Education

Fewer could mean better

Rhodes Boyson, MP

It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good and the recently published figures of the sharp fall in the birth rate could promise a transformation for the better of the educational scene. While in 1971 it was estimated that there would be 8,500,000 schoolchildren in 1987, the latest forecasts point to only 6,700,000, a fall of 1,800,000.

This fall in the number of students should be used for a complete reassessment of our educational scene both in schools and in higher education. Unfortunately, however, it seems that the Department 91 Education and Science will drop its estimate of the number of schoolteachers required in 1981 by a mere 22,000 while the number of Projected higher education places Will be cut from 750,000 to 600,000.

Astonishingly enough, the department intends to use the great advantage of a falling birth rate not to cut drastically the number of teachers being trained while insisting on a more selective intake, but to retire teachers at fify-five or sixty on full pensions, to provide more teaching assistants, secretaries and technicians in schools and to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio. The department doe hope to improve the salary prospects of teachers but it is doubtful if this can be achieved if the number of teachers is not further reduced.

The only useful suggestion of the department is that of increasing Pay. To suggest that the older teachers who are probably the most effective should retire early is a retrograde step while there is simply no evidence that the provision of more ancillary help or a reduction of the pupil:teacher ratio has the effect of improving standards.

The twentyand thirty-year-old teachers are the ones who joined the profession when almost anyone With two legs and two eyes was recruited. The emphasis in the last twenty years has been on teacher quantity not quality. In 1970 only 79 PYrcent of the men and 61 per cent ot the women entering Colleges of Education had passed '0' level English and mathematics. In 1972 only 40.5 per cent of entrants to Colleges of Education had gained two or more `A' levels and no more than 68.2 per cent had even one 'A' level.

Thus if anyone has to be retired it Should be the recent recruits who fill our city staff rooms and seem often incapable of either disciplin

ary enforcement or professional behaviour. Far better, however, to close down many of the Colleges of Education and tighten the conditions of recruitment of students and staff. Two 'A' levels could be demanded for all direct entry candidates. The recommendation of the James Report on Teacher Training that student teachers should be on a two-year Diploma of Higher Education course should be ignored. Instead, all candidates for College of Education entry should have a full year's pupil teaching in schools so that those without the right approach or the necessary stamina could be weeded out at an early stage. Then there should be a two-year teacher training course in the Colleges taught by staff on three to five years' secondment from actual school teaching. The fourth year could then be supervised school teaching in one school. We should then be turning out teachers not fourth-class psychologists, sociologists and social workers.. This simple non-graduate teacher training course should be linked with special staff colleges where teachers go on three-or six-month courses when they are promoted to heads of department, housemasters, deputy heads and headteachers.

The present College of Education course is most unsatisfactory. A survey made by the National Union of Teachers in 1969 showed that half the trainee teachers at Colleges of Education did not want to teach full time when they qualified and that 77.9 per cent considered that their professional training was inadequate. A report by the Inner London Education Committee noted that only one in eight young junior schoolteachers had received training in the teaching of reading, despite the fact that at least one London pupil in six required special reading help.

The economics of teacher training in Britain are those of Passchendaele. After a three-year course costing some £3,000, 80 per Cent of the women and 33 per cent of the men leave teaching within their first six years. Only 20 per cent of the women leave for involuntary reasons, like childbirth, the vast majority leave because they do not like teaching or because they find something more financially rewarding or more interesting to occupy their time.

Trainee teachers must make a firm commitment to teaching before they start their course so the year's pupil-teacher experience could be decisive on their future attitude. The introduction of a partial loans system would test their motivation and this could also mean higher teachers'salaries. It is better to have loans with higher salaries than to have the present position of a free ride at college and impoverishment thereafter.

There is no evidence that smaller classes improve the quality of teaching by competent teachers. Standards have plummeted as classes have decreased in size. The research of the National Children's Bureau into the 11,000 children born in the same week of 1958 showed that children in classes of over forty did consistently better in their reading and arithmetic at infant school than those unfortunate enough to be in classes of below thirty. Research by the European Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development; the Japanese success in mathematics teaching; and other pieces of research point to the same conclusion. It is probable that children in larger classes stimulate one another and the very size of class means that teachers have to use the effective traditional methods instead of the ineffective progressive methods.

London explodes the myth that smaller classes are more productive. Even allowing for the staff shortages, staffing in London is much more generous than in the rest of the country, yet standards of schooling are falling. There is one Inner London Education Authority teacher to every 21.8 pupils in primary schools compared with one for 25 in the country as a whole; while in secondary schools there is one teacher for every 14.6 pupils in London compared with one for 17.2 nationally. The fact that one third of teachers in London are below the age of twenty-five and two thirds are below the age of thirty-five is no recommendation for younger teachers.

It is clear that the falling birth rate should be used to have much Stator September 7, 1974 fewer but much better paid teachers. It is salaries that count and to raise them while increasing the pupil:teacher ratio would be doubly beneficial. The Economist Research Unit in 1970 found that four out of ten sixth-formers who wished to teach decided against it because of the low salaries. Indeed, an Assistant Masters Association report of 1973 quotes the comment of one graduate that''one gets the impression that teaching attracts the dedicated or the aimless but never the ambitious.'

The relative purchasing power of teachers' salaries has fallen since the mid-1960s. In 1965 it took a non-graduate teacher four years to reach the average manual workers' salary; in 1971 it took eight years and in 1973 ten. This fall has Partially arisen because there are just too many teachers for the community to reward them adequately.

It would thus appear that we should take advantage of the falling birth-rate by training fewer teachers who would be selected more carefully and paid more generously. A cut in the number of universities would also help to bring a higher quality of entry to Colleges of Education which Should be renamed Teacher Training Colleges again to remind staff and students of their vitally important but too easily neglected practical task.

Dr Rhodes Boyson, formerly headmaster of Highbury Grove School, is Conservative MP for Brent North