'Fast-track' teacher plan condemned
Teaching unions have attacked Gordon Brown's proposal to allow teachers to qualify in six months, calling it "ill thought out".
The Prime Minister was forced to defend his plans to allow outstanding candidates to achieve professional status in half the time, insisting that the teaching profession was "higher status" than ever.
The scheme is the latest in a line of initiatives designed to entice high performers into the classroom, and was among a range of measures outlined in a new public service reform paper published by the government.
But Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "Training someone to be a teacher in six months is an ill thought out scheme that consigns Gordon Brown's vision of a world class education system to the scrap heap."
She added: "Teaching is not a profession that can be picked up at the drop of a hat. There needs to be the time for reflection and the capacity to undertake in-depth theoretical study.
"To bring in an entry route that does not provide a good grounding in theory will not only undermine the status of the profession but will also jeopardise the education of our children and young people."
Launching the scheme, Mr Brown said the initiative would make a "huge difference" to the profession, and he hoped that despite initial reservations in the teaching profession, "they will welcome the fact that more people want to come into teaching and that teaching is a higher status profession than it has ever been.
"The more people that bring experience from other areas for teaching, the better it is for teaching."
Ministers are particularly keen to attract people with experience in areas such as financial services into shortage subjects like maths and science.
Philip Parkin, general secretary of Voice, the union for education professionals, said he was concerned that the proposals were a "back-of-an-envelope scheme" simply put together "so the Prime Minister can announce something in a speech". He said that the danger of fast-tracking graduates was that it "erodes the value of existing training and the work of those undertaking and delivering it, misunderstands the nature of teaching, and devalues the profession of teaching and current teachers".
-Nova
