Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by John Bangs
Introduction and Context
1. I must apologise for not having been able to give oral evidence to the Select Committee on this short Inquiry. However I hope this short written note is not too late. I’ll start with a small piece of personal biography since it is relevant. As Head of Education at the National Union of Teachers I supported the establishment of the General Teaching Council for England. However the Government’s legislation for its establishment imposed a range of additional responsibilities on it which had been sought neither by the Education Select Committee of the time chaired By Sir Malcolm Thornton not by the teacher unions. This created suspicion about the previous Government’s intentions which was compounded by its failure to work with the teacher unions to create the conditions which would encourage teachers to own a GTCE.
2. The GTCE then made the mistake of describing itself as representing teachers which promptly triggered a legal challenge from the NUT. In his 26th April speech to the National College of Teaching and Leadership the Secretary of State appears to make the same mistake by proposing that a College of Teachers could be more responsible replacement for them.
3. I interviewed David Puttnam, the first Chair of the GTCE and Keith Bartley, the last Chief Executive of the GTCE, for the book I wrote with John MacBeath and Maurice Galton on the education reforms of the Labour Governments, (“Reinventing Schools, Reforming Teaching”). He described his role as a “hospital pass” because of the circumstances of its creation. Ten years on from the GTCE’s inception Keith Bartley still estimated that 28–29% of teachers were still hostile to its existence despite his efforts at securing acceptance. These teachers were resentful about being asked to pay a fee for an organisation for which they could see no purpose.
4. Despite this level of hostility it was not the teacher unions which campaigned for its abolition. The irony was that it was the Secretary of State who played to the views of the hostile teacher group by seeking to please this bloc through the GTCE’s abolition. Yet the reality for the College is that for it to be successful it needs the pro-active endorsement of the major leadership and teacher unions.
5. The lessons of why the GTCE went down with little protest from the profession are relevant to the creation of a College of Teaching.
International Evidence
6. Since leaving the NUT I’ve become Senior Consultant for Education International-the Global Union Federation for all teacher unions. My responsibility is liaising with the OECD. I represent EI in helping organise the annual International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) with OECD and the host government. The Summits consist of country delegations which involve the Education Minister and up to two teacher union leaders. Its focus is to take forward teacher policy. The one lesson which emerges from the Summits, (regular attendees include the US, Japan, Norway, Finland, Sweden, New Zealand and Germany), is that countries with outstanding education systems have system wide teacher policies which have been worked out in partnership with strong proactive teacher unions. The reports of the Summits can be found at asiasociety.org/teachingsummit.
7. The best picture of what teacher policies look like is outlined in the OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Surveys (TALIS). A coherent system wide teacher policy will include; initial teacher education, teacher professional development, appraisal and feedback, teaching standards, creating effective school leadership etc. OECD’s conclusion is that effective, integrated teacher policies lead to high levels of teacher self-efficacy and strong teacher self-efficacy contributes to high quality pedagogy. What is also clear is that England does not have a systemic teacher policy. The creation of a small number of Teaching Schools is not an adequate substitute. Professional development is balkanised and variable in content, quality and availability for example. Teachers are not part of a national community of good practice which shares developments in teaching and learning. The model of appraisal and feedback has been imposed by government.
8. A recent survey I helped conduct on behalf of the Trade Union Advisory Committee Education Working Group at OECD found that only teacher unions in England and Spain felt that they had no engagement with their governments on creating teacher policy. Respondents from all the other countries felt they had some form of productive engagement.
9. Indeed levels of self-efficacy among classroom teachers are at a low ebb as recent teacher union surveys have shown.
Teacher Policy and a College of Teaching
10. I welcome the Select Committee’s proposals for enabling teachers to have a more coherent learning offer and to have a professional council. I particularly welcome Charlotte Leslie’s work in this area. The Princes Teaching Institute consultation document on creating a College of Teaching nails the right themes for the College’s areas of responsibility. However the Secretary of State’s decision not to be engaged in its creation is as wrong as it would be if he decided to impose a College on the profession.
11. The levels of teacher self-efficacy during the GTCE’s life were as low as they are now. Such levels are not conducive to the successful establishment of a College as they weren’t for teacher support for the GTCE. Teachers are suspicious of initiatives which are established for their own good and cost them money-particularly if their morale is low. The Secretary of State should put teacher policy at the top of his agenda and he should invite teacher unions to work with him in creating coherent teacher policy. Part of this approach should be to view the establishment of a College of Teachers as part of teacher policy. (He could also start attending the International Teaching Summit again!)
12. If there is enough support for a College then the Secretary of State should commit government to being required to respond to all the College’s policy proposals in the same as he is required to respond to the Select Committee’s proposals.
13. There is a strong argument for the College being a funder of teachers’ professional development in the way as the TUC receives government funding for UnionLearn.
14. The College itself should not seek to place teacher unions at arms-length in its governance structure. Teacher unions should be able to nominate teachers to the College’s council. It is important to remember that in some countries teacher unions carry out the functions the College consultation proposes for itself. The Committee might ask what the position of teacher unions in this country is on carrying out those functions. Indeed the Committee should investigate the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards in the US. Its Chief Executive Ron Thorpe works closely with the NEA, AFT and State Education Superintendents which have nominees on the NBPTS Board to provide a highly effective, voluntary teacher standards and certification model. In fact it’s high time the Select Committee organised an evidence session on lessons to be learnt from teacher policies in outstanding education systems.
July 2013