Inspectors urged to check standards of teacher training

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education (HMI) will, for the first time, look at the quality of help student teachers receive when they undertake school placements.

Mr Peacock’s decision comes as the Scottish Executive seeks to meet its pledge to increase the number of teachers to 53,000 by 2007.

The move was revealed as HMI published its latest three-year plan. In it, the organisation says that a key priority will be to "undertake inspection of aspects of teacher education".

An Executive spokeswoman told The Scotsman that the move followed an intervention by Mr Peacock, who wants the increasing numbers of students going through the system to receive the best possible education during their school placements.

The spokeswoman said: "The minister invited HMI to undertake a review of initial teacher education, focusing on student placements, and the reason he has done that is because it’s crucial that as the number of placements rise, quality isn’t compromised and all student teachers are positively supported. This hasn’t been done because there is any suggestion that placements aren’t of a high standard, but we need to ensure that as the number of places rises, the quality of places isn’t compromised."

But the minister’s intervention was dismissed last night as "too little, too late" by his political opponents.

Fiona Hyslop, the SNP education spokeswoman, said: "I think Peter Peacock is chasing his tail on teacher recruitment and training.

"Instead of planning in advance, he is choosing to use the big stick of the HMI. He should have planned for quality support for student teachers in the first place, rather than using penalties and threats."

Unions, however, were more supportive of the Executive plans, which they said were necessary to ensure that students had the best possible training before entering the classroom.

Ronnie Smith, the general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, said: "I agree that the quality of students’ experience has to be good, and part of that will be achieved by having the inspectors in there.

"But there has to be the resources and support so that schools can provide the kind of mentoring and support for students that is expected."

David Eaglesham, the general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association, said: "We will see more and more student teachers coming through in the future, so it’s all the more important that we ensure that the training they receive is good.

"There are examples from time to time of students just being left to get on with it, and we need to avoid that, otherwise it would be no surprise if some students don’t come out of the system as well as we would hope."

Jane Peckham, of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said: "We would be totally in favour of making sure that every student’s placement is a positive one.

"Anything they can do to improve the experience of student teachers is good, because they need to be encouraged, rather than discouraged."

Meanwhile, the Executive has said the crisis over the shortage of school placements being made available for students has been averted.

As part of their Postgraduate Certificate of Education training, students are expected to spend 18 weeks in schools doing teaching practice. But it emerged that schools were struggling to cope with the rising number of student teachers, with the result that many were not getting the necessary placement.

Last week, Mr Peacock told The Scotsman that schools had "an obligation" to make space for student teachers.

Yesterday, the Executive spokeswoman said: "The universities had been finding it difficult to find placements, but sufficient places are now being found for the increasing student teacher numbers."