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Computers can do a better job than teachers, says Blair aide
Daily Mail - Thursday 21 1998
By STEVE DOUGHTY
MOST teachers should be replaced by computers, a senior associate of Tony Blair declared yesterday. MP Margaret Hodge, leader of the influential Commons Education Select Committee, claimed many were stuck in 'a 1970's time warp'.
She said too few 'good-quality people' wanted to be teachers, and that in future much of their work should be done by 'information technology and learning through the Internet'.
Mrs Hodge, MP for Barking and a figure close to the heart of New Labour, said pupils should be helped by an 'elite force' of highly-trained and motivated teachers. But supervision of classes, marking and preparation of lessons should be carried out mainly by 'less well-trained assistants'.
The MP, former Left-wing leader of Islington Council in North London, has already upset teaching unions with a call for long school holidays to be abolished in favour of year-round education. Her latest broadside in the New Statesman magazine is certain to create fresh unease.
Mrs Hodge said that students on under-graduate training courses usually held poor A-level grades, with the average 'no better than two D's and an E'. Teaching jobs were difficult to fill because of the poor-quality of applicants. 'Sadly the teachers themselves - or at least their representatives - are not much help in improving the profession's image,' she went on. 'Much of it remains stuck in a 1970s time warp.
'When the public think of teachers, they think of militant unions, resistance to change and long holidays. The image does the majority of hard-working, dedicated teachers no justice.'
Mrs Hodge said below-standard applicants should not be given teaching jobs 'purely to make up the numbers'. Information technology was about to revolutionise schools 'In a few years I believe some classes will not be led by a fully-trained teacher,' she added.
Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said:
'Successive governments have failed to reward teachers and to ensure that conditions of service are good. They must bear the responsibility for teaching not being the first choice of career for young people.'
Nigel de Gruchy, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters & Union of Women Teachers, said: 'Mrs Hodge is determined to make her name. 'But all she is achieving is to upset or demean everyone else.'