What about the teechers?

The Times newspaper reported recently on the academic quality of trainee teachers. These are graduates, if they wish to teach in England, and have achieved five good GCSE passes including English, maths and science.

However, it seems that they are struggling to pass numeracy and literacy tests. Last year 11,000 trainee teachers, or just over a quarter of all, failed to pass the literacy test, over 1,500 more than the previous year. In numeracy tests last year 20,000 failed at the first attempt, or approaching half. In ICT 4,000 failed the test. I point out again that these were all graduates.

The Training and Development Agency for Schools claimed that the average pass rate across all three subjects, English, maths and IT was 83%. Does this mean that on average 17% failed the test and didn't proceed?

Perhaps the most worrying thing is that past educational failure, including easier examinations and more generous grades, has produced ill-equipped graduates who will go on to fail the next generation of students!