New standards for teachers

Teacher Training to be Overhauled

Schools Minister Estelle Morris said: "We are determined that every new teacher knows how to teach the three Rs effectively, how to maintain discipline and how to use information technology to benefit their tecahing and their pupils."

Estelle Morris: Challenge must be met

Ms Morris said that twelve "pioneering" institutions had agreed to introduce the changes from September. All trainee teachers will have to meet new standards from 1998 to achieve Qualified Teacher Status.

The minister acknowldged that some teacher training institutions would find the national curriculum a challenge. "We will help them improve but at the end of the day if they are producing teachers that do not have the skills and knowledge to teach, that is not fair on the student teachers and pupils and we will not tolerate that."

The announcement of a switch back to "tried and tested" methods was welcomed by the big teachers' union, NASUWT. Its secretary-general, Nigel de Gruchy, said the Government was "knocking on open classrom doors" so far as teachers were concerned.

Mr de Gruchy said older teachers would smile wryly at the official acknowledgement that some of the methods imposed on them in the 1960s and 70s had been unworkable:

"If the voice of the teacher had prevailed over the formidable battery of meddling politicians, inspectors, advisers and assorted education academics.... then such mistakes would have been avoided."