Higher education and school-based initial teacher training providers were repeatedly “gaslighted” by the government over ITT reforms, a sector leader will claim today.
The concerns will be raised at the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) conference, which is taking place in person for the first time since the Covid pandemic began.
Its executive director, James Noble-Rogers, is expected to claim that teacher training leaders from the UCET and the National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers (NASBTT) have experienced several examples “gaslighting” from the Department for Education since the ITT market review was first announced in January 2019.
Mr Noble-Rogers will highlight how in 2019, when he asked about the upcoming review, he was told by the DfE that it would be about “simplifying the routes into teaching”.
Commenting on this, Mr Noble-Rogers will say it was: “Maybe the first example of the kind of gaslighting brought into play throughout this whole process.”
The new accreditation process for all initial teacher education (ITE) providers, known as the ITT Market Review, was first announced last year in what was seen as a controversial shake-up of the sector.
DfE under fire over teacher training review
In July 2021 Nick Gibb, who was school standards minister at the time, said the DfE wanted England to be “the best place to become a great teacher, and that starts with high-quality initial teacher training”.
He said the “proposed changes would build upon the ambitious reforms the government has implemented to create a golden thread of training, support and professional development”.
Mr Noble-Rogers is expected to highlight a series of assurances that he was given by the DfE about the direction of the ITT review that he now questions.
In his speech, he will also claim that one of the models the DfE was thinking about implementing for ITT was an “Early Career Framework (ECF) type contracting model under which some 25 or so national providers of ITE would be accredited”.
He will say such an option would have been a “nightmare scenario”.
Mr Noble-Rogers will say that despite assurances that this option would not be on the table, “we do know that not only was it an option, but it was the favoured option of some of the key people involved”.
Last month Tes learned that the DfE was expected to face mounting appeals from teacher training providers that failed to gain accreditation.
It followed the news that around 25 per cent of teacher training providers could be removed from the market after only 179 ITT providers were approved to continue offering courses to trainees.
Speaking about the ITT Market Review, Mr Noble-Rogers will say it became “clear” that the sector “was about to face the most serious challenge it had faced in more than a decade”.
And he will say that while the UCET’s work ”often takes place behind closed doors and in private”, the organisation has helped to make the review’s proposals “less damaging than they would otherwise have been”.
The conference will also be told that the UCET almost convinced the DfE that providers only narrowly missing accreditation should be provisionally accepted, but Mr Noble-Rogers will say that this was not ultimately successful.
UCET to adopt ‘new strategy’
Mr Noble-Rogers is expected to announce a “new strategy” for the UCET, which he says has to be reviewed ”in the light of the world we now live in”.
He will say the UCET will look to work with members and stakeholders to “develop a new strategy, review our vision and mission, revise our constitution, evaluate our values, consider our membership, and review our governance and institutional structure”.
The term gaslighting is used to describe a means of coercion in which one person convinces another to question their perception of events.
A Department for Education spokesperson said:
“The department is working closely with all 179 successful ITT providers, including universities.
“Our focus is on delivering quality training for teachers - which is the single most important factor in raising standards for pupils, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.”