Schools white paper ignores teacher development

The Importance of Teaching, published last week, contains detailed plans for improving the calibre of trainee teachers and reforming initial teacher training, but does not address how continuing professional development for teachers or support staff will be organised once the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) becomes an executive agency of the Department for Education (DfE) in 2012.

Malcolm Trobe, policy director at the Association of School and College Leaders, argued that it is "a bit of a hole in the white paper".

"How continuing professional development is going to operate is a bit of a void at the moment, I'm afraid," he said. "We are fully in favour of school-to-school support, but you do need external provision. You can't manage everything within institutions."

Trobe added that funding for continuing professional development must be maintained once the TDA is dissolved, since schools budgets are already over-stretched.

"The TDA does handle a lot of money," he said. "One of the major worries is that whenever you have this sort of reorganisation there is an inherent risk that money will magically disappear into thin air.

"We want the clear commitment to continuing professional development and to ensure that appropriate funding is in place so there can be coherent approaches to it in schools and colleges," Trobe added.

Bruni de la Mott, national officer at Unison, warned that school support staff risk losing out on nationally co-ordinated training and development once the TDA is moved over to the DfE.

"For a long time the TDA was just responsible for teacher training," she explained. "Our worry is that it will lose the remit for support staff because there is no indication from the government that support staff are even on the radar."

Graham Holley, chief executive of the TDA, argued that the transfer of the organisation to an executive agency of the DfE would secure the future of its work.

"The Secretary of State's decision reflects the important contribution that the TDA has made to securing a high-quality workforce in our schools and highlights his confidence in our ability to deliver," he explained.

"While the arrangements for this transition and the full scope of our future work are still to be finalised, we will continue to support the government in realising its vision for our schools."