Higher education leaders said this week that they believed the government was trying to expel universities from teacher training for political reasons because ministers thought their education departments were “lips of intellectualism.” left “and full of” Marxists. ”
Under the changes announced last summer, all initial teacher training providers in England must be re-accredited by the Department of Education to continue training teachers from 2024. However, two-thirds of providers, including some top-tier universities were told this month that they had failed the first round of the new accreditation process. The DfE said last week that only 80 suppliers, out of the 216 that are understood to have applied, had made the cut.
Among those currently in the cold are some of the prestigious Russell Group. The University of Nottingham, a member of the elite group, said it was “very disappointed and perplexed” to have failed just two months after Ofsted rated it as excellent, and inspectors praised the “resume”. exceptional taught by experts “.
The University of Birmingham, which the DfE has chosen as one of the specialist partners for its new school-based National Institute of Education, also failed the first round of accreditation.
The director of a failed university, who asked not to be appointed for fear of deterring applicants, said: “Our excellent teaching staff is devastated by the failure to to succeed. They have a hard time believing because of our history. “
The DfE has said providers may reapply, but experts say some large universities are so outraged that they may drop out of teacher training altogether, exacerbating fears about teacher shortages in many subjects. Cambridge University did not apply for accreditation for fear that its curriculum would be compromised.
Mary Bousted, secretary general of the National Education Union, said: “This was a creation of [former schools minister] Nick Gibb, who was obsessed with the idea that university teacher training departments were the focus of left-wing intellectualism. I told him I didn’t know how to convey my frustration because I came out with this rubbish. “
Professor David Spendlove, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Manchester and former Head of Initial Teacher Training, said: “As Secretary of Education, Michael Gove spoke of fighting‘ the Blob ’. [the education establishment]. He and Nick Gibb had this idea that universities and teacher training departments were all Marxist. His influence has not disappeared. “
The University of Nottingham was the first university to publicly confirm that it had suspended the first round of the new accreditation process. Photography: Mike Egerton / PA Media
Manchester approved the accreditation, but Professor Spendlove believes the new process is “damaging the foundation” of university teacher training and is now “harder to stay than to leave”.
“People who have been doing this for a long time are being told that they are not fit for purpose, despite all the positive inspections that have taken place. This is a scam,” he said.
Professor David Green, vice-chancellor of the University of Worcester, who has a strong focus on teacher training, said: “Gibb had a clear agenda to remove universities from teacher training. Some officials may have been loyal to the its outdated perspective “.
He said: “This new DfE system runs the risk of destroying much of the existing high-quality teacher training. This would be a disaster for children who will recover from the educational devastation caused by the pandemic for years.”
Professor Spendlove said no university should celebrate its success in the first round, arguing that the next stage in the accreditation process, which focuses on the curriculum, means losing autonomy over what is taught. “It involves more scrutiny of course content and a review of curriculum materials, which is completely weird,” he said. “The DfE expects people to be so desperate for approval that it will only go around and accept it.”
This idea is worrisome for many universities. Cambridge, which had more than 250 enrolled in teaching this year and is rated excellent by Ofsted, said its decision not to apply was due to concerns about the government’s “highly prescribed curriculum” and its tutoring model, which he said “do not.” it seems like what we do ”.
Bousted said: “Universities are right to fear that the DfE will try to control its teaching curriculum. That is what is happening.”
Education unions have been warning for many months that forcing providers to skip new bureaucratic hurdles runs the risk of damaging teacher supply. Teacher training applications are down 24% from last year after a brief rise in Covid, with recruitment below pre-pandemic levels.
A report by the National Foundation for Educational Research in March said a wide variety of high school subjects would not meet their teacher recruitment goals by 2022. These include scarce subjects such as physics, math, chemistry and computer science. but also those who tend to hire well like now. such as English, biology and geography.
Professor Chris Husbands, vice-chancellor of the University of Sheffield Hallam, whose initial faculty training passed the first round of accreditation, said: “I think this is intended to drive some suppliers out of the market. the government is running to oust some of the people who should be targeted. “
He said universities were committed to teacher training “but not at any cost”. “Big organizations always have options,” he said. “I really don’t understand why the government is choosing this fight. Evidence from Ofsted’s inspections shows that the industry is in pretty good shape. That doesn’t make sense to me.”
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Nottingham was the first university to publicly confirm that it did not pass the first round of accreditation. The news was received angrily in the industry.
Green described the decision as “just ridiculous”, so soon after Ofsted rated all aspects of Nottingham’s teacher training as exceptional.
John Dexter, who was director of education at Nottingham City Council until February and spent more than 30 years teaching and managing school in the city, tweeted that he was “baffled, upset and frustrated”. For the result.
He said: “It’s extraordinary. Getting an excellent Offsted from ITT [initial teacher training] it’s pretty impressive. “He said the Nottingham course was good at helping students understand the environment in which they would be teaching.” I really don’t understand why the DfE is doing this. ”
The government announced on Thursday, after a one-year contract dispute that was thought to have cost hundreds of thousands, that its National Education Institute would open in September 2023, run by a consortium of four school boards called School Led Development Trust.
He approached the DfE for comment.