Comments for Can’t touch this at http://adamsmith.org , comment 1 to 3 out of 3 comments http://adamsmith.org Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:49:43 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://adamsmith.org/blog/education/can%e2%80%99t-touch-this-200807161711/#comment-645 You should look up Teach First, who are having a tremendous impact on this problem. Brilliantly simple idea that works. Find those high flying graduates who haven't really made their mind up what to do when they grow up and say, "Fancy teaching for a couple of years? We'll train you, give you lots of business training and networking opportunities at the same time, and all you have to do is give us two years working as a teacher in a challenging school in return." I have seen the inspirational work their trainees do in the classroom, which is why I convinced my own company to sponsor them. They are currently 14th in the Times top 100 graduate recruiters. http://www.teachfirst.org.uk - Joe Nutt Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:26:55 +0100 http://adamsmith.org/blog/education/can%e2%80%99t-touch-this-200807161711/#comment-595 Here's the link to the Economist article Al mentions: http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9989914 My own personal observation is that here in the UK teaching is something lower-ranked graduates tend to go in to. Certainly I know of nobody doing my degree (Chemical Engineering at Imperial College) who would consider a career in teaching, despite being ably qualified to teach maths and any science. It is largely because better pay can be got elsewhere. Introducing a requirement for a good degree would improve the quality of teachers, but would also lead to a shortage unless wages were significantly raised, which isn't affordable. Perhaps a good idea is to encourage teaching as an early retirement from industry? Several of my favourite teachers at school had dropped out of the chemicals industry at age 50-odd. You certainly never heard them complain of how stressful teaching is. - JABITheW Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:00:22 +0100 http://adamsmith.org/blog/education/can%e2%80%99t-touch-this-200807161711/#comment-590 I agree that it is super hard to sack teachers, but an easier, quicker way to partially solve the problem would be to make it more difficult to qualify. I know of several people who did PGCEs in the last few years who were rubbish, put in no effort, and still scraped through. I don't have a link, but a few months ago the economist did a big feature on how to make teachers better and concluded that making the training process more selective would be a big help. It also suggested that doing so would not neccasserily reduce the number of applicants as some decent potential teachers are put off the idea of a PGCE because it is so associated with being a "last chance saloon" for graduates with nothing better to do. And anyway, poor trainee teachers need not neccasserily be kicked out of the profession altogether, they could perhaps be sent to do more training, or something. - Al Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:17:22 +0100