We live in strange times. Address disengagement in young adults by closing services supportive of their social, educational and employment needs. Address poverty in the sick and disabled by certifying them fit to work and pretending they don’t exist. Address the growing numbers of children requiring education by slashing school building programmes, axing child care, and driving teachers out of the profession. Address a perceived fall in academic standards by allowing removing the standards for teaching.
These actions are inverse, adverse and perverse.

Lifelong Learning Matters

The Department for Education announced on Friday that it was removing requirements for teachers working in academies to have Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). Danny Boyle provided an Olympic distraction from this news.

A spokesman for the Department for Education told the BBC (who had little time to broadcast or analyse it):

“This policy will free up academies to employ professionals – like scientists, engineers, musicians, university professors, and experienced teachers and heads from overseas and the independent sector – who may be extremely well-qualified and are excellent teachers, but do not have QTS status.”

A teacher’s role is likely to include preparing young people for academic and /or vocational qualifications yet this move exempts them from having to take part in work-related professional preparation and assessment themselves. We might infer from the announcement that teaching doesn’t require specific expertise, knowledge or understanding or that subject specialists don’t value the relevant…

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