To make them better

Recently Ed Balls suggested a five year renewable licence for teacher accreditation. Those who have caused disquiet could thus be removed. Something like 25,000 fall into this category. They wouldn't be removed immediately. Common justice demands that they should be given the opportunity to retrain and improve their technique. So we could be looking at 7 or 8 years before they are finally removed.

Yesterday Mr. Gove, in a speech to the Institute of Physics, suggested his ideas on improving the quality of teachers.

1) They should obtain at least a grade B in English and Mathematics at GCSE, before they could be considered for teacher training.

2) A honours degree of at least 2 (ii) level would be required. Currently about 1,200 applicants with a third class degree are accepted for training annually.

3) In future a multiple or resits in literacy and numeracy tests will not be permitted.

These seem to be eminently sensible. GCSE and degree grades have been devalued. The present C grade required at GCSE would be equivalent to a bare pass, grade 6, in the old GCE examination. A Third class honours now would be little more than an attendance qualification.

But Gove would surely admit that these of themselves are not sufficient. Some personalities are not ideal for teaching at some levels, and there has to be a level of commitment.

My own conviction is that Gove's suggestion would improve quality of teaching, but would not filter out all who are destined to become square pegs in round holes. Many will leave of their own volition when they realise that they are not suited for teaching, but there will be a residual who plough on through sheer inertia. This last group will have tobe faced with some sort of mechanism that leads to elimination.