UCU responds to Michael Gove's speech

Commenting on this morning's speech by the education secretary, Michael Gove, the union emphasised the need for traditional, research-based routes into teaching to be preserved.

An interim report (.pdf) on the role of research in education by the British Educational Research Association and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufacturing and Commerce states that some of the world's highest performing education systems, including Finland and Singapore, 'integrate knowledge from academic study and research with practical experience in the school and classroom'.

UCU General Secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'We all want to see the UK's education system led by top-class teachers, but in focussing resources on classroom-based courses, the government risks losing some of the academic rigour from the nation's teacher training provision.

'Some of the top-performing systems in the world place great importance on a mixture of academic study, research and classroom-based training for those preparing to become teachers. Our university-based teacher training programmes have an excellent history of producing top-quality teachers, and the government shouldn't be so quick to dismiss this record in favour of mainly classroom-based solutions.'