Might history repeat itself?

Might history repeat itself?

John Fletcher

Having recently moved into medical education, after spending many years in teacher education, the writer is struck by some parallels between the positions in which health and education now find themselves: subject to fundamental reform premised upon the creation of a social market and an extension to consumer choice, while discounting professional judgment. The paper analyses the implementation of teacher education reforms in the 1970s and 198Os, against a background of economic constraint. It then considers the recent reversal of those changes, as part of a wider reappraisal of social policy, heavily influenced by ideologies associated with the ‘new right’, which have underpinned reforms designed, in part, to curtail the traditional independence of professional groups and, in the name of greater accountability to consumers, substitute greater central control. Pre- and Post-Registration Education for health care professionals, now finds itself in a similar position to that which was evident in teacher education, when the writer joined. Since education and health both constitute major areas of social policy, the paper speculates whether the latter will, in the future, follow the same path as that described in relation to the former. In particular the control of the education of health care professionals is seen to be central to their ability to continue to offer reasoned critiques of political initiatives.

INTRODUCTION

In the course of a recent article Professor June Clark distinguished between two models ofnurs- ing (Clark 1992). The first presented a restric- ted, technician model. Nurses were trained to perform tasks and procedures essentially ini- tiated by, and under the direction of‘, more highly educated personnel such as doctors. No

John Fletcher BA MSc MPhil PhD MBIM DipLaw Senior Lecturer Department of Nursing and Midwifery Studies/Validation Adviser, Faculty of Medicine, Queens’ Medical Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2UH (Requests for offprints to JF) Manuscript accepted 10 July 1993

intrinsic understanding of‘ the implications OI eflects of‘ the tasks and procedures was necessary. Nor was there a fundamental body of knowledge, peculiar to nursing.

The second offered an elaborated, professional model. Premised upon unique, inter- personal interactions, which go f’ar beyond dispensing treatment to the sick, and embrace the maintenance and promotion of good health, it has its own distinctive knowledge base. Accord- ing to Clark:

What distinguishes this perspective is its intellectual component: the use ofclinicaljudgment based on knowledge. (Clark 1992, ~60)

The nurse who functions according to this perspective has not merely been trained, but

4 NURSE EDUCATION TODAY

educated. To an outsider the language used to elaborate the use of clinical judgment, with its components of assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation, is that of Action Research as canvassed in relation to teaching in recent decades (Caldwell & Spinks 1989, Elliott 1991). The teacher who operates in this way is identified as a reflective practitioner: such a term would not seem out of place in describing the intellectual nurse. But there are more profound similarities. Those who lead nurse education may hnd salutory lessons to be learned from what has happened in recent decades in relation to the education and training of teachers.

PROFESSIONALITY IN THE PUBLIC SERVICES?

This is not the place to rehearse the many definitions of what it is to be a professional, or to spend too long on theoretical generalisations. But some observations are necessary, in order for later comments about teaching and nursing to make sense.

In 1978 Barber refined his earlier work on professionality, and retained three dimensions. Professions were characterised by a high degree of systematic knowledge, an orientation to a community interest, and control through a code of ethics emanating from voluntary association (Barber 1978). In the UK the specialist training of the professional has been seen as justifying a wish to be accorded a considerable degree of discretion to function within the expert field (Hughes 1985). In the USA a necessary corollary of this autonomy has been a reduction in bureaucratic control (Holmes Group 1986).

But a significant theme in the relevant litera- ture has seen professions in less objective terms. For example it has been suggested that professional associations should be seen as status bodies; bestowing qualifications and seeking to maintain or enhance prestige (Prandy 1965). This observation implies a notion of relative esteem, or of a hierarchy. Indeed, in a brief, but wide ranging summary of teaching as a profession, it was stated that:

. . . teaching is regarded as a profession, though one without the status of either the medical or legal professions. (Robinson 198 1,

pw

To reinforce his opinion he cited work identi- fying teachers, and nurses, as ‘semi-professionals’ (Etzioni 1969).

Finally, the work of Wirt is particularly appo- site. Basing his analysis on examples from educational, medical and legal services, and drawing from both sides of the Atlantic, Wirt has suggested that political relations between professions and the laity pass through a five stage process. Quiescence sees a general acceptance of professional authority. Issue emergence is marked by an increasing number of complaints, at random, by clients. Turbulence is characterised by systematic pressure group activity challenging professional dominance, and perhaps some dissidence within the professions themselves. Resolution marks the close of the next phase, and may entail intervention by government to mediate in disputes between the professions and laity. Finally closure is signalled by some redefinition of the relationships, either voluntarily accepted by the professions or imposed by statute. Having summarised this model Hughes concluded:

. . . it appears that Wirt’s final categories, resolution and closure, are difficult to envis- age, being quite remote from the practical politics of life today. (Hughes 1985, p27 1)

It is an open question whether Hughes would have felt able to offer that conclusion today, in the light of recent political reforms to the structure, content, and control of state education, particularly teacher education.

REFORMS IN THE TRAINING AND EDUCATION OF TEACHERS

Demography, and ambition, played a considerable part in the changes to be seen in the preparation of teachers in the early 1960s. An incorrect judgment that pupil numbers would fall led government, in 1957, to increase the

length of non-graduate initial training courses

from 2 to 3 years. As a result of this miscalcu-

lation the 1960s were spent vainly attempting to

provide enough teachers to cope with an unprecedented increase in pupils (Layard et al 1969). Nonetheless, in 1963, the Robbins Keport: Higher Education recommended that

the teacher training colleges should become more closely aligned with universities, and

should be allowed to award a number of trainees

a new, Bachelor of Education (BEd), degree

after a fourth year of study, which would reflect

the increasingly intellectual demands associated with teaching (Kobbins 1963). To stress the full

significance of these proposals the teacher training colleges were henceforth to be known as colleges of education, in recognition of the fact

that teaching was not simply a mechanical task, but one requiring reflection and the exercise of

judgment. The degree was established by the end of the 1960s and a number of senior,

ambitious principals used this mark of the acade-

mic credibility of their colleges to redouble their attempts to have them recognised as legitimate

institutions of higher education in their own right. To their disappointment, as to his, Lord

Robbins’ specific proposal for colleges to link with universities had been rejected, in favour of

the creation of the so-called Binary system (Robbins 1966). This placed universities and the growing public sector of higher education in an

adversarial relationship, which may not have

been eradicated by their recent fusion within an

expanded university network. Not all aspirations were fulfilled by the BEd

degree. Teacher organisations had satisfied their professional ambitions to some extent in 1964 by thwarting what they regarded as unwel-

come intervention by government into the school curriculum. Though there was no legal basis for such claims, teacher unions asserted the

right as ‘professionals’ to determine what was taught in state schools, and how it was taught. The establishment of the Schools Council, dominated by members of teacher unions, appeared to signify a recognition by government of these claims (Kogan 1975).

But teachers were denied an opportunity to exercise similar influence over the training or

NURSE EDU(:AI‘ION l‘OI)A\ 5

supply of teachers with the demise of the

National Advisory Council on the Training and

Supply of Teachers (NACTST) in 1965. Instead

the numerous independent commissions on aspects of education convened in the 196Os, on which teacher unions had assured rep-

resentation, all proposed changes to teacher education. So vociferous and widespread was the

expression of this opinion that in 1969 the House of Commons Select Committe on Edu-

cation chose to investigate teacher education,

and found that virtually all its witnesses. apart

from the Department of Education and Science

and teacher educators, were seeking reform of the system, which was regarded as at risk of failing to meet the needs of schools in a rapidly

changing society (House of Commons 1970). Trainers were regarded as too remote from the

schools in which their trainees would eventually seek employment. Courses were criticised as too

academic and theoretical, with inadequate atten-

tion being paid to practice. The experience of

serving teachers was presented as a neglected resource (Willey & Maddison 1971).

In the event the Select Committee’s report failed to appear; one of many victims of the

Labour government’s calling, and losing, the 1970 General Election. It fell to Margaret Thatcher, Education Secretary in the new. Con-

servative, administration to establish a committee of inquiry into teacher education. The

urgency of the task was to be seen in the format and operation of this group: it was tci work

full-time, and to produce its report within a year

(Judge 1984). It spent its first few weeks review-

ing available evidence, but appears co have backed its own collectivejudgment. Its own views had been defined before it began to hear

witnesses (Hencke 1978). As a result it was able to report within the target period. Nor did the concentrated period for investigation lead to

proposals that were superficial or bland. It called for the education and training of teachers to be conceptualised and planned as a cyclic process, embracing Initial, Induction, and In-Service stages (James 1971).

Initial training was to comprise 2 years of intrinsic academic study, to be recognised by a new award. the Dinloma in Higher Education


(DipHE). Intending teachers could thus delay

their final commitment to a specialised course of training and remain longer within the mainstream of higher education, since the DipHE was seen as having wider currency than teaching. Indeed the diplomas in nursing and midwifery

now validated under the aegis of Project 2000 are essentially Diplomas in Higher Education, albeit of an untypically specialised nature.

Academic study was to be followed by a year of professional study for those wishing to teach, and another year during which the ‘licensed’ teacher was carefully introduced to the practica- lities of the job, by a professional tutor within the school to which the licensee was attached. At the end of this year, the successful student was to be awarded the ‘professional’ degree of BA(Ed) with the status of a ‘Kegistered’ teacher. Members of the James Committee have written of the teacher’s gradual exposure to the practical situation, and its measured assumption of professional responsibility as analogous to medicine: the terms ‘Houseman’ and ‘Intern’ have been used to make the point (Judge 1984).

But it was the third cycle, elaborating in-service education, that was regarded as of prime importance by the committee. Like the recently devised Framework for Continuing Professional

Education, it was conceived as career-long professional enrichment, retraining and updating. Like the Framework it was associated with a higher award, in this case a master’s degree in education. But unlike the Framework, it lacked the cohesion and coherence provided by key characteristics, and a professional portfolio. Its recommendations, while undoubtedly sincere, were in practice little more than rhetoric, given the decentralised nature of teaching, and the inability to enforce the proposal that teachers should be assisted to engage in systematic retraining by having the equivalent of one term’s sabbatical leave every 7 years.

A period of intensive consultation followed the appearance of the report. Government policy eventually appeared in 1972, in the White Paper Education: A Framework for Expansion. However this policy was implemented in the face of escalating economic problems. The pragmatic needs of civil servants, and the status ambitions

of college staff appear to have proved more influential than were the recommendations of the James Committee (Hencke 1978) - or the opinions of teachers.

Teacher opinion was inaudible during this period, despite its public claims on the matter (Kogan 1975). The largest union, the National Union of Teachers (NUT), had made a decisive shift in its strategy and identity in 1970, by sanctioning national strike action, and joining the Trades Union Congress (TUC) (Burke 197 1). The NUT general secretary of that time has since conceded that Education Committee issues seldom occupied the attention of the General Committee in the early 1970s (Harpum 1981). At the point when prudent professional influence might have been decisive, in the development of an explicit ethical position, the largest teachers’ organisation was establishing its credentials as a trades union, and effectively placing itself outside the scope of professional contacts and relationships, losing general credibility in the process (Kogan 1975).

THE NEW RIGHT AND PUBLIC SECTOR POLICY

By the end of the 1970s teaching was only open to trained graduates. But at the same time that the initiation of teachers was coming closest to that associated with the professions, in terms of an extensive introduction to a systematic body of knowledge (Barber 1978), its commitment to its community was being questioned. Public confidence in teachers was plummeting (Devlin & Warnock 1977). On appointment as Prime Minister in 1976, James Callaghan called for a confidential assessment of the condition of state education (Callaghan 1987). The diagnosis revealed that acute concern was felt for the patient. Since that point it can now be seen that Labour and Conservative governments have made a series of attempts to review, and reform, the content and structure of state education, from the infant school to the university, whose consequences have been to curtail the autonomy of academics within the system, and to enhance

the power of bureaucrats and managers working

to agendas formulated by government, and

often framed in successful legislation.

In itself this consensus is both surprising and atypical. For long it had been a truism of all

public sector activity that it should be above politics, meaning party politics. But in recent years the policies of the two main political antagonists have become much more sharply

differentiated. This has generally been seen as a

consequence of the Tory Party’s replacement of

pragmatism by ideology, hastened after the removal of Edward Heath as leader of the

Conservative Party, and the influence within

party thinking and policymaking of the ‘New

Right’ (Education Group II 1991). This phrase is now used so frequently and so glibly that one

might almost be excused for thinking that it is a tight, consistent, coherent doctrine. It is any-

thing but, and to attempt to summarise its rise briefly is to court disaster. Nonetheless, three

stages can be discerned within the emergence of what passes for the New Right. They will be

oversimplified as individual, collective and political.

Individual

Two individuals have been particularly influen-

tial. Frederick von Hayek’s writings have been used selectively to offer an underpinning of social philosophy. Sceptical of the capacity of the

state to plan for, and anticipate the needs of,

complex modern society von Hayek saw its role as limited to the setting in place of a framework

for social and economic activity, and upholding the rule of law. The regulation of society was a matter of observing implicit laws, of common

sense not professional expertise, and above all of

market forces (Kavanagh 1992). This latter theme is also to be seen in the work of Milton

Friedman, from which has been taken the economic doctrine of monetarism, with its stress on the money supply, and an optimistic attitude to the market economy. Friedman has also sought to diminish the role of government over the lives of its voters by advocating, for example,

denationalisation, the abandonment of controls, and the reduction in levels of taxation, in order

that individuals should influence the services

they decide to patronise. They might do this

directly by means of vouchers or loans, (or

indirectly, perhaps through their membership

of budget-holding medical practices).

Collective

The interactive processes by which ideas enter

the political arena are complex. According to S.

E. Finer ideas may be communicated amongst

enthusiasts, propagated by groups to shape public opinion, and/or advanced by those in

positions of influence (Finer in Sutherland

1972). The ideas associated with the New Right

have been brought into the public domain through the efforts of such groups as the Insti-

tute of Economic Affairs and the Social Affairs Unit. The former combines the roles of research

and educational trust, and of pressure group. It has publicised the ideas of Hayek and Friedman

as well as advocating monetarism. in practical

pursuance of its contention that the climate of opinion influences politicians. The latter is as

critical of post-Beveridge social welfare policies

as the former is of Keynesian economics. With a

view to a better informed society its publications

have tended to challenge orthodoxy in general, and to question the validity of social engineering

in such fields as education, health, social welfare and the treatment of recidivists. In so doing it has also been critical of public sector pro-

fessionals and the social sciences, as have the proponents of the New Right.

Political

But other groups have found the idea of seeking

to inform and perhaps modify public opinion

too slow and haphazard a means of achieving sincerely held objectives. For example the Adam

Smith Institute has, since its establishment in 1977, gone beyond the role of pressure group and seen itself as influencing policy formulation. Its preoccupation with choice, enterprise, and free markets, and its wish to transfer public sector activities into the private sector wherever

possible, closely matched the priorities of Torv administrations during the 1980s. It has


espoused a wide range of activities, including the abandonment of domestic rates, reductions in direct taxation, privatisation and the selling off of government holdings in nationalised

industries, the stimulation of economic activity by the establishment of freeports, parental

choice of schools, the encouragement of private

health insurance in order to reduce the public funding of the welfare state, the abolition of

regional health authorities, and even the privatisation of the BBC. Much of its work has been

devoted to producing practical suggestions as to

how such policies could be implemented by

government. The same might be said about the Centre for

Policy Studies (CPS), though its opportunity to

influence policy implementation has been better, not least in view of its proximity to that process,

and to the fact that many people associated with

it have either entered Parliament subsequently,

or have been found as policy advisers to Tory

ministers. Established in 1974 with the

agreement of Edward Heath, and with Sir Keith

Joseph and Margaret Thatcher as Chairman and President respectively (Knight 1990), it has been

the vehicle through which the ideas of Hayek and Friedman, and the convictions of such pressure groups as the Institute of Economic

Affairs, have been mediated into party politics, albeit unsystematically. It deliberately stood

apart from the Conservative Research Depart-

ment from the outset, ostensibly to allow it to engage in iconoclastic appraisal of policy

options. On that basis it has to be judged

outstandingly effective. One of its earliest chal- lenges was to established Tory economic policy.

Its alternative, that the money supply was the

most effective weapon against inflation, underpinned government policy throughout the 1980s. In the same way its advocacy of the minimal state, and its preference for the notion of a social market (Salter & Tapper 1985), evident in the work of its study groups on such nationalised entities as British Leyland, British Steel and Telecom, has borne fruit in widespread privatisation during the same period. Its attack on so called professionals, as acting against the best interests of the public, has been particularly virulent in relation to those

employed in education, but has not been con- fined to that group. It is now given expression in the numerous citizens’charters, covering an ever widening sphere of public service, currently the

responsibility of former Health Secretary William Waldegrave. These charters purport to

offer a government-backed and defined guaran-

tee of good service, rather than relying on a professionally devised, self-operated, code of

ethics.

THE IMPACT OF THE NEW RIGHT ON EDUCATION

This impact has been considerable, partly because the widespread, if uncorroborated, popular concern about the standards and rele-

vance of education, expressed since the 196Os, has created a climate favourable to those who

have new recipes to offer. Calls for the abolition

of the Inner London Education Authority, con-

cern at the withholding of examination results from public scrutiny, opposition to the lack of

balance and rigour within the school curriculum, and support for parental control of schools through revamped governing bodies have all

found their way on to the Statute Book. Indeed education measures of one kind or another now

seem, like the poor, to be always with us.

However, the Education Reform Act 1988, so

heavily influenced by the ideology of the New Right, also shows-up its internal incoherence

and contradictions. It has fundamentally reformed state education and redistributed power

within the system - but by vesting unprecedented authority in the hands of the Secretary of

State (McAuslan 1988), rather than by putting the clients of the system at its heart: hardly the minimal state in operation here!

Nor is the impact upon the education system of market forces proving to be as liberating as was anticipated. The traditional practice of governments to develop educational policy by consensus, with time and care being taken to engage in the widest consultation, within the educational subgovernment (Manzer 1970), has been supplanted in recent years. Opinion gath- ering networks, and governing bodies, have

been reformed, to restrict those involved in

education, and to expand opportunities for

consumers, be they parents or those from a

commercial and business background (Ball 1990). Quangos now predominate where once

were only found consultative committees or government commissions. State nominees, not

professional representatives, are the order of the

day. But the application of the concept of a social market to education has proved problematic. It appears that the attempt to encourage parents to

take over the direction of schools by opting out of local authority control, and into grant main-

tained status, is not striking a responsive chord. Nor does the assumption that client-dominated

governing bodies will inevitably share the

government’s educational priorities seem to be

borne out, if the current controversy about testing 14-year-olds in English in 1993 is any

guide. Where the social market, in the form of parents unhappy about aspects of current policy,

disagrees with the minister, it is dubbed ‘nean- derthal’. One might begin to think that Mrs Thatcher had never stated that ‘one can not buck

the market’. The redistribution of power is, however, to be

seen clearly and to powerful effect, in relation to

employer/employee relations. During the extended period of industrial disruption in

schools in the mid 198Os, over pay and proposals

for educational reform, new contracts were drawn-up to cover salaries, together with

teachers’ terms and conditions of employment.

These implied that teachers were no longer trusted to account for the discharge of their duties. Maximum working weeks, and years, are now specified for groups whose unpaid goodwill

has for decades kept the system afloat. Instead of accounting for the quality of their service, as

professionals, teachers are now held to account

for the quantity of their input (Department of

Education and Science 1987), with ‘directed’ time being allocated to ensure that all work the requisite number of hours. Performance appraisal, and bonus pay, offer stick and carrot incen- tives to employees, previously trusted to do a fair job. Finally, professional development, which preoccupied so much of the time and recommendations of the James Committee 20 years

ago, and which led to a considerable, if patchy,

expansion of in-service provision, is now an

integral part of the teachers’ ‘professional’ con-

tract. But in practice the reflective, intellectual, work undertaken by those who gave up their own time to engage in professional develop-

ment, has been superseded by 5 days a year,

during which time the activities tend to be brief, superficial, devoted to the transmission of

information rather than reflection, and focused upon external1 y d evised agendas. The bulk of

recent professional development has consisted of learning how to operate the reformed 16+ examination, the General Certificate of Second-

ary Education (GCSE), introduced by

government. Much time will be spent in the

immediate future on coming to terms with

radical changes t(l GCSE, imposed by the Government. In 1985 Hughes was able to assert

with some confidence that it would be politically impractical for a redefinition of the relationship

between teachers and their clients to be imposed, as Wirt’s model envisaged (Hughes 1985).

Within 5 years such a redefinition had indeed been imposed.

In only one respect do government and

teachers appear to agree on policy. They share a

common scapegoat on which to attach blame for the present shortcomings within education -

teacher education. Keforms in the light of the

1972 White Paper had not been fully implemented before teacher educatioll, and teacher

educators came under sustained, and repeated attack. Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools

(HMI), teacher unions, and politicians have all attacked the preparation of intending teachers, as sub-standard, irrelevant to the contemporary needs of schools and ideologically suspect.

Government responses to this ostensible

failure of a professional group to discharge its

responsibilities have been threefold. In the first place a series of criteria were devised by government advisers in the early 1980s. specify- ing the nature of teacher education courses in considerable detail (Department of Education and Science 1984), though they have been con- stantly revised since. Nonetheless all courses of teacher education have since had to conform to these criteria before being allowed. hy

10 NURSEEDUCATIONTODAY

government, to recruit. This has not lessened official criticism of newly trained teachers however (Gih-oy 1992). In addition, government has for a decade discarded all talk of teacher education and now writes and speaks only of teacher training. The change is not simply semantic, but reflects a suspicion of teacher educators (Joseph 1983), and an official re-assessment of teaching (Kydd 8c Weir 1992), as a practise-based craft skill, rather than a reflective profession. On a broader front it is symptomatic

of an official impatience with professions, whose autonomy (Hughes 1985) and wish for limited bureaucratic control (Holmes Group 1986) are

seen as at odds with a government whose ideolo- gical rhetoric of limited government is fundamentally contradicted by the reality of significant centralisation. Finally, in moves that are similar to those taking place within the health service, a new breed of teacher is being sought. Keceiving shorter, intellectually inferior, academic training to that required of their contempo- raries, these Licensed or Articled Teachers are to qualify by spending the vast majority of their time in school classrooms, learning thejob at the elbow of a teacher; presumably one who was the product of inadequate teacher education courses, and who has been held responsible by government for poor standards in recent years. It is already rumoured that some schools, managing their own budgets, are having to release their most experienced, and expensive, staff in order to avoid going into deficit. The concept of skill-mix is not known, by that phrase, in education. But the balancing of budgets by

encouraging the cheap and the less experienced, has some superficial similarity to discussions about the relative attractiveness of Health Care Assistants and Project 2000 Diplomates.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE NURSING PROFESSION IN THE 199OS?

Health and education have much in common. They are costly, publicly funded services, which embody the reformist zeal of the post war Labour government, and have a decisive role to

play in the movement towards equality within society. Original reforms, put in place in the aftermath of WWII, had become worryingly expensive 20 years later, provoking an almost incessant spate of reforms since the early 197Os, whose rhetoric of quality cloaks a reality of economy. Both are currently seeking to accom- modate fundamental changes in the aftermath of a series of legislative instruments, which will take many years to work through, and whose effective implementation is not being aided by the precarious financial condition in which government now finds the country.

In addition both are victims of New Right ideology. They are having to come to terms with government determination to change the prevailing culture within the service, and to intro- duce a dominant consumer ethos to temper the traditional professional ethic. They are finding problems in introducing elements of a social market, while at the same time having to use resources ever more efficiently. Both National Health (NH) Trusts and ‘opted out’ schools are largely apart from their local administrative networks, draw funds away from those networks, and at the same time render problematic the locality’s ability to engage in coherent forward planning. In exactly the same way budget holding GP practices, and parents who have a choice of school place, make it hard for either hospitals or schools to identify with particular communities, since consumer identity with the local institution is being deliberately countered by one which values the cost of a service rather than its location. Both now find that quality is determined in quantitative terms, be it through- put of patients and bed occupancy rates or the proportion of pupils securing above average scores in national tests. Both lament the fact that the implications for the clients, whether patients or pupils, that can only be anticipated and identified by those in close professional proximity to them, are too often regarded as no more than special pleading by privileged occupational groups. The government’s response to the Tomlinson report (Tomlinson 1992) reveals this vividly. Reforms in education and health are being pursued by discounting the specialist knowledge characteristic of professions. They

NL’KSE EI)U(:A1’1oN TonAY 11

are being implemented in such a way as to

invalidate traditional notions of community

interest, while the ethical basis for future opera-

tion of both services is to be found in balance sheets and charters rather than professional discretion. And finally, in education at least,

training is becoming sufficiently pragmatic and superficial to compromise future ability to offer

professional judgment based upon knowledge. The content, composition and even the number

of hours, of teacher training courses are now specified by government quango, and emphasise

teaching as a concrete, operational, not an intellectual, reflective, activity. In the most grotesque,

and frightening caricature, Sheila Lawlor, Deputy Director of the Centre for Policy Studies

has suggested that all that is needed in those who teach children is a grasp of a body of academic

knowledge (Lawlor 199 1).

As an interested outsider, the writer is struck

by the parallels between nurse education in the early 1990s and teacher education in the early

1970s. The fate of the latter has been brieHy

sketched out. It is for nurse educators themselves to decide whether the similarities that appear from without, are also recognisable to those within. Many independent investigations

into education during the 1950s and 1960s paralleled those in nursing from Platt to Grif-

fiths, and produced the same kind of general analysis, and broad recommendations, as those

in the 1972 Briggs report. But over the last 50

years it is hard to find a parallel within education for a major professional group commissioning

its own committee of inquiry, as the Koyal

College of Nursing (KCN) did in the mid 1980s (KCN 1985). In fact that inquiry, to be referred to as the Judge report, after its distinguished chairman, allows further parallels between

teacher and nurse education to be examined. It has much in common with the James report.

Both took place against a background of concern about high wastage rates during training. Both recognised that recruitment and retention might be problematic without fundamental reform to training. Both envisaged training as a life long process. Both saw the need to put an end to the isolation of monotechnic institutions, and to bring initial training within the mainstream of

higher education. Both were concerned about

practical elements associated with training. But

whereas James wanted to see teachers viewed as

interns, undertaking substantial practical

experience, towards the end of initial training, Judge premised its proposals on the fact that

trainee nurses spent so long on wards, as essen- tial pairs of hands, as to diminish their ability to

reflect upon and learn from this practical experience. One explanation for the common ground between the two reports might be in terms of

membership. Harry .Judge, who chaired the KCN inquiry, and who had chaired a much

smaller investigation set up by public school

heads in 1969, had been one of’ the most influential members of the James Committee

(Fletcher 1987). It may be that the tensions between clinicians

and nurse educators mirror those between

teachers and teacher educators to a considerable

degree. In both cases each contribute, uneasily. to the preparation of new entrants, with the

relative importance of the two inputs a matter of

opinion. In neither course of training are the theoretical and practical always harmoniously balanced. In both occupations, initial courses

have in recent years been enhanced, so that there exist practitioners who are less well qualified

academically than the students for whom the) have some responsibility, and their own percep-

tion of their effectiveness and their own career

prospects may come into question. In turn this

exposes an often unspoken, but no less real, conflict about what really counts - good prac-

titioner skills arising from experience, or good theoretical understanding which is claimed to be a prerequisite of reflective practice. The article which began this piece (Clark 1992), was touch-

ing on this dilemma, albeit from a slightlv

different standpoint. Nurses may find it hard to understand how

government could intervene so directly and fundamentally in the professional preparation of students, even given the fact of school teachers standing apart from training and being amongst its most severe critics. It is, nonetheless, the case not least because teaching, unlike the medical professions, has no statutory definition nor professional controlling bodv (Sliipman


1984). At the level of practical politics it is obvious that government, in widespread dis- array, and witnessing the failure of its much trumpeted reforms to raise educational standards, should seek other targets to blame, as a public distraction from its manifold problems. But at a level of professional politics it is inexpli- cable that the teaching force should connive at the discrediting of the initial education of its number, to the planning and delivery of which serving teachers have contributed for the last decade. Such a repudiation simply robs teachers of the necessary credibility upon which to base any reasoned opposition to current reforms. It justifies external involvement into areas which a profession would regard as its own expert territory.

Attempts have been made repeatedly, since the mid 1980s to resuscitate the idea of a General Teaching Council (Sayer 1986). But it is hard to see such a body being accepted by a government which has spent so much time since the early 1980s challenging organised labour, whether in the trades unions or the professions, particularly now that teacher unions have voted to boycott tests sanctioned by act of Parliament. Nor, it has to be said, did teacher unions find that they had much in common in the first half of this century when both a Teaching Council, and a Koyal Society of Teachers did exist (Gates 1972). The message for those associated with health is clear. The existence of Registers, the legal definition of practice, and European Directives offer some protection, albeit insub- stantial, against intervention. But division within the ranks, and the assumption of the practices more closely associated with trades unions, particularly the taking of industrial action, including strike action, may invalidate claims to professional standing, and in the case of teaching most certainly did lead to the loss of public esteem and support in the 1970s (Kogan 1975). In turn this has allowed government to claim to be acting in the public interest in enacting its reforms. Critics in schools have effectively been rendered marginal to the development of the education service; dismissed as merely defending self-interest, even when public support is behind schools not

government. Another surprise concerns the apparent scal-

ing down of the training process. The century and a half that it took to establish teaching as an all-graduate profession, with all intending teachers required to undergo a period of preparation, embracing theory and practice, has been followed 15 years later by a reversal of that trend. Diplomates, not graduates, now possess a satisfactory academic threshold. Even those students who eventually obtain the BEd degree, much modified since the introduction of government criteria, only undertake 2 years of subject study. Cost is not a factor. It is estimated that it will cost up to three times as much to train recruits in school (Gilroy 1992). Government has in fact amended its more draconian proposals on this discovery. A number of our better schools are unwilling to be involved, and will be lost to training, because of the costs they will bear.

The real reason for the changes may lie in the recent fate of the government’s education reforms. Premised upon a sense of popular discontent at standards in schools, government reforms were not only implemented ineptly, and revised repeatedly. They also fell victim to the

criticisms of their practical disadvantages launched principally by teachers, themselves struggling to deliv.er their contractual duties against impossible, contradictory, and ever- changing burdens. From within the Centre for Policy Studies, a Tory think tank which appears to be all tank, has come the excuse that the reforms have been sabotaged by an educational intelligentsia (Lawlor 1991). The truth of the matter is that the failure to consult widely, and the rush to be seen to intervene, led to reforms that were inadequately thought through (Bowe et al 1992). The preference for hand picked, correct, quango members has robbed policy formulation of the experienced, professional, insight necessary to distinguish the idea that looks fine in theory from the disaster in practice. In consequence the philistinism within government that leads it to be contemptuous of theory, has meant that policy implementation has run into the kind of difficulties that any theorist could easily have pointed out (Cilroy 1992). All that teachers have done has been to

identify the more profound examplesof‘damage

that are being caused. The widespread concern

felt about education, during the 1992 General

Election, and particularly the issue of’testing 7-, 1 l-, 14- and l&year-old pupils suggests that

such criticisms have found a sympathetic public audience. But it would appear that there is no place for teachers with the capacity for indepen-

dent judgment, who regard it as their professional duty to take on an advocacy role.

Instead the new breed of ‘teachers’ will be

expected to do as they are told, rather than

question it, since their training will not have endowed them with sufficient theoretical under-

standing to mount and develop critiques. It is in this sense that the government’s determination to abandon the idea of teacher education, and

replace it by teacher training, is so revealing. The Health Department’s attitude to ‘whistle blowing‘ may be easier to understand in the light

of‘ the example of teaching and teachers, and

particularly in the light of the department’s

current political agenda. Health and education are more than major

public sector employers, and consumers of‘ the public purse. As major areas of’social policy both are vulnerable to reform according to whatever is the prevailing ideology of‘ the government of

the da). Sir Keith .Joseph’s brutal attack on teacher educators, in 1983, may have wider implications across the public sector:

Some ot‘ those who organise teacher training

are jealous of‘ their independence; they are

suspicious ofinterf’erence from DES. But how can one talk of‘s right to independence when

the State has effectively given to these institutions a monopoly over the supply of‘teachers? Monopoly without regulation cannot be ade- quately described as independence; it is

untrammelled power. (Joseph 1983, p39)

Teacher educators are in no doubt currently about where untrammelled power lies. Health

care professionals may wish to reflect upon the

likelihood of‘ history being repeated in their

situation. Their best hope of averting this Fate is to ensure that they retain control over the training of their new recruits and existing

and professional capacity to mount a reflective

challenge to political reforms, which seem to put

quantity of‘cash above quality of care.

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Might history repeat itself?

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