Cut teacher-training ties to secure future, urges university head

UNIVERSITY education faculties must cut the apron strings from government and find alternative funding sources to cope with looming major cuts to teacher training, according to a senior academic.

Richard Edwards, head of Stirling University's Institute of Education, said his department is employing six new staff despite losing student places, and therefore funding, in an effort to gain extra money through research.

"We are looking forward to becoming less dependent on the Scottish Funding Council," he said. "A lot of education departments need to think about what it is they are about and become less positioned as supplying teachers for schooling within Scotland, and more positioned as providing professional education more widely."

Stirling is already working with Scotland's police training college and is looking to work with other countries, including China and Singapore, to train educators.

He believes education departments must look to research as a means of acquiring funds from outwith government.

Universities receive "teaching" funding per student from the government via the funding council (SFC). But they can also apply for money from various bodies for undertaking research. Stirling is expanding its research arm, including recruiting PhD students, to access new funding streams.

Professor Edwards spoke as a review of Initial Teacher Education is being undertaken by former HMIe chief inspector Graham Donaldson.

Universities are also facing major funding cuts this year after the Scottish Government reduced teacher training places in an attempt to tackle growing unemployment in the sector.

The University and College Union (UCU), which represents lecturers, has warned that some departments face major financial cuts as a result.

Tony Axon, UCU spokesman, said: "Part of the problem is that teacher education departments for a long time just trained teachers, so they would need new training to diversity into research."

All education departments at Scottish universities face cuts. Edinburgh's Moray House anticipates a budget cut of 1.1 million-2.4m – 10 per cent to 23 per cent of its total budget – which could lead to a loss of 40 jobs.

University teaching departments currently do a small amount of research compared with other faculties.

Lindsay Paterson, professor of educational policy at Moray House, said: "I would like more educational research to be in the hands of scholars other than educational experts – psychologists, economists, historians and political scientists.

"That would improve the quality of educational research and force educational researchers to engage with the wider world of rigorous academic scholarship.

"Schools of education need to think much more clearly about the rigorous scientific methods people in other disciplines use."

A spokesman for Universities Scotland said: "Universities have a very important role both in training professionals for the public and private sector but also in producing fresh thinking to help inform public policy; both roles should be encouraged."

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "Our teacher training institutions have some real strengths in the way they educate teachers for classroom careers. That's why we have provided a 3m package to retain capacity in the system for future years."