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
Chapter 7 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 3 The second cycle
[pages 18 - 39]

3.1 The recommendations which, in this chapter, we make for the pre-service training and induction of teachers (distinguished from the higher education of the potential teacher which precedes it and the in-service education which it inaugurates) are based upon three propositions. The first is that the needs of our society and the implicit standards of a key profession require that no young man or woman should be accepted for training as a teacher until a full course of higher education, of one of the varieties outlined in Chapter 4, has been completed. The second is that, whatever methods of educating and training teachers may be developed in future, the time has come to abandon the formal distinctions between the two main existing types: that is, three years of concurrent training for non-graduates and one year of consecutive training for graduates. These present distinctions, although increasingly blurred during the last decade by the development of degree work within the colleges and of concurrent courses in some universities, run sharply through the whole profession (in its career and salary patterns, for example) and are obsolete. The third proposition (elaborated in Chapter 2) is that no teacher can in a relatively short, or even in an unrealistically long, period at the beginning of his career, be equipped for all the responsibilities he is going to face. This familiar truth has been given a disturbingly sharper edge in a world of rapidly developing social and cultural change.

Present objectives and problems of teacher training

3.2 These three propositions underlie all our recommendations and can best be illustrated by reference to the evidence produced for this Inquiry. In much of this evidence, the present concurrent pattern of training in the colleges has been the subject of strongly expressed and divergent views: it has been both vigorously attacked and stoutly defended. Objective study of the facts leads inescapably to the conclusion that while there are great virtues in the present pattern, there are also a number of serious weaknesses. Study of the evidence and observation of the situation in the colleges make it clear that most of these weaknesses are symptoms of structural inadequacies in the present system rather than of incompetence in its administration or operation. That system in its present form, as has already been affirmed, is linked to a dual pattern of teacher training. The concurrent form of training within the colleges of education suffers from a conflict and confusion of objectives. The colleges are required at one and the same time to extend for three years the personal education of the student and to train him as a teacher. Exegesis may soften this distinction - for example, by emphasising the role of 'Education' itself in the enrichment of the intellectual life of the student, or by relating the main subject to the problems of teaching it to pupils in the secondary schools. Discussion with college of education lecturers, and even more with students, suggests that such exegesis sometimes glides into special pleading. Nobody would propose that personal education and professional training are logically incompatible, but under the present arrangements their simultaneous coexistence as valid objectives for the whole of the three year course must be seriously questioned. The problem is illustrated by the diffuse role which tutors in colleges are expected to fulfil. Lecturers appointed for their qualifications, ability and teaching skill in an academic discipline may, for example, have to take responsibility for the professional preparation of teachers of young children.

3.3 Because the objectives of the present system are too broad, it is difficult for colleges to rationalise their resources. This is not to say that planning is entirely lacking: the DES has, for example, required the colleges to observe a 'balance of training' and therefore to concentrate upon the training of teachers for primary rather than secondary schools, as well as to make special efforts to increase the training of secondary school teachers of certain shortage subjects. But rationalisation has stopped there. Colleges, concerned with providing a wide range of options and with attracting to themselves same of the best sixth formers, have often spread their resources too thinly over the ground. Many colleges are therefore providing an unrealistic range of subjects and courses, without being able to commit to them adequate resources. Many colleges, in short, are trying to do too many things and the opportunities for developing particular excellences are not sufficiently exploited. Where efforts are made to invest staff time in uneconomic courses, other necessary commitments have to be sacrificed. In colleges with large numbers of main subject offerings and small groups of students, the Education department is often so overloaded as to make a mockery of its own principles. A series of main subject or BEd groups of three or four is sometimes bought at the expense of overcrowded Education lectures. It is no longer realistic to invite colleges to educate and train teachers without some more systematic definition of objectives.

3.4 The objectives of colleges are unhelpfully diffuse in yet another sense. In practice, although not of course in theory, colleges are required to produce fully finished teachers at the end of three years, or less. Existing opportunities for in-service education and training are, as has been argued in Chapter 2, inadequate. In fact, colleges are expected, by the schools and the public, to 'give' the young teacher in training all the skills he will need, in a succession of varied jobs. Such an expectation is unrealistic and colleges are often vocal in rejecting it. The perspectives of initial training can be correctly viewed only when it is known that for all teachers that training will include an effective induction into teaching and be followed by a continuing series of opportunities for in-service education and training.

3.5 The conflicts between education and training, the unrealistic width of subject and other offerings in many colleges and the poverty of in-service training conspire to impose severe limitations on the present effectiveness of initial training. At the same time, there is a proliferation of suggestions for the inclusion of new, or the restoration of old, elements in the programme of training. To this Inquiry, as of course to the colleges themselves, have been put persuasive arguments for the incorporation in that programme of such matters as library work, careers advice, personal counselling, work in deprived areas, the teaching of children with serious emotional disturbance, an understanding of our multicultural society, first aid ... In such a hubbub of competing priorities it may not be surprising, although it is certainly alarming, that such matters as the teaching of reading should sometimes appear to be neglected. The assertion that such essentially relevant and practical elements are not presented with sufficient clarity and emphasis is widespread. It may be concluded that, with things as they are, the colleges are asked to do too much, are left with no rational basis for discrimination and are often unable to give enough time to aspects of training which they and the profession recognise as central.

3.6 Much of what has been said about the problems of three-year training also applies to the present arrangements for the training of graduates. There is often the same proliferation of subject options. Many courses place too much emphasis on educational theory at the expense of adequate preparation for students' responsibilities in their first professional assignments. The knowledge that in-service opportunities are scanty leads to a similar overloading of initial programmes. Post-graduate training thus shares many of the frustrations of the three year course.

3.7 Such frustrations can be detected only too readily whenever teaching practice is discussed. Many students are vehement in asserting that teaching practice is one of the most valuable and one of the worst conducted parts of their training. The arrangements made for it are subject to severe strain, and in some areas, approach breakdown. Many teachers in schools remain in ignorance of the purpose of teaching practice and, even more important, of the contribution to it expected of them. Tutors, as the number of students has increased and their placements become more distant, have spent more time in travelling to and from schools and less in supervising students. They may find themselves trying to help students in a school situation with which they are themselves unfamiliar. The result is sometimes that students may receive little detailed professional guidance.

3.8 We have been impressed by the volume of comment stressing at once the importance and the inadequacy of teaching practice; precisely the same comment must be made on the probationary year. It is difficult to write in measured terms of the gap which here separates theory from practice. The theory is irreproachable. The young teacher, coming fresh from college or department of education, has been given some of the basic skills. He now needs practice under genial and expert supervision to develop those skills, to mature his style, to relate the theory he has mastered to the practice in which he is now involved. His college teachers maintain a lively interest in him. His wise seniors in his first school introduce him, by example and precept, to an understanding of professional attitudes and to an appreciation of what his particular school is, how it works, how decisions are taken, how parents are involved. The specialist adviser of the LEA helps him, introducing him to other young people working in similar fields, involving him in a programme of further training and consolidation. An enlightened headmaster ensures that both the weight and the character of the timetable given to the young teacher reflect the special conditions of his first year of salaried employment.

3.9 Such an account would probably surprise most of the probationary teachers who might read it. No doubt, practices vary and some LEAs, schools and colleges are more conscientious and successful than others. Nevertheless, the characterisation which follows will be recognised by many as uncomfortably near the truth. The probationary teacher, in fact, leaves his college on the last day of term and never hears of or from it again. Nor does the school to which he goes communicate with the college, even if difficulties arise. He is pleasantly received at his school (as would be any newly appointed member of staff, whether or not in a first appointment) and introduced, formally or informally, to the ways of the place. No one suggests to him that he is in a special situation, or entitled to unusual help. He may be invited by the LEA to attend a tea party but will probably not go and, if he does, that will be his last meeting with its officers or advisers. He teaches a full timetable including one or two of the notoriously difficult groups of pupils. No one goes near him in the mistaken belief that to do so would be to interfere with his professional integrity. At the end of the year he receives a note informing him that the probationary year has been satisfactorily completed, and he is now a fully qualified teacher. This gap between theory and practice reflects an equally alarming gap between the interpretation of the probationary year by colleges and departments on the one hand and schools on the other. Colleges rightly insist that a profession should accept a major responsibility in incorporating its own members and, in any case, they cannot themselves do everything, and cannot produce a standard and universally valid form of training which will enable everyone to do everything everywhere. The schools rightly insist that 'the system' does in fact presuppose that a new teacher is fully trained, and they are given neither resources nor encouragement to become effective partners in the training.

3.10 Nothing has impressed, or depressed, us more than the gross inadequacy of the present arrangements for the probationary year. This inadequacy has hampered even the most enlightened of current procedures and has sometimes left unchecked practices which are so much less enlightened as to imply incompetence and irresponsibility. To assume that any of the large scale changes that are needed can be produced merely by exhortation is to misunderstand completely the nature of the problems with which we have been concerned. What is true of the probationary year is true, as has been argued throughout this chapter, of pre-service training as a whole. The faults are faults of structure, and only changes in that structure could permit us to hope for genuine reform. The division between graduate and non-graduate training, the confusion between education and training, the diffusion of educational effort within the colleges, the inevitable incompleteness of initial training by itself, the multiplication of desirable objectives and the relative neglect of necessary ones, the frustrations of teaching practice and of the probationary year: these collectively produce a problem to be solved by changes based on the principles outlined in this report.

Principles for the reform of pre-service training and induction

3.11 All our proposals depend for their force upon what is argued and recommended in Chapter 2. These paragraphs (3.11 - 3.23) assume an established pattern of continuing education and training of teachers, and take the twin objectives of initial training as being to equip the student to be as effective a teacher as possible in his first assignment and to provide him with a basis upon which his in-service training can be methodically built. Equally, of course, they assume that, as is proposed in Chapter 4, the student has in the formal sense 'completed' his initial higher education and is now sharply motivated towards teaching. The principles on which action should be based are outlined in paragraphs 3.12 - 3.23; some of the admittedly difficult implications of such action are then considered in the rest of the chapter.

3.12 Initial teacher training must be extended over at least two years of which the first would be spent in a college or university or polytechnic department of education, and the second 'in' (although that will prove to be too simple a preposition) a school or FE college. The closest analogies - although they will prove dangerously misleading - in the present situation are the post-graduate training year and the probationary year. Students in the second cycle would, as will be made clear in Chapter 4, come from a wide variety of educational backgrounds. Some would have followed one of the broad range of degree courses at a university, polytechnic or college of education. Of those, some would have included educational studies in their courses, and some not. Another very large group of students would enter the second cycle after completing their studies for the Diploma in Higher Education, a new qualification proposed in this report (see Chapter 4). Of those, many, but not all, would have chosen to include educational studies in their programmes of work.

First year of the second cycle

3.13 Just as students enter the second cycle from a wide variety of first cycle courses and institutions, so they will have widely different expectations in embarking upon professional training, will ultimately work in a diversity of schools and colleges, and will equip themselves through many varied courses in institutions of different types. It would be both impracticable and improper for us to attempt to prescribe the details of second cycle courses. Such decisions will rightly be the prerogative of the colleges and departments of education, whether acting separately or collectively. This report confines itself to a statement of the principles upon which a re-examination and redesign of training courses should be based.

3.14 The first year of the second cycle, whether followed in a college or a department of education, should be sharply focused and its objectives specified as precisely as possible. There are distinct and proper differences of content and style in the education to be provided at this stage for, to take but three examples, the married woman who, having decided to become a teacher, wishes to teach infants in an inner city school, the student who has just completed an honours degree in physics and wishes to teach that subject in a sixth form college and the man who, armed already with a Diploma in Higher Education, proposes to join a secondary school as a teacher of humanities. It may become possible to draw up, for the guidance of those planning courses, inventories of training which would be subject to continuous revision and would seek to identify those skills and that information which a teacher needs before he can effectively contribute to the teaching work of any school in his or her chosen field. In the first year of the second cycle the emphasis then should be unashamedly specialised and functional. We should abandon the pretence that it is possible to train, during the initial period, a 'teacher'. The aim, at this stage, should be to prepare a student to work within a defined area - an area that may, of course, be defined in a variety of ways, e.g. age of pupil, or subject. The first year of training of the modern languages teacher would, for example, include as a major element not only the techniques of language teaching but also some appreciation of the theoretical background against which those techniques must be understood and evaluated. The relevance of their training to the work they are going to do must be apparent to all students and in particular to mature students.

3.15 Unreasonable ambition in planning is the greatest enemy of effective initial training. There are many components of teacher training which should be firmly excluded from the second cycle, in the sense that no attempt should be made at this stage to equip students to practise all the skills they will need throughout their careers. Clear candidates for such exclusion would be counselling in all its varieties and careers work. Of course, as with librarianship, a general introduction to the principles of such work might well be included in initial courses. But the right way of producing the best counsellors and careers teachers is through in-service training, that is in the third cycle when the teacher has acquired the school experience and the personal maturity that are essential. Once a national policy for second and third cycle training has been defined and the balance of resources between them established, the essential conditions will exist for determining in general terms which of the teacher's roles are appropriate to each stage of his development.

3.16 The second cycle should concentrate on preparation for work appropriate to a teacher at the beginning of his career rather than on formal courses in 'educational theory'. To make such a statement is to invite the charge of philistinism, of undervaluing the intellectual content of educational studies, of depriving the young teacher of the conceptual framework within which he may integrate his learning and his experience. This is, it may well be objected, to court disaster by exposing the intellectually under-prepared teacher to a barrage of conflicting advice and practices. These objections have force, and must be met here since the assertion that second cycle training should be both specialised and functional is central to the position adopted in this report. The argument should be about balance and timing rather than about rigidly exclusive alternatives. It is not suggested that educational studies - that is, the history, philosophy, psychology and sociology of education - should be banished from the second cycle curriculum but only that their role should be seen as contributory to effective teaching. The study of these disciplines is of great value. Indeed, we urge in Chapter 4 that they should become more commonly integrated in undergraduate and other first cycle studies, and have already argued in Chapter 2 that they should be encouraged in the third cycle. It must be doubted, however, whether such studies, especially if presented through the medium of lectures to large groups of perplexed students are, in terms of priorities, a useful major element in initial training. A rudimentary introduction is all that can realistically be attempted at this stage, even if some part of that introduction has already been given in the first cycle. For most students, reflection is more likely to be illuminating after, not before, the experience of teaching and this is why it would be better in any case for the bulk of such studies to be deferred from the second to the third cycle. It is not their importance but their placing which needs to be challenged. The present system, unless and until it is fundamentally reformed, with the confusions inherent in concurrence and the inadequacy of in-service provision, inhibits any such deferment. The argument is, however, that the system needs to be changed.

3.17 Two main principles should govern the planning of work in the first year of the second cycle. The first, already illustrated, is that the purposes of initial training must be clearly understood, and that that understanding must be reflected in what is done by and for students. One implication of this is that there should be full consultation with entrants to second cycle training, to advise them on the most appropriate courses to follow in the first year. The second principle is that of continuity and balance, applied to first and second as to third cycles. The division into cycles has been made in the interests of clarity of presentation and ease of administration, but it is plain that the division cannot be rigid. If what a student is expected to achieve in the second must be defined with reference to what he will be encouraged to undertake in the third, then equally what is prescribed for him in the second must assume and complement what he has already undertaken in the first. The clearest example of the application of this principle lies in the field discussed above, that of educational studies. Students who had accomplished no such studies in the first cycle (for example, within the offerings of the Diploma in Higher Education or as part of a joint degree) must be required to spend proportionately more time on them in the second cycle than students who had already reflected and written upon such matters. For some students embarking on the second cycle without previous introduction to educational studies, special arrangements would have to be made to provide suitable additional courses or studies. A highly qualified subject specialist turning to primary school work may have much to give but only if that contribution is built on an understanding of how children learn and on the ability to establish rapport with them. These qualities can be properly developed only by working with children in school and for such students practical experience of this kind might comprise a substantial part of their second cycle course.

3.18 To assert that the emphasis in the second cycle should be upon specialisation is not to fall into the trap of subject-mindedness. Many students entering the second cycle would be more concerned, to use the well-worn phrase, with teaching children than with teaching subjects. Nor should this distinction itself be equated with one between teaching older and teaching younger children, and still less with one separating students with a university background from those with a college background. The educational system needs teachers of high ability not only to specialise in the teaching of mathematics or French to pupils of all or most ages but also to work with younger children or with the large numbers of children of secondary school age for whom a subject-centred approach may not be appropriate.

3.19 In the first year of the second cycle practical experience should certainly be included. It is, however, hoped that the approach could be at once more precise and more flexible than at present. Practical experience during this year should be devised with three clearly defined objects. First, it should provide a basis for the illustration and reinforcement of theoretical studies. There are different ways of achieving this, of which a period of continuous teaching practice is not necessarily the most effective method or the best use of time. In some cases results at least as satisfactory could be achieved by activities within the college, such as the use of rnicroteaching techniques, work with small groups of school children brought into the college for the purpose, and the critical observation of films and video tape recordings. The second object of practical experience should be to familiarise the student with the teaching situation. This would require a continuous but not necessarily long period in a school. We would suggest that the minimum period should be four weeks but the length, and the balance between this and other types of practical experience, must vary according to the needs and intentions of individual students. Some students would, we very much hope, have been brought into contact with children in schools during their first cycle course but others would not. Despite the practical difficulties, students should be encouraged to spend, say, two or three weeks in a school immediately before the start of the second cycle. The third object of practical experience should be to satisfy regional bodies of students' suitability to undertake the next stage of training. Teaching competence should no longer be the subject of a graded assessment but should be assessed on a simple pass/fail basis.

Second year of the second cycle

3.20 At the end of that first year the student would take up an assignment in a school and begin to receive a salary. The emphasis during the year must lie upon further training to complete the initial phase. The new teacher would be, in most of the senses important to him, a 'full' member of staff. At the same time, the requirement would be laid upon the head of the school that he should have regard to the special position of the licensed teacher (see below, paragraph 3.33). The new teacher should have the support of an experienced colleague and not be expected to take full responsibility for all aspects of the role he will eventually assume. He should receive from the head and those colleagues explicitly designated by him advice and help not only on matters directly related to his job but also on a wide range of more general professional matters, such as relations with parents, teachers, HMI, LEA officers, governors and managers, standards of discretion and confidentiality, pastoral responsibilities and management patterns within the school. The kind of help to be given to the new teacher would depend upon a variety of local and special factors, such as the age range of pupils within the school, the social environment, the size of the school, the climate of relationships within it and the subject or specialist interest of the teacher. The same pattern cannot be right for a three-teacher school in a rural area and a large urban comprehensive school, but the principles underlying the definition and division of responsibilities should have universal validity.

3.21 The second year of the second cycle would be an essential part of the initial training course and as such must demonstrably be very much more than merely an improved version of the probationary year. Moreover, it would not be enough simply to identify the second year of initial training as being school-based, and to insist that each school must take measures to give effect to such an identification. Chapter 2 has already described the strong supporting network of professional centres, including the existing professional institutions, which must be developed, to meet both the general needs of the third cycle and the specific needs of licensed teachers in the second. The new teachers with whom we are here concerned would be assigned to specific professional centres, released to them for at least one fifth of their working time, which does not necessarily mean one day a week, and look to them for the reinforcement of the on-the-job training already available in their schools. Although it would be an oversimplification to describe a year in the conditions here outlined as being an extension and deepening of what is now called 'teaching practice', it is because of this new approach to meeting the needs of licensed teachers that the formal commitment to such practice in the first year of the second cycle could, and should, be limited.

3.22 Before joining his first school, a licensed teacher would meet the school's professional tutor (see paragraph 3.50 below) who would introduce him to the ways in which he could find help within the school itself. The professional tutor, in consultation with the staff of the licensed teacher's assigned professional centre, would work out with him the programme of continued studies he would pursue during that year. Such programmes would be subject to scrutiny by the regional bodies. The part played by professional centres in the new style of initial training would vary according to circumstances. A teacher of geography in a comprehensive school in a country town might rely for specialist subject advice almost exclusively on his own head of department and the professional centre would supply reinforcement of a more general kind to the training programme. A teacher of French in a middle school in a densely populated urban area within which several centres were established, might be attached to that professional centre which had been chosen to specialise upon work in foreign languages in addition to its more general programme. A teacher in a rural area with widely dispersed schools might need to be released on a block system for periods of residence at a professional centre serving a wide area and there could be circumstances in which teachers were released for periods of block attendance even at their local centres.

3.23 It has already been said in Chapter 2 that all professional centres, whether based on existing professional institutions or elsewhere, would have to achieve standards acceptable to their regional body, for the purposes for which they were recognised. The particular standards required of centres taking an important part in the professional training of new entrants would mean that not all centres approved for third cycle activities would be able to fulfil a second cycle role. Wherever it was feasible, licensed teachers might go to the professional centres in the institutions where they had spent the first year of the second cycle. In many cases, however, this would be impracticable and attendance at another centre, institution-based or locally-based, would be necessary. Sometimes such a change of focus would be desirable in any case, in serving a teacher's special interests. The warden at a professional centre would be aware of, and able to call on, all the expertise available in his region and his chief responsibility in the second cycle would be that of facilitating licensed teachers' professional development, by putting them in touch with the right tutors to help them. Professional centres would give licensed teachers both a means of sharing experience with others and a point of reference independent of their schools and the LEAs employing them.*

*Two of us consider that the professional institution or centre should actually assign each licensed teacher to a tutor, to carry forward the work of the first year and thus ensure greater continuity between the two years of the cycle. See the Note of Extension.

3.24 In the remainder of this chapter, some of the implications of these proposals for the second cycle will be briefly examined, and some of the thinking pointing forward to our conclusions on regional and national organisation exposed. The proposal that there should be a common form of training - common, that is, in principles of organisation, in length, in the status of the qualification, but not at all in content and style - has far-reaching implications. Candidates for teacher training would come from a wide variety of institutions and with an equally wide variety of qualifications. There would not be one type of special training for graduates as such, nor should it be assumed that UDEs would recruit their students exclusively among those already holding degrees, and still less that colleges would recruit to their second cycle courses only those who had been awarded a Diploma in Higher Education within the college sector. There would be opportunity for interchange of students among institutions at the end of the first cycle, and although many students in the colleges would no doubt prefer to take the first year of the second cycle in the institutions in which they had attained their diplomas, they would not be obliged to do so; nor would movement at the end of the first cycle be only between college and college or university and university. In making the choice of second cycle institutions students would have to consider their ultimate aim, in terms of subject, specialism or age range of the children they wished to teach.

3.25 Students holding approved first cycle qualifications would thus be eligible to apply for any of the second cycle places available. A student who had taken a single subject honours degree would probably choose a course concentrated on a relatively narrow range of teaching subjects but there is no reason why he should not be able to choose another type of course, subject to the condition already mentioned that he might need to do additional work in educational studies. Similarly, a student to whom a Diploma in Higher Education in appropriate subjects had been awarded must be free to apply for a course which would equip him to teach his chosen subjects in a secondary school. It is at this point that the part played by teacher training in dividing the profession might be significantly reduced. It is at this point that national decisions about the number and kinds of new teachers required could be applied to an admissions policy and made at least partially effective throughout the school system within twelve months of their application.

Qualifications for entry to the second cycle

3.26 In Chapter 5 it is argued that the proposed regional agencies, acting within guidelines laid down by the national body, would be responsible for determining the conditions of entry to the second cycle. Practising teachers, an essential element in the structure as a whole, must be given a place in the selection of candidates for entry into professional training. Supply requirements, as defined by central government, would clearly not only determine the total number of second cycle places but would also influence their distribution between the various specialisms, skills, types of schools and age ranges of the children to be taught. There can be no doubt that, with the adoption of our proposals and the projected general expansion of higher education, the number of holders of acceptable first cycle qualifications willing to proceed to teacher training would exceed the number of teachers required. The function of the proposed regional organisations, in advising professional institutions on their admissions, would thus be the very important one of ensuring that the candidates who were accepted were those who would best meet the needs of the schools. This would mean, in practice, that there should not be any question of giving preference to any whole class of applicants, e.g. holders of university or CNAA degrees. That the schools will need a plentiful supply of teachers with these degrees cannot be doubted but all our observation and experience leads us to assert that large numbers of teaching posts, in secondary as well as in primary schools, are better filled by teachers whose educational background is broader and less specialised. The same can be said of specialist teachers of such subjects as music or art. The schools will need specialists of this kind and holders of approved qualifications in these subjects would be formally eligible for admission to teacher training. But where their studies had been too narrowly specialised, and carried on in isolation from students following other courses, they might not necessarily, in practice, be accepted in preference to others offering the same subjects, whose first cycle background was broader. Indeed, it is undesirable that any entrants to teaching should have spent both first and second cycles in small highly specialised institutions. There is one group of applicants in a special category: those students with a strong and early motivation to teaching, who demonstrated their intention by choosing education-oriented courses in the first cycle. They would probably be such eminently acceptable candidates for the second cycle that, in practice, they would be able to pursue their first cycle courses from the outset in the confidence that, subject to satisfactory performance, they would become teachers. This consideration touches on, and is one specific illustration of, a major principle which would have to underlie selection policy: namely, that great weight would have to be given to candidates' personal qualities, motivation and experience as well as to their formal qualifications.

3.27 Many witnesses have argued that the intermission of at least a year between school and college would be of inestimable value to intending teachers and, indeed, to other students as well, in terms of the increased maturity and extended experience they would derive from it. There would be everything to be said for sixth formers undergoing this broadening experience before going on to higher education, whether the time were spent in employment or in some form of voluntary service, at home or overseas. We would not think it right that an interval between school and college should be formally prescribed, and certainly not for intending teachers alone, but we would see advantages in its becoming a known practice of the regional bodies to advise professional institutions to give preference, other claims being equal, to those who had not proceeded straight from school to higher education or, indeed, from the first to the second cycle.

3.28 Another important principle in selection policy would be that the second cycle course would not be shortened for any candidates, although for mature graduates and certain other entrants with high academic qualifications, a special form of course in this cycle might, as is argued below, be appropriate. Besides determining the number of special admissions of this kind, the regional bodies would have another important area of discretion. In establishing the conditions of entry to the second cycle, they would have the power to accept other awards, in lieu of normal first cycle qualifications; where, in their judgement, these, together with candidates' personal qualities and experience, gave grounds for confidence that with second cycle training the applicants would make acceptable teachers. In particular, special consideration might need to be given to the qualifications possessed by candidates for admission to the present colleges of education (technical) and to those of the part-time FE teachers who decided to embark upon full-time teaching, many of whom would already possess qualifications gained by part-time courses of three or four years after the age of 18. For all such candidates, the regional bodies should be able to prescribe, where necessary, suitable courses of study before entry into the second cycle, so that they could gain the same terminal qualification as that of other teachers who completed the cycle.

Special courses in the second cycle

3.29 The arrangements proposed here would make it possible to respond to a plea often made in evidence submitted to this Committee: a plea that there should be special training arrangements for certain highly qualified young men and women who may be deterred from joining the teaching profession by the unwelcome rigidity of the training requirement. No apology is needed for asserting that society cannot afford to close the teaching profession to some of the ablest of our young people. Nor is any apology needed for asserting that all such candidates, however able and however determined to teach, are entitled to an adequate course of study and practice in preparation for their first appointments. It may, however, be unwise and counterproductive to insist that a gifted young student who has completed the three years for an honours degree in, say, mathematics and then successfully completed two years' research or further study leading to the award of a higher degree should thereafter be required to follow yet another year of full-time study before being allowed to teach. A similar case can be made for mature graduates who are attracted to teaching after working in other occupations. Under present regulations they are not obliged to train, although they might be very willing to do so but for the fact that at a time of probably high domestic commitment they could not afford to spend a year or more on a student's grant taking a full-time course. In future years, there will be men and women of this kind who, because they have graduated after the introduction of compulsory training, will be subject to the training requirement. We recommend that it should lie within the discretion of the regional bodies to admit such candidates to the second cycle and, having satisfied themselves that the preparation would be fully adequate, to allow such teachers to be licensed (in the sense defined below in paragraph 3.33) and to take up provisional appointments at once, to define the maximum limits of their teaching commitment, to require that they remain licensed without becoming 'registered' for at least two years, and to prescribe for them a programme of study composed, for example, of attendance at summer schools, completion of prescribed courses offered by a professional institution or by the Open University, and attendance regularly at a professional centre. We have no doubt that, within two years, such teachers would have achieved a standard of professional competence at least equal to that of younger entrants following the normal second cycle course. The number of such exceptional admissions to a special second cycle course would not be proportionately large, and would need to be regulated by the regional bodies on the basis of guide lines laid down by the national agency.

3.30 The conceptually sharp distinction between first and second cycle courses would also provide a framework for the design and operation of the more specialist type of course. A few examples may suffice. A teacher of physical education or home economics will have attended a first cycle course at a college or, in some cases, a university or polytechnic and he or she may have deliberately chosen an institution known to be strong in the appropriate second cycle work and, very reasonably, to have included the special subject or interest as a non-vocational element in the first cycle course. But there can be no formal requirement that this should have been done. In either case, the plan appropriate for the second cycle is sufficiently clear: the first year to be spent in a college with the appropriate bias and then a year in the first assignment with attachment to a professional centre.

3.31 It is our view that all students in the second cycle should receive a general introduction to the problems of children with learning difficulties and that some, in a few selected colleges, should follow special courses in remedial education. There should also be a few selected colleges where students with an early vocation to work with handicapped children could specifically prepare themselves in the second cycle to teach children suffering from those forms of handicap where the possession of special qualifications is not a requirement. Generally speaking, however, the major provision of courses to equip teachers to deal with the more serious problems of handicap or maladjustment should be in the third cycle.

Teachers for further education

3.32 The pattern proposed in this report for second cycle courses could be readily adapted to the courses provided in the colleges of education (technical). These institutions would provide a particular kind of second cycle course. The organisation of the two year course might be the same as in other colleges, i.e. a first year based on the training institution, followed by a year of practical experience during which new teachers would be released for further training for the equivalent of not less than one day a week. Alternatively, the present type of sandwich course might be retained and slightly modified, so that students spent the first and fourth terms in a training institution and devoted the other four terms of the two year cycle to practical experience, with regular release for further training. In either form (and provided students' entry qualifications were recognised as acceptable first cycle qualifications), successful completion of such a course would lead to the same terminal award as for other teachers (see paragraph 3.34 below), although the categories of 'licensed' and 'registered' teachers (paragraph 3.33 below) would not apply to teachers employed in further education. It has already been suggested in Chapter 2 that what is called the problem of the 'backlog', i.e. training for existing FE teachers who have had no professional preparation for their work, could best be dealt with as part of the arrangements for the third cycle. It is also suggested in Chapter 2 that the training needs of the large number of FE teachers who are recruited at a mature age directly from other occupations, who in many cases could not be expected to take full-time pre-service courses, could also be most conveniently treated as though they were third cycle needs.

Terminology and second cycle awards

3.33 If conclusion [sic - confusion?] is to be avoided a new terminology must be accepted for the levels of qualification through which an aspiring teacher would pass. A student at the end of the first cycle would be neither more nor less than a student in higher education with a widely recognised award, whether a degree, a diploma or some other qualification. If he were admitted to teacher training and prospered, then at the end of the first year of the second cycle he would become a 'licensed' teacher. Such licensing would be, however, provisional and would do no more than admit him to the second year of the cycle and allow him to undertake for a year four fifths of a normal teaching commitment in the post for which he had been selected and for which he was receiving a salary. If this year were also completed successfully he would be admitted as a registered teacher*. Such registration would be by no means automatic. Doubts, even at this late stage, about his competence as a teacher might prompt the regional body, in consultation with the LEA and the professional institution or centre, to prescribe a further year of work and study within the second cycle or, in exceptional circumstances, to refuse registration. It is naturally hoped that, given scrupulously careful selection for admission to the second cycle and continuous assessment and advice during the first year of that cycle, such failures would be comparatively rare. In practice, where a licensed teacher was in difficulty in his first year, perhaps because of misplacement or because he had made a bad start in his first school, reference to the LEA should make it possible to transfer him to another school in which he could make a fresh start.

*The use of the term 'registered teacher' in this report is not intended to prejudge the outcome of current discussions of the possible establishment of a Teaching Council.

3.35 The regional body for the area in which a successful student took the first year of the second cycle would, on the judgement of his training institution, recommend his recognition by the Secretary of State as a licensed teacher. The award of the degree of BA(Ed) would depend on the recommendation of that regional body, not necessarily the same as the first one, in whose area he had completed the second cycle and this recommendation would depend on the assessments referred to. It is undeniable that there would be problems of coordination here. Nevertheless, the arrangements proposed would be demonstrably stronger, in our view, than those now operating and likely to be more effective in improving the professional formation of teachers than would be a simple extension of orthodox training to a four or five year concurrent course in the colleges and a two year course for graduates.

3.36 The successful introduction of the BA(Education) would make it unnecessary to retain the present form of the BEd degree as an initial qualification, although it would have an important future as an in-service award. The existing BEd degree has been the subject of a great deal of material submitted to us and of much discussion, among ourselves and with others. Many students and colleges have welcomed the existence of this route to graduate status; a number of colleges have found it the occasion for a closer involvement with universities, including the establishment of links with university departments other than the Education Department; and there is evidence that arrangements for the BEd, and the framing of its regulations by senates, have brought an understanding of the problems of teacher education to some of those in universities not previously aware of them. There is no doubt that the establishment of the BEd has been the result of devoted work by many people in universities, colleges and elsewhere. On the other hand, it is also true that much of the evidence has expressed a widespread disappointment with the degree: with the very limited extent to which it is available; with inconsistencies between different areas in such matters as entry standards, arrangements for the selection of students and the status of the award (general, classified honours or unclassified); with its adverse effect on the pattern of courses for students not proceeding to the degree and on the staffing ratios applying to these courses; and with the fact that, although designed as a degree for professional teachers, it has kept students away from the professional situation for periods well in excess of a year before their entry into teaching and, by its compulsory inclusion of an academic subject, has often been inappropriate for many non-specialist teachers. It has been strongly affirmed that the BEd in its present form is not well suited to its purpose. Under the arrangements proposed here for the new degree of BA(Education), the award would be dependent on the satisfactory fulfilment of a professional role in the schools as well as on academic attainment.

3.37 It is important, however, not to overlook those able students, with a clear motivation to teaching, who in the present system have the opportunity, at least in many areas, of obtaining an honours BEd. There is no doubt in our minds that in the professional degree of BA(Ed) it would be inappropriate to distinguish between general and honours degrees or to award classified honours. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to discourage any students of high intellectual quality wishing, for example, to teach young children and to carry their studies to a higher level. Such students, having successfully completed the second cycle and received the award of the BA(Ed), should have the option of returning to one of a few selected professional institutions for a further year leading to the award of an MA(Ed). This additional year might either be end-on to the second cycle, thus completing a kind of sandwich course, or be preceded by a year or more of teaching experience. In either form the award would be essentially a third cycle qualification and has already been referred to in Chapter 2.

Planning and organisation of the second cycle

3.38 Following the determination by central government of the size and composition of the total supply of teachers required, decisions on the number and type of second cycle places that are needed and on their distribution and relative concentration or dispersal will have to be clear and authoritative. In our view, decisions of this sort can best be taken by national and regional bodies of the type outlined in Chapter 5. Similarly, sound decisions on the most effective deployment of resources, on the degree of specialisation among institutions, on the strategy for the development of centres of excellence, on the balance within institutions of first, second and third cycle courses, will not emerge as a consensus or from adjustment to the entirely natural collective ambitions of institutions. These decisions must be taken within a pattern of strong regional and national agencies. We have been impressed by the uneven spread of resources and by the inevitable waste that results from the existence of uneconomic courses of training, particularly in certain specialist subjects. It would be very much better, for the morale of institutions and the quality of the teachers they produce, if colleges and departments were to specialise in fields in which they were able to attain high standards and some large institutions were to develop a wide range of second and third cycle courses.

3.39 In all the arrangements proposed in this chapter the regional and national agencies would have the important and demanding tasks of making sure that policy was clear, that overlapping or fundamental contradictions were avoided and that responsibilities were understood in colleges, departments, LEAs and schools. Given a firm declaration of national policy, there is no reason why these difficult tasks of definition should not be undertaken successfully in close consultation with representatives of the directly interested parties. It would be necessary to ensure that, although each regional body could and should make its own detailed regulations to ensure that proper standards were achieved in both years of the second cycle, such regulations should be concordant with the general policy defined, at an early date and before the full operation of these arrangements, by the national body.

3.40 It is necessary to stress the importance and urgency of the work which would have to be undertaken by the proposed agencies as soon as decisions to implement these recommendations and to create such bodies had been announced. They would have to define the standards required for the award of a BA(Ed) and to offer guidance on the content of first cycle courses in many fields, on the distribution of responsibilities between schools, colleges and departments, on the appropriateness of certain studies and activities in the first and second years of the second cycle, on the distribution of the approved total provision of second cycle places, on the balance of regional and institutional commitment to first, second and third cycle activities, on the policies to be followed in selecting students for second cycle places. Finally, they would need - subject by subject, specialism by specialism, age group by age group - to provide guide lines on the planning and distribution of courses in the second and third cycles. To do all this, they would need to draw into consultation all those with specialist insights to contribute to the detailed elaboration of the new strategies, once these had been accepted in principle. It is clear that such consultation, without which the proposals would be meaningless, would require first the creation of the appropriate agencies and the establishment of their responsibilities. It is also clear that the development of these strategies would have important implications for the existing institutions concerned: the UDEs, the polytechnic departments of education, the colleges of education and the schools.

Implications for existing institutions

3.41 On the basis of the proposals put forward here it will be seen that, in terms of their general educational objectives, no clear or formal distinction could be made between university departments of education and colleges of education in their second cycle role, despite distinctions of a constitutional and administrative order. A question therefore arises: if both types of institution were receiving similarly qualified students, training them for work in a wide variety of schools, specialising in particular fields, how and by whom and on what criteria would decisions be taken on the distribution of initial training places? It is obvious that the rationale is now wearing very thin for the universities to train subject specialists for the more academic work in secondary schools and the colleges to offer more broadly-based training for work in the primary schools and for the less specialised work in the secondary schools.

3.42 It has been suggested by a few witnesses that UDEs should cease to be involved in the initial training of teachers so that all second cycle activities would take place in the colleges. We emphatically reject this radical proposal and have a number of reasons for doing so. The UDEs should continue to pursue fundamental research and advanced study in education. We welcome their increased participation in recent years, not only in research financed by the Social Science Research Council and the DES, but also in curriculum research and development projects sponsored by the Schools Council, the majority of which are located in Departments and Institutes of Education. This work obviously benefits from being carried out in a university setting where it is possible to have an exchange of ideas and indeed an interchange of staff with other departments but there would be an equally obvious impoverishment if the work of UDEs were divorced from that day to day contact with teachers and schools that results from their responsibilities for second cycle courses. University first degree courses which include the study of education should be encouraged. An active education department will have close relationships with schools and can serve as a link between them and other departments of the university: it is a link which both sides increasingly desire and will increasingly need if there is to be a big expansion in third cycle provision of courses for the refreshment of subject specialists in the schools. The involvement of part of the university in the training of leachers will likewise act as one of the ways in which closer relationships can be built up with colleges of education.

3.43 Having said all this, and accepting the importance of maintaining the direct interest of the universities in educational research and the value of enlarging the place of education in first cycle studies, we would not expect to see any large expansion in the provision of second cycle places (i.e. in present terms, places for postgraduate training) within the university sector. The major areas for growth in such provision should be the colleges of education. We would recommend, however, that in future planning priority should be given to building up existing UDEs, perhaps to a minimum of 200 students. We would like to see departments specialising in the teaching of certain subjects or groups of subjects, in which they would become centres of excellence, especially in the development of third cycle courses. If UDEs are to provide first and second cycle courses, are to be increasingly concerned with research and development, and are to make a significant contribution to third cycle work, we think that their staffing ratios would need to be at least as generous as in other university departments and that they would also need an administrative staff sufficient to plan and coordinate their many activities.

3.44 Expansion of teacher training in the polytechnics should concentrate on the development of training for FE teachers and should include the provision of third cycle courses for FE teachers and subject specialists from the schools. Existing polytechnic departments of education might move away from their present emphasis on training for primary school work and towards the preparation of teachers for the older age groups in schools and FE colleges. In developing such training they could make better use than at present of the specialist resources and facilities of their parent institutions.

3.45 It is obvious that of all the institutions concerned, the colleges of education would be the most affected by the proposals of this report. The recommendations of this chapter would require them to redesign their training programmes and to become involved more closely than before in the professional training of teachers in their first year of service. They would therefore form a new and closer relationship with schools and, by their contact with licensed teachers coping with their first professional assignments, would add a new dimension to their experience. They would be more fully involved than at present in third cycle activities. Since they would, however, be expected to make important new departures in the development of first cycle courses, a fuller discussion of the implications for the colleges must be deferred to Chapter 5.

3.46 The implications for the schools would be far-reaching and varied. Our proposals would require changes in the methods of selecting teachers for their first posts. For the licensed teacher the second year of the second cycle would be crucial: on his performance in this year would depend the award of the BA(Ed) and his admission to full membership of the profession. If, as has been suggested, much of the responsibility for what happened during that year were to rest with the teachers in the schools it would be essential for them to have a greater part in the selection of new teachers than is generally the case at present. We have been told that it is possible for a young teacher to arrive at his school at the beginning of term not only without having visited it to meet the children who will be in his care but without having met the head teacher. The details of how new teachers are actually taken into the service of LEAs may legitimately vary from place to place, but in our view there are two general principles which should be universally applied. The first is that LEAs should take particular care in matching new teachers to the schools in which they will start teaching and the second is that practising teachers (especially the heads of the schools in question) should be involved in the selection process. Special attention would need to be given to the placement of those licensed teachers (described in paragraph 3.29) for whom it is envisaged that the whole of the second cycle would be school-based, with access to professional centres.

3.47 The schools and the teachers in them would be asked to undertake new roles in teacher training. Indeed, if these proposals were accepted, the teaching profession in this country would have a share in training its own members and establishing its own standards which would be almost certainly greater than that enjoyed by teachers anywhere in the world. There would inevitably be corresponding obligations and schools must be given the resources and skills they would plainly need to discharge them effectively. Teachers in schools would be more closely involved than at present in planning and supervising practical work in the first year of the second cycle; they would have great responsibilities (outlined in paragraphs 3.20 - 3.22 above) for the new teachers in the second year of that cycle, in assisting them to master some at least of the necessary techniques and at the same time introducing them in a particular school to a large and complex profession; we propose that they should be associated with the selection of students for the second cycle and with the selection of licensed teachers; teachers during their first year would be making, in quantitative terms at least, a smaller direct contribution than at present to the teaching programme of the school. The release of new teachers in their first year might present special problems in primary, and more particularly infants, schools. The risk of disturbance to the children and of breaks in the development of their relationships with their new teachers would be very real, but would be much less serious if the schools were staffed generously enough to ensure that the timetabling was not dependent on a full contribution by new teachers. The improving supply of teachers should make this increasingly possible. Disruption and disturbance could perhaps be reduced still further if the teachers were released for relatively long, and consequently less frequent, block periods of study. Nevertheless, all these changes would represent 'burdens' for the school, and to them should of course be added the extra load inseparable from the proposals made in Chapter 2 for the development of in-service education and training.

3.48 We have considered different methods of enabling the schools to accept the increased loads which the proposals given here would involve. Our conclusion is that the problem could not be solved by the creation of, for example, 'a national system of school~based tutors', however attractive this solution might appear on first examination. In a scheme in which some tutors had responsibilities in schools other than their own and some held joint appointments between a school and the regional body, it would often be difficult to determine by whom tutors should be appointed and how their responsibilities should be divided. Moreover, the fact that some schools would be dependent upon tutors who were not on their own staffs would be inconsistent with the aim of encouraging all schools to play a full part in teacher training. These difficulties point towards a differently constructed solution.

3.49 The most urgent need would be that the staffing of the schools should be improved so that the teaching profession as a whole might be enabled to accept the new roles being proposed. All, or nearly all, teachers would be directly affected by the reforms and the extra load placed upon them could not be individualised. Most of them would be involved in helping students and the new teachers; many of them would be drawn into the work of the professional centres; all of them would be undertaking some of the extra work generated by the absence on third cycle courses at anyone time of a number of their colleagues. Only if the staffing ratio in all schools were improved could such extra work be accepted without seriously reducing the effectiveness of the daily work of the schools. There can be no doubt that the investment would be amply repaid in the greater effectiveness of the whole teaching profession.

3.50 Each school must have a member of staff nominated as a professional tutor. That tutor should act as the coordinator for all second and third cycle work affecting the school. He would be the link between the school and all other agencies engaged in that work; he would have general oversight of all the practical experience of professional work that new teachers undergo in the first year of their appointment; he would assist his colleagues in their choice and pursuit of third cycle courses. The position of the professional tutor within the school would naturally depend on the size of the school and other local factors. In a small school, for example, the head himself or his deputy might be designated as the professional tutor. In large schools, one member of staff might spend the greater part of his time discharging the responsibilities here outlined and he should of course be recognised and paid as a major head of department. If it is important that no school should be without a professional tutor, it is equally important that he should be properly prepared for his work. It would not be enough simply to affix labels to a number of teachers already in the schools, however effective and conscientious they might be. Such teachers would need early opportunities of working in the colleges and departments, of coming to understand the objectives and methods of work of those institutions, of being brought fully up to date with the best new practice, of appreciating more than they possibly can at present all that is involved in the increasingly intricate task of training new teachers. It is for this reason we recommend that the first teachers to be admitted to third cycle courses should be those designated as professional tutors within the schools. Nothing could do more to draw the 'teacher trainers' and the experienced teachers in the schools into a new partnership, upon the effectiveness of which the success of all these proposals would depend.

3.51 Nothing in these proposals should be allowed to inhibit one very encouraging development which has been noted in recent years: namely, the steps taken by some UDEs and colleges to draw serving teachers directly and formally into their work. The examples we have studied deserve to be widely copied. Every UDE or college should set aside each year sufficient funds to recruit, as associate tutors or whatever they may be called, some of the best and most enterprising teachers known to them. Such teachers would not be receiving this special recognition for work undertaken within their own schools, for example with students on teaching practice, but rather for their contributions to work within the department or college in conducting seminars, in giving lectures, in attending planning meetings, in advising students. Such tutors would be selected by the department or college itself and responsible to it, on a part-time basis. Their role would need to be clearly understood and sharply differentiated, because it would be related to the college or department, from that within the school of the professional tutor or of any head of department or other experienced teacher taking a special responsibility for students or teachers in their second cycle. In some cases there would be great value in seconding teachers full-time for periods of work as associate tutors of this kind and if it were possible also to second some college tutors for spells of work in schools, so much the better.

3.52 Where FE colleges were used for giving practical experience to students in the first year of the second cycle or for employing new teachers in the second year, in conditions which would justify the award of the BA(Ed), the regional bodies would need to be satisfied with the arrangements made, and particularly that the professional tutors in those colleges - necessary, in any case, for the coordination of their colleagues' third cycle activities - were suitably qualified teachers. Similar considerations would apply to independent and direct grant schools. The present situation is that teachers may not complete their probationary year in such schools, but in our view any of these schools should be acceptable for the purposes of the second cycle provided that they satisfied the requirements of their regional body. These requirements would include not only the designation of suitably qualified teachers as professional tutors but also the release of these tutors for appropriate third cycle courses of preparation and the submission to the regional body of reports on licensed teachers' performance.

Conclusion

3.53 This chapter started from three propositions. One was that the present dual system of training must be ended. The recommendations of this chapter indicate how this could be done. Their adoption would ensure that divisions in the teaching profession need no longer be perpetuated or widened by a divisiveness in training procedures. Another proposition, the implications of which have already been explored in Chapter 2, was that adequate in-service opportunities must be available to teachers. Every word written about initial training in this chapter presupposes that it will be the first stage only in a continuing process. The third proposition was that all those entering teacher training would have already achieved a good standard and a widely recognised qualification in higher education - that they were all actual or potential graduates. That proposition must now, in Chapter 4, be expanded and defended.