I WAS delighted to read that James Dornan, the convener of Holyrood’s education committee, has written to Scottish universities on the concern felt in preparing teachers for potent employment in our schools (“Teaching degrees probed over standards of numeracy”, The Herald, May 17). I would suggest that when examining their responses, the issue of relevance to meeting pupil needs is paramount in any evaluation.
The Scottish General Teaching Council publish standards for teacher registration under three professional headings: Values and Personal Commitment, Knowledge and Understanding, Skills and Abilities. I am certain that parents will have high expectations regarding all of these but Skills and Abilities seem to me to underpin the successful management and operation of classroom-based learning and teaching.
I hope Mr Dornan will perhaps ask himself if universities are really the best providers of skills-based pedagogical training. Apart from medicine and dentistry it is difficult to imagine fields of study where a university would place a high value on the acquisition of practical operative skills. Classroom teaching today, in any subject, is obviously a skills-based practical activity requiring mastery of planning skills and capability in organising, just as it always has been.
In moving in recent years to teaching being an all-graduate profession in Scotland, we seem to have lost a sense of balance regarding what effective teaching actually entails. I suggest that preparation for teaching at the moment has moved too much towards the theoretical and not enough instruction on becoming a truly pupil-centred practitioner.
We should be getting a measurable return on the huge investment in school technology as both a teaching and learning resource. Our dividends are seemingly stagnating and we now find suggestions we may have underprepared staff being recruited. Surely time for a major re-hink?
Bill Brown,
46 Breadie Drive, Milngavie.
FIRST, I declare my hand as the spouse of a teacher. I had a wry smile as I read Kenny Macaskill’s article (“Why we must not panic over education”, The Herald, May 17). Easy for him to say don't panic when, by his own admission, his own children are no longer dependent on the education system he sort of defends in a roundabout way.
He is right, however, that teachers’ pay is an issue. Our teachers, many of them educated to the highest standards at leading universities, are earning less than the cabin crew in my airline. (I don't think the cabin crew are overpaid, far from it.)
What incentive is there for anyone to enter the profession these days?
Captain Hugh F Sheils,
The Shieling, 10 Racecourse Road, Ayr
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