Examination of Witnesses (Questions 281
- 299)
MONDAY 23 JUNE 2003
MR D MCAVOY,
MR E O'KANE,
MRS M THOMPSON
AND MRS
D SIMPSON
Q281 Chairman: Ladies and gentlemen,
now we are all settled down, apologies for a slightly later start.
We have just been putting the final touches to the Committee's
investigation into our Education White Paper, but we are all feeling
very cheerful as we now have that behind us and we can get back
to our main inquiry for this year which is on secondary education.
Thank you very much, all of you who are extremely busy people,
for spending time to come before the Committee to talk about teacher
recruitment and retention. May I welcome some fairly familiar
faces, Doug McAvoy and Eamonn O'Kane, whom we have seen before,
Meryl we all know and I think it is the first time Deborah has
been before the Committee, so we shall be very pleased to hear
what you have to say. We have let a couple of the members of the
Committee go because there is also a full debate this afternoon
on education, as you will see from the monitor, on student finance,
so apologies on that. If witnesses would like to say anything
briefly on recruitment and retention to start, we would welcome
that, otherwise we could get straight into questions. What do
you prefer?
Mr O'Kane: I prefer to go straight
into questions, but I cannot speak on behalf of my colleagues.
Mr McAvoy: Sometimes you can;
I am happy to do that as well.
Mrs Thompson: Fine.
Mrs Simpson: Fine.
Q282 Chairman: Good, we will go straight
into the question session then. We are right into this part. As
you know the year's report has four headings, so we started with
specialist schools and we have reported that out and we have written
up the pupil achievement part. Now, this one, where it seemed
only such a short time ago that there was a crisis in recruitment
and retention, but the evidence we are getting is that we are
not using the word "crisis" any longer, people seem
to be much happier about the level both of recruitment and retention;
rather than a crisis, people are coming before us feeling reasonably
content about the present situation. Would you agree with that
analysis?
Mr O'Kane: In comparison with
the situation four or five years ago there is a certain justification
for making that observation. On the other hand, I do believe that
the figures we see sometimes disguise more than they clarify.
For example, on the issue of retention, when you look at the figures,
you do see that the turnover is increasing, furthermore, particularly
in secondary education, there is a growing problem in terms of
mismatch between the teachers of specialist subjects and the subjects
which they are down to teach. There has not been a survey of that
in recent years and that is something which needs to be looked
at. I suppose the most comprehensive survey of teacher opinion,
which was conducted by the GTC and which I know you have already
heard evidence from, did show that there was a major problem in
terms of teacher morale and that in itself must affect their view
of the profession and their desire to stay in it or not and to
contribute to it in a positive way. I do believe that it is important
for the Committee to look underneath the surface, as it were,
of the figures and perhaps the somewhat more sanguine views of
the situation at the moment. When you look at it, I do believe
you do see, not a universally depressing picture, it would be
wrong to give that impression, but nevertheless there is, amongst
many teachers in the country at the moment, a strong feeling of
frustration, a feeling that their own professional skills, their
own professional autonomy, have been undermined by the tremendous
raft of government initiatives, which has come in under this Government
and previous Governments. The issue of the context, the environment
in which many teachers operate, I am thinking here particularly
of pupil behaviour and so on, is one which we find of increasing
importance in the attitude teachers take to their profession.
Often you find, when you question teachers more closely, that
underneath even complaints about excessive workloads, which are
real and which are now being addressed, there is this issue of
pupil behaviour and the relationship they have with their pupils
and the increasing difficulties which many of them experience.
That is a fundamental issue which is not easy to resolve, nobody
claims that for a second, but nevertheless it is one which has
to be addressed. That is linked to the issue of those teachers
who teach in more challenging schools and I believe they really
deserve special attention in terms of the morale and the difficulties
of the job which they have. Take these together, take the question
of pupil behaviour, take the question of excessive workload, take
the question of professional autonomy and, not least, ultimately
the question of salary and pay, which tends not to be at the forefront
of their concerns but is still there, take all these in the round,
while the picture has changed over the last number of years, for
the better in some respects, I still believe that in the bulk
of our schools there is a widespread feeling, amongst many teachers
anyway, that if they had an opportunity to leave the profession
they would probably take it.
Q283 Chairman: Meryl, would you go
along with that? It is certainly not exactly what we are picking
up in the evidence so far.
Mrs Thompson: The idea that the
crisis has receded would be premature. I agree that there is still
a very volatile situation which could very easily be affected
by, for example, the recent announcement of the extension of teachers'
retirement age until 65, which may have quite a dramatic effect
on those close to retirement. Certainly our concerns would be
that we do need to watch very carefully the impact of the funding
implications of higher education on whether that means that the
public sector is disadvantaged by that and we would like to see
that monitored so that we can see whether the increased burden
of debt which passes to trainees and those entering teaching impacts
on recruitment. One of our major concerns at the moment is the
amalgamating of earmarked funding for early professional development,
for newly qualified teachers (NQTs) and indeed for the whole of
CPD, into school funding, particularly at a time when schools
are announcing deficit budgets. Our members are really concerned
that many of the motivating factors which do support the retention,
particularly of new entrants, could be harmed by the fact that
there is no longer to be separate indications of the funding which
will support them. That is solved when in fact the management
ethos supports professional development and career progression.
Unfortunately there are many schools, either because their budgets
are so tight they cannot find the monies for professional development,
or schools where perhaps they are rather more cavalier about that
and we are very concerned that those motivational effects of having
access to sabbaticals, for example, professional bursaries, earmarked
funding for your own development, may go. We cannot be quite so
sanguine that we have solved the problems, because there is a
whole series of new potential problems around the corner and those
are some of them.
Q284 Chairman: Doug, would you agree
with that? Some people giving evidence to this Committee have
suggested that one of the great weaknesses of the professional
development of teachers is just that, the early years. If you
compare what happens to a teacher, who comes into teaching, they
are dropped into a school. Some of the evidence from Professor
Smithers' work and case studies suggests that people felt they
were dropped into a school, very little mentoring, very little
help in settling down, whereas someone who joins PricewaterhouseCoopers
has for three to five years constant evaluation of progress, support,
keeping them in the profession and integrating them into the profession
through the difficult times and through the better times. Is it
not a comment on teachers and perhaps teacher unions that you
have not actually come up with a kind of cohesive approach to
those early years and you lose a lot of people from the profession
because of that.
Mr McAvoy: May I just address
your very first question? I think there is still a crisis. I do
not agree, if you are getting a picture that the crisis has gone.
I suppose you might be able to establish that the crisis is less
than it was, but it is still a crisis because we cannot recruit
sufficient numbers and the figures show that there are still going
to be shortages against government targets for recruitment into
secondary teaching posts in certain subjects and we certainly
cannot retain. All of the evidence demonstrates that teachers
will come in and then they will leave. They may be here for three
years or fewer than that, but perhaps within three to five years
a very large number will have left the profession. That has not
changed very much since we first commissioned the survey and the
study from Alan Smithers and Pamela Robinson, which in a sense
is what has caused your work. When I read all the other evidence
and the questioning, it constantly comes back to that study. We
are glad we have triggered off that interest by the work we commissioned.
I do not think the factors which are critical have changed very
much. Those factors are: can we recruit enough and can we retain
those we recruit? There is still a crisis. The turnover has become
a big concern for us. The evidence which was given to you by NEOST
confirms that. They talk about where the areas of greatest turnover
are and they were geographic, they were sector, they were subject
areas and they were age groups. So there is a pattern there about
retention and turnover. Unless we can solve that, unless we can
declare quickly that we have a programme for the solution of that,
then we are not going to attract more and we are not going to
retain those who come in. I agree with Meryl, that there must
be some mornings when those who work for the TTA wish they had
never woken up. Here they are to recruit and they read in the
press the declarations of Government on such matters as pensions,
or no sixth forms in secondary schools, all in the sixth form
colleges. They must ask themselves how they can continue to recruit
and retain against this message from Government. They must despair.
There are all kinds of things which need to be done, but I support
Eamonn when he says that four factors were identified in that
very early study: workload, behaviour, government initiatives
and pay. Unless they are addressed, you may find that you can
argue the crisis is smaller or bigger, but the crisis will be
there: you will not be able to recruit and retain sufficient qualified
teachers. You then talk about people being dropped into a school
and, provocatively, you say that the teachers' unions have done
nothing about it.
Q285 Chairman: They could perhaps
do more.
Mr McAvoy: We thought we had done
a lot when the James report was published in the 1970s. If you,
as a Select Committee, could re-visit the James report and put
it back in place, with the promise of sabbaticals for teachers,
or professional development, which the National Union of Teachers
wants—we do want it—and be willing to join us in campaigning
for that, it would help us to get it. If we did get it, yes, it
would change the image of teaching. It would restore some of the
professional concepts of teaching as a career, because you would
be saying to those who come in, that they are not going to be
dropped in this and left, which they should not be anyway, because
there is an induction programme and we fought for induction through
the working parties of ACAS. Some of it is not being delivered
because there is not the money to deliver it, because they cannot
be released from the full timetable and they cannot have mentors
and they cannot visit other schools. So have a little study about
that, find out what the shortcomings are. We have no problems
with what we have been arguing for. The things we think should
be in place are a very professional structured system of induction,
linked to progressive, continuing professional development,
with sabbaticals, for which they can be released, not leaving
others to carry out their teaching work, not getting away in some
schools for professional development and not in others. If you
sign up to that, you might help us to get them. I do not think
there is any fault on the NUT—I cannot speak for my colleagues—about
our desire for a proper system of professional development and
induction.
Mrs Simpson: I would echo what
colleagues have said. It is not so much that new teachers, when
they begin teaching are dropped into the school situation, certainly
they should not be. We feel that the mechanisms are there to support
new teachers and we thought we were going along a path of providing
more support for teachers in the first five years of their careers,
which is the time when, statistically, the largest fall-out comes.
What we find now is that because of changes in funding, what we
thought was going to be a support package through the CPD strategy,
is now going to go into school funds and whether or not that will
find its way into the place for which it was intended is questionable,
with the best will in the world. The question of teacher morale,
which colleagues have touched upon, is very important. It is important
to give new teachers the right start and the induction process
is there and yes, it is hit and miss; the message we are getting
from our NQT members is that it is hit and miss. In some schools
they get extremely good induction and in some schools' circumstances,
be they financial or management circumstances or otherwise, mean
they have a harder time. That should not be the case, but too
often young teachers are left feeling that they have been dropped
into it. The CPD strategy group, of which some of us here are
members, have been putting together a package of support for teachers
in the first five years of teaching, which we felt would give
them the opportunities that they needed to develop during that
period. One of the things which contributes to morale is support
and feeling support is there and feeling that the opportunity
for professional development is there. If that is now going to
be eroded, as some of the sabbaticals and the research bursaries
are being eroded, which were things which fed in to teachers'
careers at various strategic places to raise morale, to give them
the feeling that something is there for them and that they can
develop and they can move on, it is crucial that those kinds of
things remain, otherwise we are going to see morale declining.
Although we might not see such a big turnover of teachers, it
has already been mentioned that morale amongst mid-career teachers
can be so low that they feel and say when asked that if they had
the opportunity to leave teaching they would. That is not the
kind of workforce we want in schools. We want a motivated workforce
in schools, not one which is looking for the first opportunity
to get out. Those support structures have to be there, along with
solutions, dare we say, to the four points Doug McAvoy has mentioned.
Those are the things quoted by teachers who leave, as being the
reasons for leaving: workload, pupil behaviour, salary, etcetera.
You have heard it before.
Chairman: Thank you for those opening
answers.
Q286 Jonathan Shaw: What are the
characteristics of those schools most affected by turnover?
Mr O'Kane: I think you will find
that geography plays a large part in the schools which are most
affected by turnover, London and the South-East particularly have
a much higher turnover rate than elsewhere in the country. It
is also interesting to note that London, unlike the rest of the
country, will actually have more youngsters in secondary schools
in 2010 than it has now and that is a contrast to other parts
of the country. London in many ways has quite an important issue
in terms of its own future in relation to teachers. That is one
thing. The characteristic of schools where possibly there is a
bigger turnover may well be schools in special measures. Though
I do not actually have any statistical proof of that, my instinct
would be that is the case because the problems there for teachers
are immense. They are linked to several features, the degree of
accountability to which those teachers will be subjected in terms
of frequent and regular visits from Ofsted and HMI, which places
tremendous pressure on them, the degree of record keeping and
target setting that will be an inherent part of a school like
that, places great pressure on the teachers. This big issue of
pupil behaviour will of course also play a very clear part in
that. Something which may not necessarily be the case, but one
suspects it might be, is when there might not necessarily be a
very good join between teacher specialisms and the actual degree
or professional skills of the teachers in terms of their qualifications.
That may disjoint. In many ways it might be a mistake, if I may
say so, to concentrate specifically on those schools. They do
have quite specific problems which have to be addressed, in particular,
for example, the question of funding those schools, the question
about the small pupil:teacher ratios are absolutely crucial.
Q287 Jonathan Shaw: Do you think
we should pay teachers in those schools more?
Mr O'Kane: In some respects that
has happened, but I do believe it is a serious question that we
have to address as a union. It is true that teaching in such schools
is extremely difficult and ought to be recognised in the salary
structure and the salary structure should be so geared as to recognise
that fact.
Q288 Jonathan Shaw: We heard evidence
before effectively saying that if we are to get the very best
teachers into the most difficult schools then we have to pay more,
but in your written evidence to us you are saying that the incentives
lack transparency and equity and are a source of resentment amongst
teachers who are eligible for them. You have just said to me that
it is something we need to look at.
Mr O'Kane: No, what we were referring
to there was the "golden hellos" and "golden handcuffs"
and all the rest of it, which have been a mish-mash of measures
which we believe have had an effect, not on retaining teachers,
but in creating this quite inchoate system of payments which is
leading to ill-feeling amongst teachers. The point I should like
to emphasise is that teachers in schools like this, need to be
extremely well supported. This is where we touch upon an issue
which hopefully may have beneficial effects in terms of raising
teacher morale. It means measures which will address the excessive
workload of teachers. Teachers in schools like that have particularly
heavy workloads, often a heavy degree of accountability and there
is the whole question of behaviour management and so on. They
can support them, through the employment of more teachers in those
schools and also through the use of other staff to help them in
their particular task, and that is why I believe at the end of
the day it does come down to a question of funding and a recognition
that such schools have particular problems. I believe that the
LMS system sometimes has a regressive effect on the funding of
such schools. Those schools in many ways are entitled to a disproportionate
funding in order to compensate them for the real difficulties
which they face daily. That goes wider than the differential payment
of teachers in such schools.
Mrs Thompson: I should like to
turn it round the other way, not looking at the characteristics
of schools with high mobility, but the characteristics of those
in which teachers want to remain teaching. From the research by
the London Metropolitan University, what they are looking for
is an ethos inside the school which is to do with supporting teachers
and providing provisions for them. Clearly in schools which have
peculiarly difficult circumstances that is not going to be relevant,
but what we would want to emphasise is what the Audit Commission
says and that is that teachers and people in the public sector
in general leave because of negative experiences rather than compelling
alternatives. For example, the research on NQTs suggests that
where in fact you have the support of an induction tutor and they
are accessible to you, 49% of those NQTs said they enjoyed their
first year of teaching compared with 13% when that was not the
case. You are looking at internal characteristics of schools,
which actually make them places where teachers want to remain
working, which is the reverse of that which makes teachers more
mobile. We would want to emphasise the importance of the nature
and characteristics of managing schools as organisations which
do impact upon both retention generally and on mobility.
Mr McAvoy: May I address it from
two different positions? The first is in a sense before we get
to the point of analysing what criteria within a school might
attract people to stay, and equally the reverse, how can we get
more of those who train and complete their course into schools?
Currently there is a massive gap between those who complete their
course and qualify and those who enter.
Q289 Jonathan Shaw: Some of them
do not go in the first year, do they? We have questions about
the collecting of data and there have been complaints from a number
of organisations about the reliability of that. We do know that
there is a number of teachers who qualify who then wait a year
or so before they actually go into teaching.
Mr McAvoy: Maybe.
Q290 Jonathan Shaw: For sure.
Mr McAvoy: I am sure that is true,
but the Alan Smither's study in 2001 has a chart which identifies
training wastage. It may not take account of those who come in
a year later than expected but they will not account for the tremendous
gap between those who qualified as final year trainees in 1997,
completed in 1998 and then were teaching in 1999. If you look
at that cohort, there is a tremendous gap. We may differ as to
what that percentage is, but I am sure we would not differ in
our view that there is a sizeable percentage of youngsters who
get to the point of being able to teach but who choose not to.
We should know why. We know why, in terms of our original survey:
it is because of those four points which I identified earlier.
If Government wanted to get them in and make it more attractive
to go from the point of qualifying to the point of work, it must
address those four issues. That is in advance of answering your
question.
Q291 Chairman: Just on that point,
are you not having your cake and eating it there? Your reply to
Jonathan's question started by saying that the real problem is
that they get trained and do not ever actually teach. Surely there
must be a rather different explanation for those people who never
use the qualification than for the others who are put off by the
four areas which you mentioned in your earlier question?
Mr McAvoy: I think you will find
I did not use the word "real", that the "real problem
was . . .". I said there was another problem.
Q292 Chairman: So what is the distinction
between the two?
Mr McAvoy: I do not want to be
portrayed as having said that the "real" problem is
this gap between those who qualify and those who come in. That
is "a" problem, not the "real" problem; it
is just "a" problem. We should seek to identify why
it is that they do not come in. If they get in, what is it which
might be factors and criteria in some schools which make them
more willing to stay. We should do that analysis as well, but
in doing that analysis, you then have to question whether you
could replicate all of the factors in the schools where they stay,
such that they occur in every other school? You could not. Some
of the factors are about the population, about the circumstances
they face in those schools, more challenging schools, more difficult
schools, schools where there might be a greater likelihood of
behavioural problems.
Q293 Jonathan Shaw: Should we pay
teachers more in those schools than in the leafy suburbs in the
home counties? Is that what you are saying?
Mr McAvoy: We tried it; we tried
it before. My guess answer is that we should make sure that all
teachers are properly paid. If you do that, such that you tick
off that fourth element, or one of those four elements and do
that and as a result of doing that get more from the point of
qualifying to entering the school, let us see what the problem
is then and see what we need to do. We have tried payment before
and we did so through the social priority schools approach and
it was rejected, it was rejected by everybody. It was tried and
did not work. You were applying a different salary element to
schools which were separated by the width of a road, because the
criteria themselves seemed to suggest that teachers should be
paid more. Maybe the school needs more support, maybe that school
should have more teachers in order to deal with the behavioural
problems which might be rife in that school, or maybe there is
another factor. You are into looking for the factor which causes
that school not to retain teachers against this school. If you
analyse that, it will come down to one or two of the four we have
identified. It will either be excessive workload, because of bad
management, or it will be behavioural problems which are not being
properly dealt with. It is unlikely to be pay because that would
affect everybody. It is unlikely to be government initiatives,
because they are going to affect everybody. If you look at those
four factors and then do what I have suggested, start by asking
how you get these people from being qualified into post, then,
why should some leave that school more quickly than that, you
will gradually come towards the solution. I do not think paying
them more will necessarily be that solution.
Mrs Simpson: I would agree with
that. Paying more to teachers who are in difficult schools has
been tried. Mechanisms still exist for doing that through recruitment
and retention allowances. They are not liked, they are not well
used and the reason for that is that the motivation for teachers
to remain in a school like that is not only salary. You can pay
a teacher as much as you like, if they find the place difficult
to work in, if they find the place stressful, if they have huge
problems with workload and behaviour, they are not going to stay
there, however high the salary. We have to look at things other
than salary within the school context and I think that is why
in so many cases workload and behaviour come out as the top reasons
for teachers leaving a particular post or indeed for leaving the
profession as a whole. Salary is not up there with those two.
In the kinds of schools you are talking about, the schools we
would class as more difficult and more challenging, the major
problem that teachers in that kind of a situation face is the
problem of increased difficulty in pupil behaviour. Initiatives,
workload, yes, pupil behaviour does engender its own workload
element, but those things remain fairly constant. There are other
ways of tackling the working environment, for example more support,
smaller classes in that type of school and those are the things
we should be looking to put in to support the teachers who are
there. I do not think you are going to do that through salary.
It has been tried before and it has not worked.
Q294 Jonathan Shaw: As I mentioned
in my question to Mr McAvoy, there is the question of the collection
of information. NEOST and others have said to us that they collect,
the Department collect and it is important, in order to understand
the problem, to have an exact figure of what the turnover and
wastage is. Do any of you have any comments about that? Should
it be one source?
Mr McAvoy: There would be a tremendous
advantage if a government were to decide it was going to collect
information and hopefully do so on the basis that it would then
discuss with all partners the type of information that would be
beneficial and the publication of that. Over the years the Government
used to do that; it used to do that on teacher shortages and then
they stopped the survey because they did not find the results
very acceptable. It used to have a staffing survey and, I do not
know, there might be one currently under way. You read that kind
of study and some tremendous work is being done to which I am
privy as president of ETUCE. This is saying that the lack of statistical
information reinforces the inward-looking nature of the discourse.
The problem about teacher supply, teacher shortages and teacher
deployment is European, it is not peculiar to this country. Therefore
a study has been undertaken and a report is to follow, but one
of the key issues is that there is a lack of statistical information.
As I said to begin with, but for the union commissioning Alan
Smithers and Pamela Robinson, would we be having this discussion
now? I do not know, but we did and as a result of doing that,
we hope there can be a healthy debate. Certainly I go along with
a point which comes from your question, yes, a brave and courageous
government would set about a study which was carried out openly
and in concert with partners ready to publish the results.
Q295 Jeff Ennis: In response to what
Doug has just said about the two main factors in terms of inhibiting
retention being workload and behaviour, I very much agree with
what you have said. Do we have any evidence to show varying retention
rates in terms of specialist schools as opposed to non-specialist
schools or excellence in city schools in challenging circumstances
as opposed to schools with challenging circumstances outside excellence
in city areas?
Mr McAvoy: It may be too early,
but the initial information we have is that you get less turnover
there, because those schools are better resourced. You almost
get a situation where the teachers want to work in those schools,
either because they are better resourced, they have equipment
they would not have anywhere else, they have better staffing,
or because they are in tune with the commitment, with the philosophy,
whether it is excellence in the city or whether it is specialist
schools. The only returns we have are proven on a wider scale.
You then cannot ignore the fact that they are better resourced
schools and therefore they could provide smaller classes, they
can provide more support, then, in terms of specialist schools,
they may be able to avoid all the behavioural problems by the
selective nature of the specialist school. Certainly if you then
were to take a step further and look at the independent sector,
some of the problems do not arise there and there is a greater
stability of staff.
Q296 Jeff Ennis: Do they then have
a tighter focus or mission statement which might assist the retention
policy?
Mr McAvoy: No, the mission statement
would be for governments to give them more money, to give all
schools the same amount of funding they give to special schools.
That would be one hell of a mission statement.
Mr O'Kane: This is the obverse
of the point Mr Shaw was making. The position of schools in challenging
circumstances, which are experiencing difficulties in retaining
teachers, I believe, is that they need differential funding. The
problem is that funding goes the other way and in that sense it
accentuates the problem rather than solves it.
Mrs Thompson: It is not only the
turnover in schools it is whether or not that turnover means that
they are leaving the profession. You can have high turnover schools
which is actually a very positive feature because it actually
means that the schools are doing a great deal to enhance the confidence
of the staff in the schools and those are the schools quite often
which do have a high turnover, but not because teachers leave
the profession, because they go on to play valuable roles elsewhere
in the system. It depends what you mean by turnover I think.
Q297 Jonathan Shaw: Teachers leaving
also means that a lot of them are going to other schools as well;
we are aware of that. I wonder whether you have considered as
well, as has been suggested in evidence to the Committee, that
young people coming into the profession these days will have a
different perspective on how long they might stay in school, in
a similar way that society has changed and there are not so many
jobs which are jobs for life and people do have an expectation
that they will change quite frequently. I know that there is a
negative implication for that, but nevertheless that is with us.
Mr O'Kane: I know that point has
been made on numerous occasions about portfolio careers, as it
were, and teachers moving in and out of the profession and there
may be some truth in that. Indeed many presumably do move out
once they have paid off their student debts and that may be one
way that the exodus is even an enhancement of the profession after
four or five years. The point of the matter which is crucial is
that in teaching you do need a solid cadre of teachers who are
there as lifelong teachers. Of course career breaks ought to be
encouraged but at the same time there has to be a certain cadre
of teachers who are committed to the profession on a lifelong
basis. That experience and continuity is crucial and it is particularly
crucial in a school which is experiencing real difficulties. It
is actually the turnover of staff in those schools which often
accentuates the difficulties.
Q298 Mr Pollard: Eamonn said earlier
on "my instinct would be" and Doug said "I guess
my answer would be" and it seems to me that whilst I am sure
Eamonn's instincts are first rate and very sharp, we must not
rely on instinct, we must rely on solid data to effect our decisions.
I just wonder whether it is your belief that there is sufficient
data, particularly as the only information we have is for first
year graduates and after that there is little. I was at one school
this morning, nursery school admittedly, where the newest recruit
was a 53-year-old chap who had been in printing for many years.
He said to me that he loved the job, it was a new job, he did
not think it was an excessive workload and he said it was no more
excessive than it was in the industry he had just left. I wonder
whether we should encourage fluidity, more transfers across from
teaching into commerce, into industry and back again. It seems
to me that would enliven things. Nobody has a job for life now.
I have had six different careers and 12 different jobs in my life
and I still have some more to go. Could you take us through that?
Mr McAvoy: The figures are there
which show that we cannot recruit sufficient good graduates into
teaching; those figures are there. I cannot imagine anyone on
any committee challenging those figures. We cannot meet government
targets for the intake and therefore we are short of sufficient
good quality graduates coming into teaching. We also know we cannot
keep the ones who come in. They leave within three, four, five
years, certainly many of them not to come back. There is a problem
about recruitment, there is a problem about retention, which is
statistically and research based and those figures are there and
have been there for a long time. Add to that the fact that we
have been given the reasons for teaching not being attractive,
or being attractive to begin with, but why people leave. There
are four. They have been there for a long time. I cannot agree
with the suggestion that maybe we do not have the statistics.
Whatever Eamonn and I might have said in terms of a previous question,
certainly my answer was not to be hesitant about whether we had
the facts. We have the facts. The National Union of Teachers has
long been a supporter of widening the routes into teaching. We
want to encourage people to come into teaching. We will not be
able to encourage them to come into teaching without necessarily
having to uproot their family life and go somewhere for three
or four years. We want a system whereby people can build up through
a credit type system and develop their qualifications such that
they can become teachers. We have been promoting that for about
15 or more years. We are not a closed shop in that respect. We
welcome those who have come in from other occupations. It might
be a fact of life that youngsters do not now come into teaching
for life. If that is a fact of life, let it be a fact of life.
Do not promote it. We have statements from government ministers
which say teaching is not a job for life, almost encouraging them
to believe they can come and go. How can anyone then budget for
the number of teachers we need if you do so on the basis that
you encourage them to go or plant the seed that they might want
to go? Surely we should start by having a system which makes teaching
so attractive that they want to come in and when they come in,
nothing, but nothing, would drive them away from teaching. That
is the kind of vision we need from a government, of whatever political
hue. That is what we need. We need that to reassure teachers who
are in schools now that they do not have to work longer to get
the pension they have been promised. We need that to ensure that
those youngsters, who get to the point of qualifying but do not
take the next step into our schools, come into our schools and
we need that to ensure that those who come into our schools stay
in our schools. That is a fairly simple vision.
Chairman: Let us shift for a moment.
I want to focus on retention issues which we have obviously touched
on already: workload and pupil behaviour.
Q299 Ms Munn: I am going to go on
behaviour. There is an agreement that behaviour is an issue, an
agreement generally from the Government and yourselves and you
have mentioned it several times today. The Government has had
a behaviour improvement programme in place for a year. Is this
the right approach?
Mr O'Kane: I certainly welcome
what the Government is embarking upon. First of all, it is a recognition
of the problem and that is quite important. There have been quite
unsuccessful attempts in the past to sweep these issues under
the carpet. There have been many examples of schools, local authorities
and government ministers suggesting that the problem of behaviour
is an exaggerated one. My own union has on many occasions been
accused of giving an alarmist message when we have reflected only
too accurately the strong feelings of many teachers confronted
with this difficult and pervasive problem. Therefore it is a useful
step that the Government have recognised that this is a problem
and have begun to institute measures to address it. Whether the
measures they are producing will in themselves deal with the root
of the problem, remains to be seen. It is a pilot project as you
know and obviously there are lessons which need to be learned
from its implementation. If I may make a couple of observations
in a rather more general way on this issue.
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