Dear Secretary of State,
Initial Teacher Training and Psychology
We are writing to you today to express our concern about some aspects of your plans for Initial Teacher Training. The recent announcement by the TDA shows that the government is committed to investing in the best quality graduates as trainee teachers. We support this approach but we are extremely disappointed to see that this commitment does not appear to extend to psychology graduates.
According to the information in the ITT plan, psychology is ‘a non-priority’ subject and therefore trainees would not be eligible for a bursary. Future trainees will in effect be penalised for choosing psychology, as they will need to find up to £9000 for fees on top of living expenses in order to train.
Psychology is the only science subject not to have been designated a priority subject, and therefore not to attract a bursary. We are unclear as to why this is the case, especially at a time when the uptake of science subjects by young people in the UK is a concern. It is now the fourth most popular A-level subject with over 56,000 sitting the psychology exam in 2011 (JCQ, Joint Council for Qualifications,www.jcq.org.uk. 2011), compared to just 275 candidates when the exam was first set in 1972.
The European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA), to which the European Federation of Psychology Teachers’ Associations (EFPTA) is affiliated, recently hosted a conference at the European Parliament in Brussels. The aim of this event was to demonstrate the importance of the role of psychology in promoting the health and well-being of European citizens, and Professor Robert Roe (President of EFPA) made it absolutely clear to the Members of the European Parliament that psychology teachers make a significant contribution by encouraging young people to explore issues such as understanding how they learn, the importance of healthy life-styles and how to achieve self-regulation. There are clearly significant economic benefits attached to any improvements that can be made in relation to these issues. It is indeed interesting that Finland is referred to in the White Paper as a nation of educational excellence and in that country psychology is a compulsory subject for students aged 16-19.
Despite the small numbers of available places, the role of the PGCE in psychology has been crucial to improving the quality teaching in many schools across the country. It is therefore essential that PGCE courses are able to attract high calibre trainees to ensure that improvements in the subject continue.
We are also puzzled why some other non-National Curriculum subjects, including Classics and Economics, have been designated ‘priority’ subjects when psychology, has not. There is a danger that this “down-grading” combined with a lack of a bursary for those looking to train, may be interpreted in some quarters as a lack of Government understanding of psychology, ahead of the publication of the National Curriculum review proposals.
Your neglect of psychology education in schools is particularly hard to understand, in view of your Government’s own initiative in setting up the Behavioural Insight Team (BIT), whose aim is to find ‘intelligent ways to encourage, support and enable people to make better choices for themselves’. That is precisely one of the aims that psychology teachers in schools and colleges have been quietly pursuing for years. Yet, whilst you invest financially in the application of psychological principles in the form of the BIT, you are withdrawing financial support for psychology education in schools. This makes no sense.
Through high quality psychology teaching students develop essential transferable skills which enhance learning and achievement in other subjects as well as those which can encourage them to make healthier choices of life-style and become critically confident citizens. This is particularly important at a time when the educational performance of our children appears to be falling in relation to those in other countries, and when the effects of health related illness is costing the taxpayer enormous amounts of money.
Children and young people in this country deserve the best quality psychology education and the best quality psychology teachers. We urge you to reconsider this policy and demonstrate that the government believes this too.
We look forward to hearing from you on this matter.
Yours sincerely,
Deb Gajic
Chair of the Association for the Teaching of Psychology
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
This letter was drafted by Dorothy Coombs, the Vice Chair of the ATP on my behalf. If you agree please contact Michael Gove to register your discontent!
Please sign the petition
Initial Teacher Training and Psychology – e-petitions http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/25535
Thanks Deb
This is the response we received: -
Dear Ms Gajic
Thank you for your email of 17 January addressed to the Secretary of State about initial teacher training (ITT) and Psychology. I hope you are able to appreciate that the Secretary of State for Education receives a vast amount of correspondence and is unable to reply to each one personally. It is for this reason I have been asked to reply.
Last year we set out our strategy to attract the best graduates into teaching. Bursaries form an important part of a range of measures we use to encourage the very best to apply to become teachers. Introduced in 2000 to alleviate teacher shortages, today we offer fewer bursaries as most subjects attract healthy competition amongst applicants for most teaching vacancies. We still wish to encourage applications in those subject areas where we need to increase the number of teachers in our schools. As Psychology is a subject where we have enough teachers, we do not offer bursaries to encourage further applications. However all teacher trainees on PGCE courses will still continue to be eligible for student support for tuition fees and living costs. Although psychology is not a compulsory subject of the current national curriculum, schools are free to teach if they choose to do so.
Ministers are committed to giving schools more freedom over the National Curriculum. The new National Curriculum will be developed in line with the Coalition Government’s stated principles of freedom, responsibility and fairness – to raise standards for all children.
Ministers are determined to slim down the National Curriculum so that it properly reflects the body of essential knowledge which children should learn. Individual schools should have greater freedom to develop approaches to learning and study which help us to catch up with high-performing education nations.
As we said in our White Paper ‘The Importance of Teaching’ we believe that it is teachers, not Ministers and civil servants, who know best how to teach, and that we must give our teachers more time and space to create lessons that engage their pupils and enable them to fulfil their potential.
The Government is committed to a review which is open, transparent and outward-facing – and is working to ensure that all stakeholders, including headteachers, teachers, parents and others are able to contribute to the work of developing the new National Curriculum.
Further information about the review is available on the following website:
http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/nationalcurriculum
As part of our commitment to improving the service we provide to our customers, we are interested in hearing your views and would welcome your comments via our website at http://www.education.gov.uk/pcusurvey
Yours sincerely
David Chapman
Public Communications Unit
http://www.education.gov.uk
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