Initial Teacher Training — House of Lords, 2021-11-18
Topic: Education
Jean Coussins (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, my noble friend Lord Clancarty is right that the proposed reforms call for a subject-by-subject analysis, as well as looking at the overall context of ITT. I will focus on the training and recruitment of teachers of modern languages, and I declare my interest as co-chair of the APPG on Modern Languages The supply chain of MFL teachers is shrinking to such a serious extent that the sustainability of language teaching and learning in our schools could be under existential threat. If the UK’s deficit in language skills deteriorates much further, our capacity to deliver public policy in education, research, diplomacy, defence and security will be significantly weakened, as will our ability to supply UK businesses with the school-leavers and graduates they need to compete in a global market, and to build export growth Let me illustrate the scale of the problem. A language is one of the subjects required at GCSE for a student to achieve the EBacc. Yet in 2020, only 72% of the target for MFL teachers were recruited; only physics fared worse. This shortfall needs to be seen as being on the back of under-recruitment over many years. Numbers of German and French teachers declined by over a third and a fifth, respectively, in the decade between 2010-11 and 2020-21. Even if every single university student currently doing a languages degree went into teaching, we still would not meet the shortfall, yet a mere 6% of MFL graduates actually end up in teaching Part of the systematic collapse in the supply chain of MFL teachers is due to university department closures. Since 2000, over 50 university languages departments have closed and the reforms in ITT, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, may exacerbate the problem even further. If 35 universities, accounting for 10,000 teacher training places, go through with their threat to withdraw teacher training if reforms progress in their current form, this will have a disproportionate impact on MFL. However, I believe there are various measures which Her Majesty’s Government could take immediately and which might help First, we need to reverse the cut in bursaries for MFL trainees. These have been slashed for 2021-22 from £26,000 right down to £10,000, even though the reduction for physics, chemistry, maths and computing is only a slight cut, from £26,000 to £24,000. I understand that in 2022-23 the MFL bursaries will rise again, but only to £15,000—still significantly short of the £24,000 for the other subjects I have mentioned. The MFL scholarships have been scrapped altogether. Can the Minister explain this disparity, given that all these subjects are part of the EBacc requirement Secondly, we need to look at the barriers we have created, presumably unintentionally, to the smooth and continued recruitment of EU nationals into MFL training. EU students have typically made up between 30% and 75% of ITT cohorts for MFL, but now face a cliff edge in recruitment. Those with settled status were able to access bursaries or student loans last year, but those without this status will not be eligible in future, despite MFL teachers now being on the shortage occupations list—a change for which I commend the Government, but which needs to be followed through logically in policy terms, such as by giving access to these bursaries. Has there been any impact assessment for how these changes will affect future MFL teacher recruitment, especially given that MFL is of course uniquely reliant on recruiting native speakers from EU member countries, particularly France, Germany and Spain Thirdly, the cuts to funding for subject knowledge enhancement, or SKE—yet another acronym, I am afraid—should be reversed. SKE is a recruitment tool which was introduced in 2005 to try to bridge that shortfall by attracting UK graduates with a modern language as a subsidiary part of their degree. Typically, 40% to 70% of MFL trainees undertake SKE as a condition of entry, but the funding cuts in the last academic year translated into an estimated reduced capacity in the number of trainees one provider could offer from an anticipated 40 to just 13 Finally, I want to emphasise how relevant these issues are to the Government’s levelling-up agenda. There is a clear link between low MFL take-up and disadvantage, as measured, for example, by eligibility for free school meals. Lower GCSE take-up correlates with regions of poor productivity and low skill levels. There is also a growing disparity between state and independent schools. For example, the latest Language Trends survey reveals that independent schools are more than three times as likely as a state school to host a native speaker language assistant School leavers and graduates with even a basic working or conversational knowledge of another language are more employable and mobile than they would be otherwise. Languages are not just for an internationally mobile elite. One survey showed that lack of language skills accounted for a 27% vacancy rate in clerical and admin jobs I hope to hear from the Minister that Her Majesty’s Government will look again with some urgency at restoring the cuts to MFL bursaries, scholarships and SKE funding and access for eligible EU students to these financial incentives. These measures have the potential to save language learning throughout our education system, boost the supply chain of teachers once more and equip young people to compete with their peers from the rest of the world.