Further memorandum submitted by James
Rogers, Executive Director, Universities' Council for the Education
of Teachers (UCET)
Further to my letter of 9 May, I have now seen
a copy of the ISC survey that purports to show that "teacher
training institutions" are guilty of bullying student teachers
who express an interest in teaching in the independent sector.
Leaving aside the survey methodology,[1]
the results do not support the conclusions drawn. For example,
it found that 80% of providers were either neutral or supportive
towards their students working in the independent sector, with
significantly more being described as supportive (32%) than negative
(20%). And it is not even clear what these 20% of supposed negative
comments actually entailed. They appear to cover those students
whose views were "ignored" (surely a neutral rather
than a negative response) as well as those who claim to have experienced
a genuinely hostile reaction.
We cannot, of course, rule out the possibility
that some teacher educators made negative comments to students
expressing an interest in the independent sector, and we would
condemn any who did. But this does not constitute systemic "bullying"
by the sector as a whole or by institutions as opposed to individuals.
As I said in my earlier letter, many teacher
education institutions work closely and productively with the
independent sector and we recognise the valuable contribution
that the sector plays in teacher education. We would be more than
happy to work with the ISC to develop this further.
May 2008
1 An unrepresentative sample of 757 NQTs (from an annual
total of some 20,000) apparently asked questions in open forums
organised by the ISC. Back
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