TEACHER SUPPLY

Writing in 1912, the Chief Inspector for Secondary Schools, W.C. Fletcher [11], explained that the efficiency of individual teachers cannot be measured by their academic qualifications, since lack of formal qualifications can sometimes be compensated by personal qualities; nevertheless, ``when the question is not of an individual or of a small group, but of a large number, it remains true that the lack of good qualifications must seriously limit the efficiency of teachers''. The lack of sufficient well-qualified mathematics teachers has been a major problem facing English education for over 30 years. Moreover, changes to the educational system have served to exacerbate existing problems. The Dainton report (1968) [5] drew particular attention to a shortage of graduate teachers of mathematics, and the fact that these were concentrated in grammar schools and tended to teach only the older pupils. It recommended that younger and uncommitted pupils should receive higher quality teaching and that positive incentives should be offered to attract more mathematics and science graduates into teaching. The coming of comprehensive schools tended to disperse well-qualified teachers more widely, but did so without increasing their numbers. Subsequent recruitment to newly created sixth form colleges tended once more to concentrate well-qualified teachers in a smaller number of institutions, so that a student in an 11--16 school might never meet a well-qualified mathematics teacher. There was also (and still is) a concentration of well-qualified mathematics teachers outside the maintained sector. Figures drawn from a survey in 1977 and quoted in Cockcroft (1982) [3] show that overall, the percentage of mathematics teaching, in all maintained secondary schools, done by well- qualified staff was about 33%. The corresponding figures for sixth form colleges was 61% , for grammar schools was 59%, for comprehensives with sixth forms was 40%, and for 11--16 schools was 23%.

What has happened since then? Certainly teaching is becoming a `graduate profession' and the percentages of teachers, in all subjects, having degrees of some kind has increased substantially. (The figures for 1970, 1980 and 1990 respectively were 37%, 51% and 66%.) Nevertheless, in the mid-1980s, the number of students recruited to initial teacher training in mathematics (PGCE and concurrent courses combined) regularly failed to meet official targets. The latest published figures (DfE (1993) [8]), based on a 10% sample of schools in England in 1992, suggest that 30% of those teaching mathematics in maintained secondary schools have a degree with mathematics as a main subject, and that 39% of mathematics lessons are taught by such teachers. Despite the peculiarly technical nature of mathematics, these figures are markedly worse than the corresponding figures for most main-stream subjects --- see Appendix F. Thus, despite the apparent improvements there is still cause for concern. In particular, the concentration of well-qualified teachers in 16--19 colleges means that younger secondary pupils are less likely to be taught their mathematics by teachers who are both enthusiastic about the subject and have a clear grasp of its internal structure.

At primary level the position is especially serious. Mathematics is a core subject in the National Curriculum yet there must still be many thousands of teachers who never achieved a satisfactory qualification in the subject at age 16. Only 10% or so of those with B.Ed degrees have studied mathematics as a main subject or as a major component of their course, and very few have a degree in mathematics. It is also clear (see Section 6) that the current demand for would-be teachers to have at least a pass at Grade C in GCSE mathematics is no longer comparable with the corresponding requirement made in the late 1970s.

There is still a desperate shortage of properly qualified mathematics graduates at all levels of the teaching profession. In the light of this, it is hard to see how the proposal (Dearing (1995) [7]) to introduce compulsory core skills for all students at 16--19, including `number', could possibly be staffed without spreading an already over-stretched resource even more thinly. Although recruitment for PGCE courses in mathematics improved during the recent recession, reports from education departments suggest that many students ``appear not to have a very positive sense of mathematics or of their own mathematical ability''. (Despite this, within twelve months, the statistics will count them as `well-qualified' teachers.) It is important for the long-term health of the profession that a substantial number of our better mathematics students consider a teaching career; at present the contrast between working conditions in teaching and in other professions is such that good graduates are required to pay too high a price. University mathematics departments have an important role to play in reversing the trend, but they will need substantial government support.

In the long term, to improve what is taught and how it is taught, we must raise the competence and confidence of those who choose to become mathematics teachers, and support those who are already teaching in schools and colleges. This will require cooperation between government, university mathematics departments, and those involved with pre-service and in-service training. (See Conclusions 7 and 8, Section 16.)