James (1972)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Membership, Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 The third cycle
Chapter 3 The second cycle
Chapter 4 The first cycle
Chapter 5 Organisation and development of the system
Chapter 6 Summary of the report
A note of extension

Appendix 1 ATOs and other bodies supplying reports
Appendix 2 Sources of written evidence
Appendix 3 Sources of oral evidence
Appendix 4 Visits made by members of the Committee
Appendix 5 Training institutions and the teaching force 1962-70
Appendix 6 Examples of course structure for the DipHE
Appendix 7 A possible distribution of Regional Councils
Appendix 8 Training institutions: size and status
Appendix 9 List of recommendations

Index

Report by a Committee of Inquiry appointed by the Secretary of State for Education and Science, under the Chairmanship of Lord James of Rusholme

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1972
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Chapter 1 Introduction
[pages 1 - 4]

1.1 This report describes the reform in the education and training of teachers which we wish to recommend. Its argument for fundamental change is not based upon any false assumption that the present system has, in some total sense, failed or is in imminent danger of doing so. On the contrary, the history of the colleges of education, whether LEA or voluntary, and of the departments of education, in the past 20 years of expansion and adaptation and the widely acknowledged achievements of the schools into which young teachers have taken their knowledge and skills demonstrate how much has already been achieved. Nevertheless, there is abundant evidence that the system is no longer adequate to its purposes. That inadequacy arises from an over-dependence upon initial training, as distinct from continued education and training, and from an unhelpful distinction between two kinds of training, one route for graduates and another for non-graduates. Changes must be made if the needs of the schools and of society over the next 20 years are to be met, and the system cannot be expected to reform itself as rapidly and as fundamentally as the situation requires. What is needed is firm action following the publication of such a report as this, initiated by government and carried through by all branches of the teaching profession, by institutions of higher education and by the LEAs.

Principles of the report

1.2 Two principles have governed the thinking from which our proposals are derived, both of which are, of course, subservient to the axiom that the interests of the children and students in schools and colleges take priority over those of institutions or even of the teaching profession itself. First, proposals should be capable of speedy implementation and should relate to the immediate future, since it would be unrealistic in the extreme to attempt to construct a system capable of lasting indefinitely. The best that we could hope to do would be to ensure that the proposed arrangements offered a framework for growth and development aver perhaps the next 20 or 25 years, sufficiently flexible to accommodate the changes which will inevitably take place in that time. Secondly, the proposals should reflect and help to enhance the status and independence of the teaching profession and of the institutions in which many teachers are educated and trained. For too long the teaching profession has been denied a proper degree of responsibility for its own professional affairs. For too long, the colleges of education have been treated as junior partners in the system of higher education. It is hoped that the implementation of this report would do much to encourage both the profession and the colleges to move forward to a new degree of independence and self-determination. The application of these principles has led all of us to a solution which depends more upon the better use of resources already committed than upon a diversion of additional resources from other desirable objectives in social and educational policy.

Background of the report

1.3 Before the decision to set up this Inquiry, concern about the education and training of teachers had led to a study of the question by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education and Science under the chairmanship of the Rt Hon FT Willey MP, which received and published extensive evidence from the teacher training world - invaluable evidence immediately available from the beginning of our study. Moreover, in response to a request made in February 1970 by the former Secretary of State for Education and Science, the Rt Hon Edward Short MP, the area training organisations had been conducting detailed reviews of their current procedures. The results of these reviews have become available during the course of this Inquiry and have provided a mass of statistical and factual information and informed comment for which we are very much indebted to all those who helped to complete that formidable task. (Appendix 1 lists the area training organisations and other bodies whose reviews were received). The availability of this wealth of material produced by the Select Committee and the ATOs made it possible to invite this Committee of Inquiry to complete its task within twelve months.

1.4 In addition to studying all this material, we have received and studied some 500 separate submissions of written evidence from individuals, associations and institutions and have devoted 23 working days to hearing oral evidence from individuals and representative bodies. We have visited some 50 institutions (colleges of education, universities, polytechnics and other establishments) at which we had the opportunity to talk to large numbers of staff and students. Appendices 2, 3 and 4 list the sources of written and oral evidence submitted to the Inquiry, and the institutions visited. Meetings of the Committee have filled about 50 complete working days. The Inquiry, although short term, has been intensive.

1.5 The purpose of this report is to offer specific recommendations which could be implemented speedily. It has been deliberately kept as short as is consistent with the need to develop its argument. The report does not include the statistical and factual information already available in the reports of the Select Committee and the ATOs. Nor has it been thought necessary, or appropriate in a short report, to include a lengthy historical survey of the years since the McNair Report. It is, however, necessary to recall briefly the most important of the developments of the past decade which have immediately influenced our thinking about the future.

1.6 Ten years ago the colleges of education had just embarked upon the extension of the normal teacher training course from two years to three. Throughout the 1960s there was a persistent and severe shortage of teachers and the colleges and other training institutions were therefore under continuing pressure, not only to develop new courses and assume new responsibilities, but to do so while simultaneously responding to the demands of a massive expansion of numbers. Their successes and the results achieved by training institutions and by all the agencies concerned with sustaining and running them, not least the voluntary bodies, are matters of history which are sometimes too easily forgotten. (Appendix 5 gives an indication of the size of the achievement.)

1.7 The last decade has also seen the publication of the Robbins Report, stimulating further the demand for higher education, and the expansion and diversification of the higher education system. There has been an unprecedented growth and development of new and existing universities, including the foundation of the Open University. The concept of a binary system of higher education has emerged together with the establishment and growth of the polytechnics as major institutions in the public sector. The institution and rapid advance of the CNAA as a degree-granting body outside the universities is proving to be a development of great significance. The DipAD has been introduced as a nationally recognised graduate qualification in art and design. The establishment of the Industrial Training Boards has laid new demands on a further education system which was already dealing with a large expansion of student numbers.

1.8 During the same period, the schools have been adapting themselves to far-reaching changes. There has been much new building and remodelling of schools, to accommodate a substantial increase in the school population. There has been a reorganisation, admittedly incomplete, of secondary education into a great diversity of forms. Teachers of the middle and upper age ranges have often had to take on new roles, for which the traditional kind of post-graduate training is not always a suitable preparation. The curricula and teaching methods in primary schools, already the subject of much innovation ten years ago, have continued to inspire experiment and new approaches. There has been a welcome, although still lamentably small, extension of nursery education. The work of the Schools Council, the Nuffield Foundation and other bodies has stimulated the study and reform of the curriculum and has helped to bring about changes in teaching methods. The importance of the principles and methods of educational technology have been more widely understood. The schools are now, of course, making plans for the imminent raising of the school leaving age. AlI these changes have been accomplished under the handicap of a persistent shortage of teachers which only now may be coming to an end.

Plan of the report

1.9 Following this chapter are three chapters discussing the education and training of teachers. That education and training is described as falling into three cycles: the first, personal education; the second, pre-service training and induction; the third, in-service education and training. The unfamiliar term 'cycles' has been deliberately chosen for these stages, in order to emphasise that this is a new concept, not to be confused with the 'parts' of some existing courses of study (for example, for certain degrees). There is then a chapter describing the organisation and development of the the new system that is proposed and a concluding chapter which gives a descriptive summary of the report as a whole. The discussion of the three cycles is not given in chronological order, as might be expected, but is deliberately presented in reverse order, partly for the sake of clarity in the development of the argument and partly to emphasise the importance of the third cycle in its own right. A large expansion of third cycle provision to give every teacher an entitlement to regular in-service education and training, is an essential precondition of a more realistic and rational approach to initial training in the second cycle. A reorganisation of the pre-service training of students has, in turn, implications for the higher education which precedes it. In any case, it is well to concentrate first on the needs and aspirations of the teachers now working in the schools and colleges, who for too long have suffered from inadequate opportunities to improve their knowledge and professional skill. Most important of all, it is in the third cycle that the education and training of teachers can be, and should be, at its best. It is here that both the quality of our education and the standards of the profession can be most speedily, powerfully and economically improved. It is here, therefore, in the third cycle, that the development of our argument must begin, in the chapter immediately following this one.