Tory attack on education 'crisis'

Theresa May says teachers are not free to teach

The Conservatives have accused the government of bringing about a "crisis" in education, as indicated by a shortage of teachers.

In a Commons debate on the future of the teaching profession, the Shadow Education Secretary, Theresa May, accused ministers of piling bureaucracy onto teachers and demoralising them with centralised policies.

She said teacher recruitment was at its lowest level for five years.

David Blunkett: Counter-attack

But the Education Secretary, David Blunkett, said teacher numbers were higher than under the Conservatives, who had promoted elitism.

Mrs May said the picture of a profession overburdened with bureaucracy would not encourage the best new graduates to consider teaching.

"Yet if we are to ensure that every child receives a high quality education that is right for them and that every child is inspired to achieve their full potential we must re-establish teaching as a valued profession of choice," she said.

Vacancies

The number of people recruited into initial teacher training courses had fallen steadily under this government, Mrs May said.

There were 14,000 secondary teacher training places available this year but there had been only 9,000 applications.

A recent poll also showed that more than half of the teaching profession was set to quit within the decade.

"The biggest issue for teachers quitting the profession was heavy workload followed by bureaucracy and stress," she said.

"This government is levelling down in education and it's taking away the spontaneity that made the job appealing.".

'Division'

Mr Blunkett said in reply that he accepted that the Labour government would be judged on its record in education.

But people would probably forget what things had been like under the Conservatives - with division, conflict, the breaking of co-operation between schools and increased elitism.

Mr Blunkett said that, under the Tories, some 8,100 teachers took early retirement in 1990. Some 14,100 went in 1997, but last year the numbers fell to 2,700.

He said it was important that people felt that the teaching profession was worth being in and entering.

New pay scales would enable teachers to access "really substantial pay levels for doing a good job" and trainees were getting salaries of £6,000.

"I'm prepared to admit that there is a recruitment problem. I'm even prepared to admit that we haven't cracked the issue of morale," said Mr Blunkett.

'Decent pay and conditions'

"But we deny entirely that we've failed to allow teachers to teach or to enable them to do so with decent conditions, with decent pay and with decent prospects for the future."

The Liberal Democrats' education spokesman, Phil Willis, said although he had suffered as a headteacher for 18 years under the Tories - who "invented bureaucracy" - he agreed with much of Mrs May's speech.

He said the Liberal Democrats had warned that without recruitment and retention becoming a priority there would be a classroom crisis - which had now become a reality.