28th January 2014 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt has proposed that all state school teachers should be required to have professional teaching qualifications. He criticised the government’s policy of allowing unqualified teachers to work in academies and free schools, and said that under a Labour government only qualified teachers would work in state schools. Under the proposals, teachers would specialise in a particular subject or set of teaching skills, and have more options for professional development. He said that raising standards in schools is the priority of the Labour party, and that education was the key to economic recovery.
Hunt has said that in order to stimulate economic growth, it is necessary to raise teaching standards such that every school has world class teachers. This forms part of Labour’s plan to build what they refer to as a one-nation economy, in which students from state schools are not disadvantaged by being taught by unqualified teachers. He said that it was necessary to develop the teaching profession in a way that would generate a motivated, inspiring and professional workforce. It is only by producing and recruiting high calibre teachers that students would get the education they deserve.
He cited foreign education systems such as those of China and Sweden, where the status of teachers is much higher, and where results are much better than those of the UK. Hunt said that the evidence is clear that good quality teaching rather than obsessing over categorising schools is what is needed to improve children’s education. He accused the current government of lowering standards by allowing unqualified teachers to work in schools on a permanent basis. He proposed that teachers should be licenced in a way that is similar to doctors and lawyers, and that the same qualifications and opportunities should be available to them. The goal, he said, is to make the teaching profession as highly regarded as it should be.