Chairman: The Lord James of Rusholme
Teacher Training Inquiry
Elizabeth House,
York Road, London, S.E.1.
Telephone 01–928 9222 Ext 3306 14 December 1971 The Rt. Hon. Margaret Thatcher, M.P., Secretary of State, Department of Education and Science Curzon Street House, Curzon Street, London, W.1. Dear Secretary of State,
You appointed this Committee with the following terms of reference:—
“In the light of the review currently being undertaken by the Area Training Organisations, and of the evidence published by the Select Committee on Education and Science, to enquire into the present arrangements for the education, training and probation of teachers in England and Wales and in particular to examine:
(i) what should be the content and organisation of courses to be provided;
(ii) whether a larger proportion of intending teachers should be educated with students who have not chosen their careers or chosen other careers;
(iii) what, in the context of (i) and (ii) above, should be the role of the maintained and voluntary colleges of education, the polytechnics and other further education institutions maintained by local education authorities, and the universities and to make recommendations” .
You further expressed the intention that we should begin work early this year and the hope that we should report within 12 months.
We now have the honour to present our report. It is unanimous except for one matter on which two of our members have entered a note of reservation at the appropriate point in the text. There are also a few questions on which these members have contributed a “note of extension” to indicate their wish to go further than the rest of the Committee, but the recommendations contained in the report are those of us all.
We have recorded in the report the names of all those individuals and organisations who have helped by submitting written and oral evidence and other material for the Committee to study, and of the various institutions which were kind enough to receive our visits. We wish to express our gratitude to all those concerned and to the members of your department [end p1] and of Her Majesty's Inspectorate, who were always helpful in putting their knowledge and experience fully at our disposal.
We would like to thank in a particularly warm way our assessor, Mr. Arthur Luffman, H.M.I., whose profound knowledge not only of teacher training but of much else made his wise contributions an integral part of all our discussions.
The novel constitution of our committee, which imposed on a fairly small number of full or part-time members the obligation to produce a report in a comparatively short time, laid a particularly heavy burden on the skill and endurance of the secretarial and supporting staff. Without the willingness and ability of Mrs. Joan Greenaway to type and retype successive drafts in an apparently impossibly short time, we could not have kept within our somewhat tight programme. Finally, it is difficult adequately to express our debt to our assistant secretary, Miss Marilyn Gummer, and above all to the Secretary, Mr. Richard Dellar, for their professional expertise, their tireless hard work and their unfailing patience.
Yours sincerely,
James of Rusholme (Chairman).
Elizabeth Aggett.
Cyril English.
Harry Judge.
Patrick Milroy.
James F. Porter.
J. R. Webster.
Richard Dellar (Secretary).
Curzon Street,
London, W.1.
22 December 1971.
The Lord James of Rusholme,
Teacher Training Inquiry,
Elizabeth House,
York Road,
London, S.E.1>
Dear Lord James,
Thank you for your letter of 14th December with which you sent me the Report of your Committee of Inquiry into Teacher Training. I hope you will allow me at once to thank you and the Committee for the vigour and speed with which you have conducted and completed your difficult task.
I am arranging for the Report to be published as soon as possible so that the important issues it raises can be widely considered and debated as a prelude to the consultations that I have promised before I reach any decisions. I shall be initiating these consultations in due course.
Yours sincerely,
Margaret Thatcher