children: releasing talent for teaching and learning (link now defunct). One of the reasons I welcome this is that it raises the stakes a bit. I for one am heartily sick of people thinking that anyone can teach just because it involves, as they see it, standing in front of a class of kids and spouting forth. That perception is not confined to the intellectually-challenged: I met a doctor last week who thinks that teaching is an ideal profession for anyone recovering from a stress-related illness, because all you have to do is stand in front of a class and talk. If you actually had to have a Masters degree in order to do that, such people might think again (although somehow I doubt it).

I also think that the people who govern teaching entry requirements (which I believe to be the DCSF rather than the Training and Development Agency for Schools) need to wake up and smell the coffee. I am thinking in particular of the ICT test that would-be teachers have to take in order to achieve qualified teacher status. Its boring, old-fashioned, minimalistic and irrelevant -- well, I suppose being able to send an email or create a presentation is not completely irrelevant, but if the average intelligent person cannot pick those skills up in 5 minutes with a friend looking over their shoulder then they shouldn't be in teaching anyway.

So, whilst the DCSF is considering the Masters, it should take the opportunity to carry out a shake-up of teaching qualifications at all levels, such as by working with the universities to ensure that undertaking a course in, say, being an ICT co-ordinator, or carrying out some (mentored) classroom research, or simply doing the job gets you credit that you can use towards a higher qualification (in the last case it would be in the form of accreditation for prior learning, or APL). Such ideas have been mooted before -- Mirandanet has discussed such a scheme with Naace -- and it seems to me that the time is right for an integrated and ambitious approach like this.

Getting back to the document, a welcome commitment is making funding available to enable schools to release core people, including the Headteacher, for training. In my experience over recent years, it has become increasingly unlikely for schools to release teachers to attend in-service development courses, and one of the reasons is (perceived?) lack of funding.

I do have a couple of misgivings. One is that online courses are not mentioned. Perhaps that is because the document sets out the broad ideas rather than the details. I did a Masters part-time from 1984 to 1986 and it's hard-going to attend sessions after a day's work, and to do all the reading. And I was obliged to attend only once a week, whereas others had to attend twice a week. Being able to do some of the work in your own time, or even to be able to take part in seminars at a fixed time without having to leave home would be most welcome. In addition, there is no reason that lectures should not be recorded as podcasts or video podcasts in this day and age.

Another is the statement that the National Strategies will remain the key delivery mechanism for raising standards in the core subjects of English, mathematics and science by providing free professional development in these areas. Well, there is no doubting that some of the resources they have produced are excellent, but my experience of their training days is such that if the average teacher were to adopt their methods with an inspector in the room, they'd fail -- unless death by PowerPoint is now a benchmark of success. Not the whole of every training day I attended was like that, and I suppose I would grudgingly say in their defence that they had a lot of stuff to get through. But even so....

More importantly, it is axiomatic that whenever an organisation is given other people's (ie the taxpayers) money to provide something free of charge to another group of people (in this case teachers) the result is never as good as if they had to compete with other providers on an equal basis. Free market competition will always be better than state-sponsored monopoly, except perhaps where there is an equalities issue. Surely a much better approach would be to give schools a shed-load of money that they have to spend on training, whilst at the same time setting stringent standards for any companies wishing to be recognised as training providers, and then let the market sort it out? It worked well with the previous Ofsted inspection framework, in which small companies could offer their services on an equal footing with the big companies as long as they met the criteria. And yes, I do have a vested interest in saying this: small companies like mine have much to offer in areas like this, but large-scale State subsidisation skews the market.

One final thing: if the government is serious about this then they should insist that every Masters course for teachers includes a non-trivial module in educational ICT that teachers have to pass. An announcement to that effect would in itself send out a powerful message to latter-day Luddites who should not be allowed within a mile of any educational establishment.