Hugh Reilly: McCormac offers an object lesson in futility

Published on Monday 31 January 2011 14:14

I'd LIKE to wish the McCormac review of teaching well, but in my view it has all the credibility of an investigation by President Mubarak into human rights abuses in Egypt.

Barely a decade has passed since the McCrone upheaval, yet Mike Russell, the education secretary, says it is time for a "fundamental" assessment of teaching. Reconfiguring Scottish education every ten years eerily echoes the Maoist "constant revolution" political theory that cemented China's Third World status. Only when enlightened Chinese leaders opted for a degree of stability did the country emerge as a superpower. Take note, Mr Russell.

Professor Gerry McCormac has five months to come up with his report. Poor Gavin McCrone dawdled along for a year before he produced his fatally flawed masterpiece that has ultimately led to McCormac. Back in 2000, McCrone recognised that the embarrassing level of pay for classroom teachers was something of a barrier to attracting top graduates. His solution - a rise of 23 per cent over three years. The Chartered Teacher scheme opened up an opportunity for chalkies to earn an extra 8,000 to stay in the classroom, rather than take a management route to riches. McCrone was fted as a visionary who had saved Scottish education from the abyss. Today, somewhere in a forest clearing near you, a distraught Gavin McCrone is sitting on a log, glum-faced, head in hands, and wondering where did he go wrong?

The McCormac review has a wide remit. A key task is to ascertain how the profession can recruit and retain the cream of our university graduates. Personally, I'm not a materialistic person, but only a first class honours graduate hellbent on taking a vow of poverty would be excited by the prospect of the current starting salary of 21,000. My nephew recently left Strathclyde University with an Honours degree in Chemical Engineering and currently earns over 30k. Had he decided on teaching as a career, he would have racked up another year of debt at teacher training college and, in all probability, not have secured a permanent post following his probationary period.

McCormac will investigate if current teaching practices are suited to the Curriculum for Excellence. I'll save him some time. New entrants to the profession are positively gleeful - it's the older dominies who are depressed by the dumbing-down of education. The traditional role of Sir - to be a font of knowledge for his cherubs - is disappearing, replaced by Sir as a facilitator.

Aristotle, fool that he was, actually believed he was educating as he strolled the aisles of the classroom uttering his words of wisdom. Cutting-edge teaching methodology these days centres around one's classroom management of scissors, poster paper, Pritt sticks and pirate DVDs.Under McCormac, it is likely that the role of failed Blue Peter presenter masquerading as a schoolmaster will be restricted to Honours graduates with at least a 2.1 award.

TO BE fair, nobody could accuse the education secretary of tokenism in his appointments to the McCormac committee.

Cynical classroom staff, such as yours truly, expected a classroom teacher to sit on a group discussing teaching, but in a magnificent thinking-outside-the-box moment, Mr Russell has gone for people who have absolutely nothing to do with schools, pupils or education. It's an edgy approach but Mr Russell pulls it off. Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh is a lawyer and, apparently, an actress though she could hardly claim overexposure in the world of television and stage. Indeed, my mate Joe Cassidy, who works with BT and appeared as a barman in River City and a corpse in Taggart (a non-speaking part), has a better chance of being stopped in the street for an autograph. Alf Young, a respected journalist, is expected to represent the views of the auld codger demographic.

Predictably, a secondary headteacher is on board the train wreck and the primary sector is admirably represented by somebody who no longer works there. Truly, a better panel of experts on Scottish education would be hard to find. Hats off to Mr Russell.

My prediction is that McCormac will call for greater remuneration for headteachers; after all, why reward the many when councils can save money by only rewarding the few? The Chartered Teaching programme will disappear, as will conserved salaries. Those disappointed by McCormac's findings need not despair - the next review is only ten years away.