ATL

Fast-track folly

ATL general secretary Mary Bousted denounces new government plans for six-month teacher training in the face of the economic downturn

The newspaper headlines were full of it. It was the BBC website's top story. I spent the day rushing from one TV studio to another, or at the end of the phone responding to radio presenters on breakfast, morning and drive-time shows.

The issue? The government's announcement on 10 March that a new programme of initial teacher training was to be developed that would enable 'high fliers' to qualify as teachers after a six-month training course.

No sooner had Labour announced its proposals than the Conservatives decided to go one better. Their policy (newly minted) was to promote a six-week training course for teachers.

It is hard to imagine anything that is more insulting to the teaching profession, or more badly thought through. Before I became general secretary of ATL I worked in university departments of education at York, Edge Hill, and finally at Kingston, where I was head of the school of education. I have trained teachers on primary and secondary, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. I know, from real experience, just how demanding teacher training courses are.

In addition to a heavy burden of academic work that develops subject knowledge and its pedagogic applications, student teachers also follow rigorous school-based training programmes that require them to demonstrate they have what it takes to be a teacher.

And what does it take to be a teacher? A great deal, actually. Teachers take on a huge burden of responsibility. In their hands lies the future of the next generation. The core business of teaching is to promote learning (and that is a complex, demanding business).

The craft of the classroom - planning interesting and engaging lessons; choosing appropriate teaching and learning activities; ensuring the majority of pupils are engaged purposefully for the majority of the time; keeping 'the show on the road' collectively while dealing with the individual issues of the troublesome few; keeping a sense of humour - all these add up to a demanding, often draining, but ultimately rewarding job.

But the process of becoming a teacher cannot be rushed. The standards to be attained are demanding - and rightly so. We have, now (and it must be true because Ofsted says so), the highest ever quality of newly qualified teachers, 80% of whom say that they feel well-prepared for their first year of teaching.

So, why the six-month (or six-week) proposal? The credit crunch is the cause. Something must be done to find work for the financial consultants and bankers who have lost their jobs.

Now, I am not one who wishes 'a plague on the houses' of all bankers. Many of those workers in the financial sector who are now losing their jobs had nothing to do with the creation of toxic debts based on sub-prime mortgage loans. I would be very pleased to welcome these career-switchers into teaching (and into membership of ATL), but they have to be properly trained. They have to prove they have what it takes to survive and prosper in today's schools. And this training cannot be rushed or skimped on.

To understand just how insulting these proposals are to the teaching profession, I ask you to imagine a parallel situation. Thousands of professionals are made redundant in the pharmaceutical industry. The government announces that its policy is to halve the time it takes to train as a doctor in order to redeploy the (undoubtedly) valuable skills of these workers.

Can you imagine the outcry? Can you imagine the headlines? The government would stand accused of endangering the health of the public.

And yet it appears that the professional knowledge and skills of teachers can be acquired in double-quick time (or in six weeks). Unlike patients' health, pupils' education can, it seems, be sacrificed in the cause of the credit crunch.

As I did the rounds of TV and radio studios, I emphasised how rushed and ill-judged these proposals are. The phrase "written on the back of a fag packet" was used more than once.

Politicians of all political persuasions are always ready to pronounce their respect for teachers and their pride in the quality of the profession. Teachers will, however, take such pronouncements with a pinch of salt if plans are put in place to reduce the rigour, and the quality, of initial teacher training.

My 91-year-old mother trained to be a teacher in the 1930s. She went to Sedgley College in Manchester and took a teaching certificate course. She remembers working with pupil teachers who had trained on the job (familiarly called 'sitting next to Nellie').

She remembers the struggle to make teaching an all-graduate profession and to gain, for teachers, the respect of the public, parents and other professionals. She remembers the long struggle to gain an adequate salary to pay teachers properly. The rewards currently earned by the profession have been hard won. We must fight to maintain them.