David Cameron has announced a multimillion-pound grant to help establish a College of Teaching, in an effort to end the profession’s “Cinderella” status.

Writing in this week’s TES, the prime minister announces that the government will support the Claim Your College consortium in its bid to create a teacher-led royal college, giving the profession a similar status to medicine and law.

As part of his pledge to provide funding, Mr Cameron gives assurances that the college would be “fully independent” of government, offering teaching “the sort of leadership that other professions have enjoyed for decades”.

Mr Cameron highlights that other professions are represented by professional bodies that set and maintain high standards of practice and lead the way in research.

“But for too long teaching was the Cinderella profession - every bit as deserving as the rest but too rarely seen or treated as the profession it is,” he adds. “We are determined to give teachers all the respect and recognition they deserve.”

For the full story and to read the prime minister’s comment piece get the 20 March edition of TES on your tablet or phone or by downloading the TES Reader app for Android or iOS. Or pick it up at all good newsagents.

Related stories:

£12m needed to establish College of Teaching by 2019 - 2 February 2015

College of Teaching to be established to boost status of profession, say ministers - 9 December 2014

Plans for ‘College of Teaching’ fail to convince teachers - 9 May 2014