Don't use the word 'academic'

The Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University recently published a report on courses to train graduate teachers. This was based on data collected by the Training and Development Agency for Schools in 2007/08.

Two areas of concern were noted.

In the case of courses admitting students to a B.A. in Education, i.e. not a postgraduate teaching qualification for graduates from specialist courses but a degree course offering subject education and a teaching qualification together, those wishing to teach science at secondary level frequently lacked the normal entry qualification of two subjects at 'A' level.

In fact of these intending science teachers less than a third had two 'A' levels.

In the case of specialist graduates who wish to take a postgraduate teaching qualification, there was a marked difference between degree levels of those who wished to teach "unpopular" subjects, such as maths and foreign languages, reflecting the fact that education colleges find it difficult to recruit graduates with good awards (1st class, or upper second - fewer than half of their recruits had these levels. Of those with the 'good' awards only two thirds actually went into teaching when they finished the course.) In he case of intending history teachers 80% had decent awards and the same percentage actually went into teaching afterwards.

The consequence of all this is that in some subjects, maths science and foreign languages for instance, the 'quality' of future teachers as judged by their own qualifications is low and rejection of the profession is high. This may reflect shortages and rewards elsewhere.

Whatever the cause, there must be concern over these findings, about the quality of impotant teaching areas in the future.