WELL done to the Teacher Training Agency for admitting what the rest of us already know. The “No one forgets a good teacher” campaign has been a failure.
Although it may have boosted the profession’s image among outsiders, most young people considering a teaching career can remember their own teachers and their working lives only too well. The creative are put off by the paperwork, the ambitious by the salary and the fashion-
conscious by the leather-patch brigade.
The celebrity backing for the campaign only highlighted what else is on offer Given the choice, what career path are today’s bright young things likely to choose? To be tomorrow’s Joanna Lumley, Anita Roddick or Sir David Attenborough? Or to mark their homework at weekends?
Attracting those who grew up in the “greed is good” culture was never going to be easy. Belatedly, the Government has gone for most graduates’ soft spot - their wallets. Salaries for trainee teachers show signs of boosting recruitment. But if young people could forget their own teachers’ complaints, the applications might really come flooding in.
