SPEECH FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR NAS/UWT ANNUAL CONFERENCE - 4 APRIL 1997
The Right Honourable Gillian Shephard
Why is education so important? This week we have seen that it is at the top of all political agendas - and increasingly - of all agendas - economic, business and parental.
Why at last, and one might well ask, why only at last, is there this national preoccupation with standards and achievement in education?
Of course those of us involved in education have always known how important it is:
for the enrichment of individual lives
as the means of transmitting our cultural heritage to future generations
for the growth and development of our language, an international resource
as a civilising influence in all nations
all these are immensely important. But as we face the 21st Century - now less than 1,000 days away - we cannot ignore the vital importance of education for our economic survival as a nation in a highly competitive global environment. Employers understand that. Parents understand that. Young people and their teachers understand that. That is why education is at the top of all political and economic agendas.
By all the indicators which show the economic health of a nation Britain is booming. We have had the strongest and longest recovery since 1992 of any major European country. We have the lowest unemployment (6.2%) of any major European country, and the highest percentage of inward investment of any country in the European Union. We have more people in work than any of our major competitors. Our exports are booming and inflation and interest rates are at historically low levels.
These are important facts, for individuals and for Britain. But if we are going to maintain this prosperity - and indeed to stand even higher among our competitors, we need a well-educated and well-trained society. For we are facing a completely new challenge. We are used to competing with countries like ourselves who have highly paid, highly skilled workforces. We are used to competing with countries with low paid, low skilled workforces. What is new is today's challenge to all highly-developed economies, from countries with low-paid but highly-skilled workforces.
Add to this the sheer pace of technological development and the growth of knowledge and it is clear that to face this the work-force of the next generation will have to be the brightest and best, at every level - and it is our responsibility to make sure that they are.
I know that it may not always feel like that when you are teaching 4B on a wet Friday afternoon - but you do have the nation's future in your hands.
It is because the Government has recognised the importance of education to the nation that we have put in place over the last 18years a series of vitally important education reforms. Neither our competitors nor technological advance stand still. Standards have to rise continually. The main object of all our reforms has been to raise standards throughout the education system. (I know that high standards are also the main concern of the NAS/UWT and therefore you have welcomed many of our reforms.)
The two themes which have characterised the changes over the past decade have been accountability and transparency. Schools must be accountable for their actions and their performance. And they must present clear evidence on which they can be judged - by governors, parents and the community at large.
We have ensured accountability by giving all schools much greater independence, to run their own affairs, through Local Management of Schools. I remember so well the dire predictions before LMS began, that schools would not be able to cope with it. You have in fact coped magnificently. While there are always discussions about funding, I think there is general agreement that the policy itself is right - and that no-one would wish to go back to the old system. In fact - as we say in our Manifesto - our intention is to go forward - and to move towards giving all schools control of 100% of their budgets and much more responsibility for their own affairs - and as a result more of their money where it matters, in schools.
Transparency is ensured by The National Curriculum, with its accompanying tests and performance tables.
The National Curriculum makes it clear to everyone what has to be taught and what must be learned. This is happening.
When it was introduced the Curriculum was a novelty in Britain, though France has had a National Curriculum since Napoleon and Germany since Bismarck. Having established it we then set in place testing of the core curriculum subjects at the various key stages. As we announced in our Manifesto we now intend to extend this process and test all the compulsory curriculum subjects at Key Stage3 - because all subjects and all talents are important. I know that you will have opinions to express on this - and of course we shall consult fully before the process begins. I am not afraid to say that we have learned lessons about the best way of introducing change. But I make no apology for continuing the drive to raise standards - and that is what all our Manifesto proposal aim to do.
Part of this drive to transparency of the education system has been to ensure that schools' performance is visible to everyone. So we introduced performance tables - first for GCSE results in secondary schools and then, earlier this month, for Key Stage2 (11year old tests). This process of publication will, over time, be extended to the other Key Stage tests.
The Tables will take their place alongside prospectuses, annual reports to parents, and regular school reports to give a clear picture of a school's performance.
Both accountability and transparency have been considerably strengthened by the establishment of OFSTED, ensuring that all schools are inspected in a fouryear cycle. Our recent Education Act extends the work of OFSTED, giving them power to inspect education authorities and to intervene directly to raise standards where education authorities are letting children down.
I have followed the debates on inspection and OFSTED this week with much interest. I rather enjoyed one comment - that Chris Woodhead seems to be the only person around who has job security! But I do believe that the Chief Inspector is leading OFSTED in doing an excellent job.
The new OFSTED power over LEAs is much-needed - as their recent inspection of Calderdale LEA has shown. The situation at The Ridings school which prompted that inspection turned out to be only one result - albeit a deplorable one - of an LEA with many faults.
Under our new measures where OFSTED judges an LEA to be failing it will have powers to intervene directly to raise standards.
We are now taking these processes of accountability and transparency even further. Our recent Act requires all schools to set, and publish, regular targets and plans for improving their results. Many of course already do so. We shall also be setting national targets for every Curriculum Key Stage, against which individual schools and LEAs can measure themselves.
Now that parents know so much more about schools they are in a better position to choose between them. And we have provided a rich diversity of schools from which they can choose - LEA, GM, the traditional church schools and grammar schools, and, more recently, specialist schools. We now have over 200 of those, specialising in technology, languages, and now sports and the arts. We are expanding this programme and aim to help one in five schools become specialist schools by 2001.
We also intend to allow all schools to select some of their pupils and we will help schools to become grammar schools in every major town where parents want that choice.
Now there will be many views on selection in this room. My view is that every school should be allowed to build on its own strengths, whatever these may be, and every child should have the opportunity to develop his or her particular talents. While we do not intend to return to the days when we had only two types of school, we have not spent 18 years spreading diversity throughout our education system to allow a return to only one type of school.
And let me assure you - that's what you would get under Labour. In budgetary terms alone if you remove 10% of every school's budget back to the LEA - you have destroyed the growing independence of all schools and the whole concept of GM schools - at one fell stroke. And that's what Labour would do.
I know that NAS/UWT has always been ready to be realistic about the challenges presented by change. You have always supported improvement, provided that it can be managed. You have never taken the narrow-minded view that everything is in good order already.
I know too that while these initiatives have given teachers many opportunities - they have also put considerable pressure on you - from parents, inspectors, your own governors and local education authorities, from the media and the government!
We have been aware of these pressures which is why we have also endeavoured to provide support which would help you to rise to these challenges. We clearly all agree with the Chief Inspector that nothing is more important to the success of any school than the quality of its teaching and its leadership.
That is why one of the most important of our reforms has been a major overhaul of teachers' professional training and development - to ensure that teachers entering the profession are as well trained as possible and to provide opportunities for serving teachers to enhance their knowledge and skills.
Good teachers themselves are the experts on teaching. That is why in our reforms we have given you a larger part in training new entrants, in the development of your junior colleagues and in taking responsibility for your own professional development.
The establishment of the Teacher Training Agency in 1994 gave a fresh impetus and focus to the reforms of teacher training - which in my view had not kept pace with the other changes which we had already put in place. Much has been achieved since then. The Agency has emphasised and encouraged partnership - giving schools and serving teachers a much more active role in the training process.
We are also bringing greater transparency to the teacher-training process - by moving towards a nationally agreed training curriculum. The TTA is currently consulting on this, with the consultation due to end on 8 May. The first stage covers English and Mathematics in the primary age range. This will take effect from September 1997. A second phase will cover Primary Science and Secondary English, Maths and Science and will take effect from September 1998.
This new National Curriculum for Initial Teacher Training concentrates on the basic skills, ensuring that new teachers are equipped with skills that work in the classroom. It serves no-one's purpose to have weak links in the chain.
Just as with the National Curriculum for schools we must be careful about the detail of this - and that is why I have asked the TTA to consult the profession on its proposals. I know your contribution will be most valuable.
The TTA is also consulting on teacher appraisal - because we are going to establish a more rigorous and effective system of appraisal, which reflects how well pupils perform in tests and exams. This will identify which teachers need more help and, where necessary, which teachers need to be replaced. It will also enable expert teachers to be identified - and good classroom practice to be recognised and rewarded.
What we want to see at the end of all this is a national framework setting key standards for teachers at key points in their careers - just as we have for pupils - with a series of qualifications to reflect these standards.
We have put the first one in place - the new National Professional Qualification for Headship for new head teachers- which joins the already existing HEADLAMP - which supports heads in their first appointment. TTA has 2,500 new heads registered for HEADLAMP and 250trial candidates have already embarked on training for the new NPQH.
We are also helping teachers to improve their classroom practice in basic skills through our National Literacy and Numeracy Project. We plan to spend over £5m a year for fiveyears on our network of 25 Literacy and Numeracy Centres - to raise standards of achievement in primary schools. The Centres are already very popular and can hardly cope with the demand for their services, so eager are people to use them.
The project will help teachers through auditing baseline achievement, setting challenging targets and measuring progress with specially designed tests.
Early feedback from the project shows that teachers have welcomed it with enthusiasm - I believe it will make a significant improvement in those essential basic skills.
So will our Family Literacy and Numeracy programmes, designed to raise standards of literacy in entire families, particularly in inner city areas. £1.5m will be made available through GEST in 199798 to extend the programme to provide 215 courses in 52 LEAs.
All teachers feel that they need the support of parents. So it is important to involve parents and to bind them to the education process.
The Family Literacy and Numeracy programmes do that. So does the Nursery Voucher Initiative, which puts parental choice and involvement at the heart of the policy, and so does baseline assessment, enabling parents to be involved immediately in their children's progress at primary school.
An area of great concern to everyone connected with education is that of School Security.
The NAS/UWT has played a most significant part in helping to deal with this vital matter. Your General Secretary was a member of the Working Group on School Security which we set up in December1995. We are most grateful for the active part he played. The Group reported to the Government last May with 22recommendations. We accepted all of these and many of them have been implemented, including:
a £66m funding programme over the next three years which begins this month;
new guidance on improving security in schools has been published and made available to all schools;
we hosted a national conference last December to identify and share good practice;
research has been commissioned from the SuzyLamplugh Trust into aspects of personal safety in education;
since 1September it has been an arrestable offence to carry a knife on school premises.
Work on other recommendations is in hand, in particular on guidance on dealing with troublemakers in and around schools, and a review of the existing relevant law.
NAS/UWT has done much to highlight the matter of school discipline - and the disproportionate effect which the disruptive few can have on the education of the many.
We have taken measures to tighten up discipline in our current Education Act, by
requiring governors of all maintained schools to ensure that every school has policies to promote good behaviour and discipline and to publish the discipline policy for parents, pupils and staff
confirming that it is lawful for teachers and other authorised staff to use reasonable force to prevent a pupil committing an offence, which might cause injury or damage, or disrupt good order and discipline
giving schools powers to impose detentions without parental consent
allowing more flexibility for exclusions - so that a pupil may be excluded for a period of 45consecutive days rather than the current 15days a term
requiring appeal committees to consider the interests of other pupils and staff at the school, as well as of the excluded pupil, in considering whether the pupil should be reinstated
allowing schools to make home/school agreements a condition of admission.
We want to ensure that heads and teachers have the maximum flexibility in which to exercise their authority in an atmosphere which promotes orderly behaviour, rather than in one which militates against it.
I know that we have your support on this - the NAS/UWT deserves credit for its concern for firm discipline.
But I have to say that, whatever the situation in a school may be, there is never any excuse for a professional person to strike or to take industrial action. It is not the way for professional people to behave, and for teachers the interests of the children should always come first. They cannot be well served by absent teachers.
I know that the demands made on teachers are great. I know too your concern to be professional. That is why I have always made clear my support for a single professional body which could speak with authority for the teaching profession as a whole. The profession itself has not established such a body. Nor does it yet speak with one voice about the role of such a body. I believe that government should take this forward and we have made clear in our Manifesto our intention to do that. But before we could make any practical progress we should need some common agreement about some very important issues: the role of such a body; how that would relate to the functions of the TTA and other agencies; on what basis its membership might be elected or selected; and what role the holder of my office should properly play. We are still some way from that shared understanding. I welcome any debate that leads to progress on these important issues - so that we can together establish a General Teaching Council which will enhance the status of a most important profession.