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 6 Summary of the Report
[pages 67 - 77]

6.1 This final chapter draws together our main conclusions into a continuous summary of the report as a whole. In doing so, it briefly recapitulates the principal arguments and the recommendations to which they point and then raises questions related to them.

Education and training

6.2 All teachers need to be well educated professionals but the specific kind of preparation a teacher needs obviously depends upon the kind of school in which he plans to work, his specialism (if any) and the age range of the children or young people he intends to teach. Differences in the preparation for teaching do not necessarily, however, denote any difference in the rigour of the preparation or in the intellectual demands on those who undertake it. It is a clear recommendation of this report that, given an appropriate educational base, the professional training of all teachers should be the same in length and structure, however different in its emphases and the details of its content, and that pre-service higher education and professional training for all school teachers should extend over at least four years. The fact that all initial teacher training will lead to the same professional qualification must reduce that divisiveness (between primary and secondary, graduate and non-graduate) which has bedevilled the teaching profession for so many years.

6.3 For many teachers at present, education and training are combined in the concurrent courses offered in the colleges of education and in the education departments of the polytechnics. It would be wise to identify and preserve the virtues which flow from such courses, and how this might be achieved is discussed below. Meanwhile, it must be said that the present pattern of training, despite its merits, has been the cause of widespread misgivings. Criticisms of the present system, which we hold to be justified, point to the need for a radical solution.

6.4 A number of the criticisms apply to consecutive as well as to concurrent training. Much of the theoretical study of education is irrelevant to students who have had, as yet, too little practical experience of children or teaching, and the inclusion of this theoretical study is often at the expense of adequate practical preparation for their first teaching assignments. In the attempt to produce fully competent teachers by the end of the initial course, timetables become overloaded and the essential is sometimes sacrificed to the desirable. In the attempt to cover a very wide range of subject areas, the number of small teaching groups has been multiplied, with a consequent uneconomic use of resources. The concurrent course, moreover, suffers from a confusion of objectives and a tension between the personal education of students and their professional preparation.

6.5 Taken together, these criticisms represent a problem to which there is no obvious solution, unless the initial higher education, pre-service training and induction, and subsequent in-service training of teachers can be regarded as consecutive parts of a continuing process, in which all the parts are indispensable and, although separate, interrelated. The essential prerequisite is that there must be adequate opportunities for the continued education and training of all teachers, at intervals throughout their careers. Only then can the objectives of pre-service training be sensibly determined. Only then can the professional preparation of intending teachers be as specialised and functional as their initial needs dictate. There is a still more important reason for emphasising the need for better in-service opportunities: it is only from a basis in teaching experience that teachers can derive the best from professional education and training. Moreover, they need to update and extend their knowledge and skill, and to adapt themselves to the changes they are bound to face in their teaching careers. This report has been written on the assumption that it is possible and desirable to divide the education and training of teachers into three consecutive stages: the first, personal education; the second, pre-service training and induction; and the third, in-service education and training. The term 'cycles' has been chosen for these stages.

6.6 The first cycle should consist of a course of study leading to a higher education award recognised as a qualification for entry to the second cycle. A university or CNAA degree would be a suitable first cycle award for some teachers, including, it is hoped, a growing number completing joint honours courses in which educational studies were combined with another discipline. Certain other specialist qualifications would also be acceptable. For some teachers, on the other hand, a different kind of educational base would be more helpful. It it recommended that there should be a two-year course leading to a new award, to be called the Diploma in Higher Education. The course would be broad in scope and would include, for all students, a substantial element of general studies, occupying about a third of the time, combined with rigorous study of normally two special subjects, one of which might or might not be related to educational studies, chosen by the students from a range of options. The course would interrelate the special and general studies and would be constructed on a unit basis. The award would depend on the successful completion of not less than a specified number of units. It cannot be overemphasised that the proposed DipHE could not be equated with the preparation of primary teachers nor exclusively with the education of teachers.

6.7 The DipHE course, although designed with the needs of teachers in mind, should be widely acceptable to prospective students and employers alike. It would be well suited to the needs of the many sixth formers who, because there is no attractive alternative, enter existing higher education courses without proper motivation. The introduction of such a course would meet many of the criticisms of present arrangements. The students in the colleges, those who intended to teach and those who did not, would be there because they had chosen the course that was offered and not because they had had to commit themselves to a course of professional training for which they were not fully motivated simply in order to obtain higher education. For students who had not yet made up their minds about their future occupation, there would be no obligation to commit themselves to a career choice at the age of 18. There would be an end to the complaint that some students feel 'trapped into teaching' because the qualification with which they leave their college is not valid in any other occupation. On the other hand, some students following the diploma course with no predisposition towards teaching might become attracted to it. For some students, the DipHE would be the basis for subsequent professional teacher training, but for others it would be a perfectly acceptable terminal qualification. Some might go on to train for certain other professions, and some might move on to degree courses in universities, polytechnics or within the college system.

6.8 The colleges would contain a large range of students who, on completing the diploma course, would proceed on a number of different paths. The colleges would therefore no longer be training teachers in isolation. This solution to the problem of isolation would be better than the 'diversification' often urged, which seems to imply an unrealistic proliferation of specialist training courses for different professions, within the same institutions.

6.9 Unquestionably, however, any new system must continue to meet the needs of the many students who feel from the outset a strong commitment to teaching. For many teachers in primary and nursery schools, for a number of 'generalist' teachers in middle and secondary schools and for some secondary specialists in such areas as home economics and physical education, the established pattern of concurrent training, for all its weaknesses, has had great value and relevance. Two of the chief benefits are these: first, the course gives students an early introduction to educational studies, related to practical experience of the classroom against which to test the generalisations arising from their theoretical work; secondly, it enables them consciously to integrate their personal education with the prospective requirements of their work as teachers. The kind of consecutive pattern now proposed, involving a cycle of personal education followed by a cycle of training, would have to give such students similar opportunities to make early progress towards their occupational goal. They would be able to choose educational studies as their special studies in the diploma course and they would also have, as part of the course, the opportunity for practical observation of learning and teaching situations in schools, nurseries and other institutions. They would be helped to make appropriate connections between what they learned in college and what they would eventually teach in schools. Students with these aspirations would be able to follow a diploma course similar in important respects to the first part of a concurrent course, although there would be one notable difference in that those who changed their minds about wanting to teach would be able to leave after two years, with a qualification to show for their work. Some colleges - for example specialist colleges of home economics or physical education, and colleges specialising in training for primary and nursery education - might choose to concentrate very largely on education-oriented courses of this type, and to attract students predominantly from among those who were already determined to teach.

6.10 Many of the students proceeding to the second cycle would no doubt prefer to remain in the institution in which they took their first cycle course, but they would not be obliged to do so. Transfers at the end of the first cycle would be readily possible and would be necessary, to take two examples, for students wishing to pursue a specialist interest developed after entry into higher education or for many whose first cycle institution did not offer teacher training courses. For all intending teachers, the second cycle would consist of two years of professional preparation. The first year would normally be in a professional institution, whether a college of education or the education department of a university or polytechnic, and would cover both the theoretical exploration of disciplines contributing to the study of education, and practical work. The training would be specifically related to the teacher's prospective needs in his first appointment. For students whose first cycle course had included no educational studies there would be additional courses or studies. At the end of the first year, successful students would be recommended to the Secretary of State for recognition as 'licensed teachers' and would proceed to the second year of the cycle, which would consist of largely school-based training.

6.11 At the beginning of this second year, a licensed teacher would take up his first teaching assignment, but with a deliberately reduced timetable. He would be released for the equivalent of not less than one day a week, for attendance at a professional institution or 'professional centre' (of the kind described in Chapter 2) where he would take part in discussions and seminars and have the opportunity for further study. He would be able to look for help and advice to a teacher on the staff of his school who would be designated a 'professional tutor', with particular responsibilities for helping new teachers on the staff and students-in-training receiving practical experience. as well as for coordinating the in-service training arrangements for all teachers in his school. The second year of the second cycle would thus combine the first year of service and the last year of initial training. Teachers successfully completing this year would become 'registered teacher'* i.e. full members of the profession. The special conditions applying to teachers for FE are discussed in paragraphs 6.14 - 6.15 below.

*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.

6.13 Since entry to the second cycle would depend upon the successful completion of an approved course of higher education extending over two years or more, it is recommended that all students who then successfully completed a further two years of professional training in the second cycle should receive the award of a professional degree of BA(Education) on the basis of the assessments described in this report. This would be a more effective and satisfactory way of achieving an all-graduate profession than would be an arbitrary (and, for some considerable time, impracticable) insistence that all teachers should possess academic degrees of existing types, which in any case would be an unsuitable educational base for many teachers. The award of this new degree would depend on the satisfactory fulfilment of a professional role in the schools as well as on academic attainment. With its introduction, the BEd degree should cease to exist in its present form as an initial qualification, although it would have an important future as an in-service award, especially if, as has been suggested in this report, it could subsume a number of the existing advanced diplomas in education. Students of good ability, who wished not only to make an early entry into teaching but also to pursue their studies to a higher level, would be able to return to selected professional institutions for a one year course leading to the degree of MA(Ed), either at the end of the second cycle or after an interval of further teaching experience. Within the college system there would also be opportunities, in selected colleges, for students to take three year degree courses developed from the DipHE. The validation of these awards and of the DipHE is discussed below.

6.14 The training of teachers for further education has not been given separate treatment in this report, because the main recommendations apply to them as to other teachers. The particular problems relating to FE have been discussed at appropriate points in the body of the text. A large number of FE teachers enter the profession after some years of further education, training and experience in industry and commerce. The requirement for new first cycle courses in the FE field is therefore limited, although the DipHE would be suitable for teachers interested in the general education of FE students. There is no formal requirement that FE teachers should be trained or possess qualified teacher status, and the introduction of compulsory training for graduate entrants to the schools will not apply to them, although some form of training requirement for FE teachers has been recommended in the past. The proposals in this report on the licensing and registration of teachers would not apply to teachers in FE, but would do so in full to teachers trained in the colleges of education (technical) who then proceeded to teach in schools, and should be applied to FE teachers if it were decided to align the FE system with the school system in this respect.

6.15 The pre-service training of teachers for FE would fit easily into the suggested pattern for the second cycle. For some students admitted to colleges of education (technical) the second cycle would consist of the normal sequence of a year in the institution and a year of practical experience with regular release for further study; for others there could be a modification of the present sandwich courses, in which students would spend the first and fourth terms of the two year course in a college of education and the other four terms in post, once again with regular release. The colleges offering these kinds of pre-service training would be closely comparable with other kinds of specialist institutions for second and third cycle work and, indeed, they already provide a model of what such an institution might be. Special arrangements would be necessary for the many FE teachers who are recruited directly from other employment. It is recommended that the first step be taken towards the application of a training requirement to such new entrants, after their entry into service. Initially, the requirement might be imposed only on new entrants who intended to teach mainly the 16 - 19 year old age groups and might in the first instance be quite limited in scope, but it should then be extended in scope and coverage as training resources were built up to meet the need. The timing of the 'initial' training given to these new entrants would, of course, place it in the third cycle, where all existing full-time teaching staff in FE should enjoy the same opportunities as other teachers.

6.16 The third cycle covers the very wide range of activities which serving teachers should undertake at intervals throughout their working lives, to continue their personal education and extend their professional competence. In no area covered by this Inquiry has criticism of present arrangements been more outspoken or more general. In no area do the proposals of this report deserve greater emphasis. The proposals for the third cycle are clear: all teachers should be entitled to release with pay for in-service education and training on a scale not less than the equivalent of one term in every seven years and, as soon as possible, on a scale of one term in five years. This entitlement would be satisfied only by release for designated full-time courses lasting at least four weeks, or their approved part-time equivalents, and would be in addition to any shorter term third cycle activities in which teachers took part, whether or not these involved release from school. There should also be a considerable expansion of these shorter term opportunities. To commit energies and resources to a development of the third cycle along the lines envisaged here would be the quickest, most effective and most economical way of improving the quality of education in the schools and colleges and of raising the standards, morale and status of the teaching profession. For third cycle activities on the scale proposed it would be essential to set up appropriate machinery to identify needs and to coordinate arrangements to meet them.

Administration, finance and the validation of awards

6.17 The implementation of the proposals outlined here for the education and training of teachers, involving systematic arrangements for the induction of new teachers in the profession, a large expansion of third cycle work and the organisation of a network of professional centres (in addition to professional institutions) for both second and third cycle activities, would require strong regional agencies. This pattern of regional bodies would need to be a modification of the existing ATO system, but with considerably enlarged responsibilities and important structural changes. First, any reorganisation of the system (particularly in view of the imminent reorganisation of local government) should take the opportunity to end the present wide variations in size of the ATOs and achieve a more sensible grouping. It has been argued in this report that a division of England and Wales into 15 regions would produce regional bodies of a suitable size. These bodies might be called Regional Councils for Colleges and Departments of Education (RCCDEs). Secondly, although the new bodies, like the present ones, should involve all the partners in teacher education and training, the opportunity should be taken to end the present anomaly that only some universities, and some polytechnics, are concerned. All these institutions of higher education, and not just a largely fortuitous selection of them, should be involved in the important work of preparing teachers for the nation's schools and colleges. Some universities and polytechnics would continue to train teachers but all should have the opportunity, through those of their members who had appropriate interests, to contribute expertise, advice and help of various kinds, and all should be represented in the new regional structure. Thirdly, those universities on which ATOs are based at present should be relieved of the somewhat anomalous responsibility for financing the administration of a system whose composition represents a very wide partnership, whose functions will increasingly extend far beyond the ambit of the universities and whose finance is drawn very largely from non-university sources. The administration of the RCCDEs should be financed by direct grant from the DES and should be independent of any one partner. The RCCDEs should appoint their own directors and administrative staff and conduct their own negotiations with outside bodies. On this footing, they would be well able to resist undue pressures whether from inside or outside. Fourthly, it is necessary to distinguish between the planning and administration of a regional organisation for teacher education and training and the validation of awards.

6.18 Above the regional agencies, and representing them, there should be a national body, perhaps called the National Council for Teacher Education and training (NCTET). The constitution and powers of such a body, and of the RCCDEs, would reflect the distinction referred to above between the professional/planning aspect of the system and the academic/awarding aspect. The NCTET and each RCCDE would have two strongly constituted and appropriately composed committees, the professional committee and the academic committee. All professional teaching qualifications, including the BA(Education) and all in-service professional awards, must be dependent upon recognition and approval by the NCTET. It should make recommendations to the Secretary of State on the recognition of 'licensed' and 'registered' teachers. It would also be empowered, itself, to award the BA(Education). An essential feature of the scheme would be that the NCTET, whose professional committee would be strongly representative of the teaching profession, would be the final arbiter on questions of which first cycle qualifications were acceptable for admission to teacher training and which professional qualifications the Secretary of State could be recommended to approve. The teaching profession would thus be given a greater measure of control over its own professional destinies than it has ever had before.

6.19 The planning aspects of the professional functions exercised by the NCTET and the RCCDEs have been described in some detail in this report and are only briefly recapitulated here. Decisions about the numbers of teachers needed by the schools (and thus of the second cycle places to be provided in the system), as well as decisions about the total level of resources to be committed to first, second and third cycle activities would be properly taken by central government and by local authorities acting in concert. These national decisions would be incorporated in guidelines issued by the NCTET to the Regional Councils who would elaborate them as detailed strategies. The RCCDEs would provide the framework for the cooperation in these tasks of all the interests involved: LEAs, maintained and voluntary colleges, universities, polytechnics, teaching staff in schools and FE colleges and the DES. All would contribute to a discussion of priorities and would influence the distribution of resources, by having a recognised responsibility for making recommendations on these questions to the constituent members of the RCCDEs. In this way, the colleges of education would be given an effective say, at present denied them, in how the available resources should be used, without encroaching upon the proper financial responsibilities of the providing bodies.

6.20 The academic committee of the RCCDEs would be concerned, in the ways described in this report, with the first cycle work in the colleges, namely courses for the DipHE and degree courses based upon it. The problem of how the new awards of the DipHE and the BA(Ed) could best be validated has had our prolonged and careful consideration. Three major factors influenced the recommendations on this question. First, it was most important for both awards to be launched without delay, with strong and unequivocal support, so that they could quickly gain national recognition. It has been argued in the report that the necessary machinery should be set up with all possible speed so that the first awards of the DipHE might be made in 1975 and of the BA(Ed) in 1977. Secondly, it was impossible to foresee whether existing degree-granting bodies would wish to be responsible for the DipHE or would regard it as an appropriate qualification for them to award. Thirdly, it was of the utmost importance that the NCTET, whose professional committee would be strongly representative of the teaching profession, should finally decide which first cycle awards should be acceptable for intending teachers. These considerations have pointed to the conclusion that the NCTET should be empowered to award the DipHE as well as the BA(Ed). There are, however, some important qualifications to the second of the three factors mentioned above. The report has discussed the advantages of validation by the CNAA of the DipHE and the development in some colleges of new-style degrees based upon it. The possibility is also acknowledged in the report that some universities might wish to do the same, for the DipHE or this degree work, or both.* In that event, the academic/awarding function of the new structure might be remitted quite soon to the CNAA or in some cases to universities. The combination of academic and professional functions within the same structure, which would otherwise be necessary, would cause problems but these could and should be overcome. In time the differences in the duties of the academic and professional committees of the NCTET and the RCCDEs might lead, especially if the DipHE were adopted by a wider range of institutions, to the establishment of two separate national bodies, with a corresponding differentiation at regional level. Of the third factor mentioned above, however, there would be absolutely no qualification: that is, the NCTET should be firmly given the responsibility for deciding which first, second and third cycle awards were professionally acceptable. This would be an essential principle for the NCTET jealously to guard.

*Special circumstances applying to Wales have been discussed in Chapter 5.

6.21 Any new proposals for the education and training of teachers must be formulated to some extent against the background of the higher education system as a whole. A detailed examination of this wider context would be beyond the terms of reference of this Inquiry, but there are some aspects of it which must be our concern. It is significant, for example, that the prospective expansion of the higher education 'base' will substantially increase the numbers of educated men and women from among whom new teachers may be recruited. Moreover, the terms of reference of the Inquiry, by inviting a consideration of whether it is possible to end the 'isolation' in which many teachers are educated and trained at present, themselves require attention to the implications which proposals may have for other kinds of higher education. Perhaps most important of all, the very successes of the teacher training establishment in responding to the demands placed upon it, together with some stabilisation in the total size of the school population, have created problems and presented opportunities. To put it bluntly, the supply of new teachers is now increasing so rapidly that it must soon catch up with any likely assessment of future demand, and choices will have to be made very soon between various ways of using or diverting some of the resources at present invested in the education and training of teachers.

6.22 A number of possible choices have been elaborated in the body of this report. First, the problems of teacher training cannot adequately be solved unless teachers in the schools and FE colleges have the opportunity to play a more effective part in the professional formation of new and aspiring entrants. This is especially the case if, as we firmly believe, the so-called probationary year must be transformed from its present character of an ordeal to be endured into an extensive and meaningful period of professional training. Secondly, it is essential that all teachers should have a series of opportunities for continued education and training throughout their careers, more systematically and on a more substantial scale than is possible under the haphazard and inadequate arrangements at present in force. Both these suggestions would have important implications for the staffing of the schools: neither would be feasible without significant and continuing improvements in present staffing ratios. Both suggestions would also imply a substantial demand for training places, additional to those needed for pre-service training. This report makes a third, and very important, suggestion for using the existing resources of the teacher training system to great advantage. The introduction of the DipHE would attract into the colleges many students other than intending teachers and would give them educational opportunities well suited to their needs, besides broadening the educational and social environment in which many teachers received their education and training. The educational and social arguments for the DipHE, both as a terminal qualification and as a base for academic and professional degrees, are, to our mind, conclusive.

6.23 To make satisfactory provision for the three needs outlined in the last paragraph would more than take up the existing capacity of the teacher training establishment. Indeed, a growth in the popularity of the diploma might require an expansion of the college system which, to judge by recent experience, the colleges would be well able to achieve. Such an expansion would be highly desirable in any case since the colleges would be asked to make important innovations and would be better able to do so in a context of expansion than in one of stagnation or contraction.

6.24 The pattern of teacher training recommended in this report would make possible a highly sophisticated and sensitive control of teacher supply, in terms both of numbers and composition. The control would operate at the point of entry to the second cycle. Decisions taken then would have a significant effect on the supply of teachers twelve months later, when the students admitted would become licensed teachers, and would be fully effective twelve months after that, when the students were registered as full members of the profession. There can be no reasonable doubt that, with the general expansion of higher education and the development of the DipHE, the number of holders of formally acceptable first cycle awards wishing to proceed to teacher training would exceed the number of second cycle places required. The problem would not be one of under-supply, but of the necessity for careful selection to match the supply to the needs of the schools. Within the framework of national decisions on supply and of consequent guidelines issued by the NCTET, it would be an important part of the functions of the RCCDEs to establish criteria for the selection of entrants to the second cycle.

Questions of cost

6.25. The implementation of this report's proposals would be effected in large measure by a redeployment of existing resources, but there would certainly be additional expenditure, offset to some extent by savings. It would not be practicable for us to attempt to quantify the net additional costs of the proposals. The results, based, as they would have to be at present, on a series of arbitrary assumptions (which, in any case, it would not be for us to make) would be too speculative to be worth presenting. The costs would fall under four main heads. First, there would be the costs of administering the NCTET and the RCCDEs. These would be of a similar order to those of administering the present ATOs, although expenditure would be greater because of the establishment of a national body and the wider responsibilities of the new regional agencies. Secondly, there would be the costs of mounting induction and in-service courses, including the expenses paid to teachers attending them. Any estimate of the of the additional costs under these heads would depend on assumptions about how third cycle activities might be distributed among courses of different types and the different agencies running them, about the pattern of activities in the second year of the second cycle and about the proportion of residential courses that it might be necessary to provide. Thirdly, there would be the costs of providing, maintaining and staffing professional centres. Any estimate of these would have to be based on a series of assumptions: about the number, distribution and size of professional centres, the range of accommodation required and the extent to which it was already available, all of which would depend to some extent on purely local factors; about the number of teacher-students likely to be in attendance at any one time, the probable pattern of activities (including hours of attendance) and the intensity with which accommodation was likely to be used; and about the number and grades of staff. Fourthly, there would be the salaries of the additional teachers employed because a proportion of the teaching staff would be away at any one time on induction or third cycle courses. The costs here could be calculated relatively simply on the basis of assumptions about the numbers of licensed teachers, the size of the school population, the pupil-teacher ratio and hence the size of the teaching force, and then about the proportion who would take up their third cycle opportunities. Although this item would appear to be the most expensive it could be argued that, given the expected improvement in staffing ratios, the diversion at anyone time of some of the staff to training activities would be a very worthwhile redeployment of resources. It has certainly been impressive that those witnesses to the Inquiry who would be regarded as the most knowledgeable and concerned in financial questions have been among the strongest advocates of a large expansion of in-service education and training.

6.26 To set against these expenditures there would be some savings, as a result of rationalising courses within institutions, avoiding the worst wastefulness of the present teaching practice arrangements and achieving some rationalisation within the new regions in the redistribution and use of facilities. The largest unknown factor in the calculation would be the extent to which the two year DipHE course might attract students who would otherwise have taken other higher education courses. Given the wide range of uncertainties, it would clearly be impossible to draw up a reliable balance of costs and savings, but there can be no doubt that the net additional expenditure would be money well spent to the advantage of the education service as a whole.