A world class teacher in every classroom

One of the many attractions of Ed Miliband’s ‘One Nation’ approach to politics is that it revives a classical, radical argument that not everything of value is reducible to price.

“There is no wealth but life” as that irrepressible proto-socialist John Ruskin once said.

So whilst there is much that education is useful for – chief amongst which is as an emancipatory force in our movement’s historic mission for social justice – we should not forget its deeper nature: it is a good in and of itself.

One of the most significant ties that bind us together, education is a union between past and future generation in a continuous learning community. As John Dewey, the American educationalist, put it: “Education in its broadest sense, is the means of the social continuity of life”.

In short, it exerts a vast social value on the public realm.

Therefore, it is difficult to underestimate the profound importance of teachers to the Labour party’s broader purpose. It is not just they are the architects of our future prosperity, they are also the inculcators of the strong, vibrant and more democratic society we wish to see.

Yesterday, in Parliament, I set out Labour’s commitment to boost the status, elevate the standing and raise the standards of the teaching profession.

All the evidence suggests that the quality of an individual teacher is the single most important factor in a child’s educational progress – a point that the Prime Minister made himself back in 2010 before the election. This is particularly so when it comes to disadvantaged children who, without the same levels of home support and social capital to fall back on, suffer disproportionately from poor teaching.

However, in Government all we have seen from David Cameron is four years of obsessive structural reform, the confused tinkering with the curriculum and,  with his policy of allowing unqualified teachers into our classrooms on a permanent basis, a dismantling of professional teaching standards.

The UK currently has the most de-regulated, down-graded system in the world: you currently require more qualifications to be a shift manager in a fast food restaurant than you do to educate the future of the nation. That is why we would insist that all teachers in all state-funded schools be qualified or work towards achieving Qualified Teacher Status.

But the achievement of Qualified Teacher Status is not, on its own, a guarantor of teaching excellence. It is merely a starting point.

We need to look at new ways of getting the best candidates into the teaching profession and the best teachers into under-performing schools.

We need to ensure that Initial Teacher Training is preparing teachers properly for the pressures of the classroom – in particular when it comes to discipline and behaviour management. Our current retention rates are deeply concerning.

And we need to make sure that we end the haemorrhaging of the best teaching talent out of the classroom and into management or leadership roles. Teachers who want to build their expertise in a particular subject or pedagogical practice should be given the opportunity to progress in their careers whilst staying in the classroom.

So we would create a framework of new career pathways for teachers taking inspiration from career progression routes in Singapore, one of the world’s leading education systems.

Yet if we are to build an education system fit for the challenges and the rigours of the 21st century then we must also address how to develop existing teachers’ skills and expertise.

The disregard of continuous professional development is something of an historic wrong in our teaching training system.

As the Education Select Committee has said: “successive education ministers have neglected continuous professional development and focused overly much on initial teacher training.”

So under a Labour Government, teachers would be expected to undertake regular professional development throughout their careers in order to keep their skills and knowledge up to date, as well as undertaking a profession-led revalidation of their expertise on a rolling basis.

Such a move would elevate the status of the profession by bringing teachers into line with other high-status professions such as lawyers, doctors and accountants. It is about training teachers up and encouraging them all they can and should be – professionals who job is so important it requires the very highest of standards.

What is more, it could have an immediate impact on attainment too – research from the Sutton Trust and the London School of Economics has shown if we were to raise the performance of the bottom 10% of teachers up only to the average, then England would be in the top 5 international jurisdictions in science and maths, and just outside in reading.

Then there is the technology aspect. Because the truth is that this century is likely to see more technological progress and industrial upheaval even than the last. Education will not be immune from this but, if anything, technology will make high quality teaching and a broad vision of schooling even more important, not less so. Nevertheless, it should not be controversial to say that we need our teachers to be up-to date in terms of the technology available to them or  that they should understand the latest pedagogical techniques. Just as  doctors are re-validated on their knowledge of new medicines and the latest medical research, teachers should be expected to demonstrate their continued suitability and expertise.

The Labour party knows that no education system can surpass the quality of its teachers and that raising the quality of our teachers represents the surest way to improve performance, narrow the attainment gap and give our children the start in life they deserve.

And whilst we will be consulting broadly on the details of our announcements – including with LabourList readers today – our ambition is clear. We want a highly qualified, inspiring, self-motivating and dedicated teaching workforce, with a world class teacher in every classroom.

Our social mission depends on it.

Tristram Hunt is the Shadow Education Secretary. And he wants to hear from you – got a question on Labour’s Education Plans? Email us, and we’ll get Tristram to answer the pick of the questions.