15th February 2010 9:00
By Blue Tutors
The Commons education select committee has raised concerns regarding the entry level requirements for teachers in the UK, the BBC has reported. The MPs believe that the bar must be raised across the board, and are worried that some new teachers don’t have any A-levels and/or only passed their degree (the MPs believe that at least a lower second at degree level must be achieved).
The committee have said that all new teachers should have a firm grounding in literacy, numeracy and ICT skills, and while all students have to pass tests in these courses at the end of a teacher training course, MPs say that it should be made an entry requirement, and that the tests should be harder.
The report also calls for teachers to require a ‘licence to practise’, which would have to be regularly renewed, in an attempt to identify teachers who are performing poorly.
The recommendations were generally welcomed by teaching organisations, and there is a feeling that the standards of teaching should always be pushed to encourage improvement. However, there was a warning about raising the entry level requirements for teachers, because many new teachers are those who have changed careers, and are not graduates, and it’s claimed that these teachers bring more to the profession than their qualifications.