YOUR headline (“Fast-track teaching scheme condemned by academics “, The Herald, October 28) will hardly come as a surprise to anyone observing Scottish education at this time. Our universities appear to me to have formed a cartel which is now allowing them to bulwark their monopoly of teacher education in Scotland. I suggest that by attempting to blow out the candle of Teach First they certainly do nothing to make their own flame glow brighter.
I am not necessarily supporting the model of training promoted by Teach First, although I applaud its passion, innovation and courage to follow a different path in the ultra-conservative world of education.
However, I feel that your disclosure of the whole conflict which is now emerging highlights a fundamental issue about how we prepare adults to teach. I find it difficult to convince myself that someone requires to have attended a university and have gained a degree to teach young children a poem called, for example, The Big Red Bus.
I believe that such a requirement for university graduates only came about because for a period of time teacher recruitment was in a “buyers’ market” combined with the penchant Scotland has for academic snobbery, thus allowing the stipulation to emerge as our teacher training colleges were axed. Many who would have been previously considered gifted and potentially great teachers were shut out.
The current system which our universities seem to prize as the sole way to maintain high professional standards is revealed as deeply flawed when we regularly witness the OECD results being published.
It is almost a year ago in fact that Scotland recorded the worst-ever performance in a survey carried out by the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa). Even John Swinney said at the time that the results “ made uncomfortable reading”.
Teach First may not be the messianic answer to Scotland's teacher recruitment problems but something very fundamental has to change. I consider the teacher entry requirements set out by the General Teaching Council in Scotland (GTCS) have become somewhat over-egged. We should be looking firstly for the right quality of people and not restricting ourselves to those with the highest academic qualifications. The Latin maxim “Docendo Discimus”, meaning by teaching we learn, has had effective and truthful meaning for centuries.
Bill Brown,
46 Breadie Drive, Milngavie.
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