A Escola a Tempo Inteiro Como Símbolo Maior do Fracasso do Estado Social

A Escola a Tempo Inteiro Como Símbolo Maior do Fracasso do Estado Social

Posted by Paulo Guinote under A Vidinha, Conceitos, Hipocrisias, Política, Profundezas, Sociedade, Teorias

Por vezes é necessário abandonarmos o carreiro simples, mas estreito, do politicamente correcto e da sabedoria convencional, dos chavões adquiridos, das frases feitas e tentar pensar as coisas de outra forma, olhando-as de um novo ponto de vista.

A Escola a Tempo Inteiro é apresentada como uma grande conquista da acção deste Governo, deste ME, aplaudida pela Confap actual e por diversos opinadores (preo)ocupados com a situação das crianças, cujos pais não conseguem acompanhar devidamente e, por isso, devem ser deixadas mais de 10 horas “nas mãos” (não gosto da expressão por uma multiplicidade de razões) do(a)s professore(a)s.

É um excelente exercício de spin sobre a admissão clara de um fracasso do Estado Social e a demissão de quem representa as “famílias” de efectivamente as defender pela via certa que deveria ser a da “Família a Tempo Inteiro” ou, no mínimo, a “Família a Meio-Tempo”.

Porque parece que as coisas mudaram de lugar e a lógica se retorceu por completo neste país, nestes tempos. Com que então a Escola a Tempo Inteiro é uma grande conquista social? Porquê?

Não seria antes uma conquista ter-se conseguido desenvolver o país para que as “famílias” pudessem dispor de condições para estar perto dos seus filhos todo o tempo possível?

Conheço algumas pessoas a trabalhar em países consensualmente tidos como mais avançados do que Portugal, leia-se, Norte da Europa ou mesmo Costa Leste dos EUA.

Curiosamente, nesses países a Escola a Tempo Inteiro, em particular a Pública para os mais novos, não existe em muitas zonas e esse é um sinal do progresso dessas sociedades.

Porquê?

Porque existe uma efectiva protecção social à maternidade, que permite que as mães fiquem - se assim o quiserem - os primeiros anos de vida do(a)s seus(uas) filho(a)s em casa sem perda do posto de trabalho e vencimento. Porque os horários de trabalho são flexíveis, não para obrigar mães e pais a voltar a casa tardíssimo, mas para que possam recolher os seus filhos às 2 ou 3 da tarde, no máximo.

Porque se atingiram estados de desenvolvimento económico e protecção social inimagináveis para nós e que, mesmo em retrocesso, ainda estão muito à nossa frente.

Por isso, a Escola a Tempo Inteiro é apenas algo que se destina a apaziguar as “famílias” que, cada vez mais, são obrigadas a trabalhar em condições mais precárias e vulneráveis. Que não podem faltar, sob pena de perda do posto de trabalho no final do contrato. Que são obrigadas a cumprir horários incompatíveis com uma vida familiar harmoniosa. Numa altura em que, cada vez mais, as famílias são menos do que nucleares.

A Escola a Tempo Inteiro é um óptimo contributo para todos os empresários e empregadores que defendem a desregulação - pelo abuso - do horário de trabalho dos seus empregados. Se é isso que vai desenvolver o país? Abrindo mais umas dezenas de centros comerciais para as “famílias” tentarem desaguar as frustrações ao fim de semana?

Quem defende as “famílias” deveria defender, em coerência com os seus princípios, que o Estado protegesse a vida das ditas “famílias” a partir da melhoria das suas condições de vida. A defesa da Escola a Tempo Inteiro é a admissão de um fracasso, de uma derrota e não o seu contrário.

Eu, por exemplo, preferia viver num país com horários de trabalho que permitissem que os encarregados de educação dos meus alunos pudessem comparecer na escola num horário de atendimento civilizado e não em reuniões pós-laborais para todos. Gostaria de eu próprio não depender da Escola a Tempo Inteiro se o pudesse evitar.

Mas não. O Portugal Socrático, moderno e tecnológico, é um país falhado, com uma sociedade fragmentada e crescentemente fracturada e desigual. E o projecto democrático europeu dos últimos 20 anos - desde a adesão à CEE que trouxe fundos em forma de chuva grossa e os trará até 2013 - foi um projecto que falhou em tornar um país mais coeso, mais solidário, mais avançado em termos de conquistas sociais, só possíveis se o resto tivesse funcionado. Mas não funcionou. Ou funcionou apenas para alguns. Que são os que têm acesso a uma voz pública em nome do seu sucesso. E que depois palpitam sobre o tudo e o nada, sobre o que conhecem e desconhecem. Que têm serviçais para tratar das coisas chatas como ir buscar os “putos” à escola. Que só fazem por desfastio, em muitos casos.

As “famílias” comuns, essas, na sua grande maioria, podem olhar para a Escola a Tempo Inteiro como uma válvula de escape, uma almofada que amortece um maior choque da sua vulnerabilidade, mas é apenas isso mesmo, um estratagema para tornar um pouco mais suportável o que deveria ser visto como insuportável e intolerável.

A Escola a Tempo Inteiro é um projecto de sucesso se assumirmos que entre nós o Estado Social falhou irremediavelmente.

A Família a Tempo Inteiro, isso sim, teria sido uma enorme conquista e a marca do sucesso de um Portugal desenvolvido.

Celia Hoyles: The magic numbers

http://education.guardian.co.uk/academicexperts/story/0,,2244445,00.html

Celia Hoyles: The magic numbers

As 'maths tsar' Celia Hoyles tried to persuade us that her subject is useful and beautiful. The mission continues

Tuesday January 22, 2008
Guardian

Like Bertrand Russell, for whom mathematics was "my chief source of happiness", Celia Hoyles has always adored a subject that terrifies and repels large sections of the population. She sees life, she says, through a numerical lens and instantly appreciates the mathematical patterns in things like snails' shells. "There's something wonderful about logical proof," she enthuses. "You can prove one thing and fit it into something else, it's like a jigsaw."

Wonder, beauty, love - these are not words most of us would use about maths, but Hoyles use them frequently, along with an occasional "fantastic!". It's not surprising that her second marriage is to a fellow maths education professor. They are both based at the London University Institute of Education - and "we talk maths all the time".

Hoyles is the country's leading mathematics educator. Now 61, she has devoted most of her life to finding new ways of getting children excited about the subject, raising teachers' morale and giving maths a higher public profile. She has just finished a two-year stint as the government's chief adviser on maths education (she's been dubbed the "maths tsar" by the press) and now, while retaining her chair at the Institute of Education, she has taken charge of the new National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Maths.

Female mathematicians were once rare and, though women now account for more than a third of university maths students, people still remember another of Russell's observations - "I like mathematics because it is not human" - and think the subject unfeminine. But a few minutes with Hoyles, who wears big rings, admiringly recalls "an incredibly glamorous" applied maths teacher from her schooldays, and was once seen by a colleague buying what he described as "exotic clothes" in John Lewis, will soon disabuse you of that.

There's no doubting her enthusiasm - and she needs it. The national aversion to the subject, she acknowledges, is deeply rooted. People will cheerfully admit to innumeracy, and even take pride in it, though they would never admit to illiteracy. You don't get that, she says, in Asia or eastern Europe or even, to the same extent, in France and Germany.

Hoyles's lifelong mission has been to make maths something that people talk comfortably about. There's a personal edge to this campaign. She talks about the loneliness of the pure mathematician, absorbed in a language other people don't understand. "It can be very isolating," she says. "If you're a mathematician, you have different sorts of conversations."

Need to communicate

Brought up in a middle-class family in suburban Essex, the youngest of three daughters, Hoyles gained a first-class maths degree at Manchester University. The obvious next step was to start research. But she didn't; it was too lonely a prospect. She needed to find a way of combining her love for the subject with her need to communicate.

It wasn't like it is now, she says, when "mathematicians have to communicate with everybody" because mathematical models underpin everything from the financial markets, through animation, to weather forecasting. In those days, there were fewer opportunities.

So for her, the answer was teaching - in London's East End. "It made me rethink my maths," she says. "You become automated and routine with things like fractions and calculus. When you're teaching, you've got to unpack all that and ask: why do I do it like this?" Later, she became a lecturer at the Polytechnic of North London, working on a course to convert teachers of other subjects into maths specialists. She moved to her chair at the Institute of Education in 1984.

And then she became, for a few years, a television star. Hard though it is to imagine, ITV aired a prime-time (7pm) programme in the 80s designed to turn maths into family fun. It was fronted by Johnny Ball, with Hoyles on board to provide tips as the studio audience and viewers at home tackled puzzles. It had, Hoyles says, 10 million viewers. People recognised her in the street - she even got an upgrade on a long-haul flight. "The idea - and I'm passionate about it - was to get parents involved in their children's maths. Parents read to their children, so why can't they do maths with them? We wanted to get people talking about maths in the home, and it worked."

As Hoyles points out, there's a disjunction between school maths and maths people use in their lives. People will carry out quite sophisticated mathematical operations at work - or in leisure pursuits such as darts, gambling and sudoku - but freeze if given pen and paper and told to do maths. One of Hoyles's research projects showed that nurses make accurate judgments about proportions when administering drugs without necessarily using the procedures taught at school.

It was her interest in bridging the gap between teachers and practitioners that persuaded the then education secretary, Charles Clarke, himself a maths graduate, to appoint her to the maths tsardom. As an academic colleague put it: "Maths educators are prone to psychobabble, but Celia has stayed in the real world, finding out what people actually do in industry."

Her appointment followed an inquiry into post-14 maths education by Adrian Smith, principal of Queen Mary, University of London. When he started work, Smith asked to meet the person in charge of maths at the education department. There wasn't anybody. He later met 25 civil servants with some responsibilities for the subject including, Smith recalls, "one person with a maths degree and about 14 historians". The need to give the subject a clear voice in the department was the top recommendation in his report, and Hoyles was chosen.

What did she achieve? Smith and Clarke speak warmly of her efficiency and dynamism. But some maths educators argue she didn't make enough noise. "I spoke to a lot of ministers," says Hoyles. "I made the voice of maths heard in government circles. That was my job. I can't tell you how many talks I gave."

There were also grumbles that she didn't campaign for higher pay for maths teachers. Hoyles, though well aware of the astronomical salaries available to maths graduates in the financial world, is unrepentant. "Teachers of maths are already paid more because they get promoted very quickly if they're good. All teachers should be paid well. Just because you're a mathematician, you can't be paid as if you're working for Morgan Stanley."

She ticks off a list of things she "pushed forward". They include the centre she now heads, which offers professional development for maths teachers, and a growth in the number of assistants available to maths teachers. She is proud of the revival of A-level "further maths" , which was nearly extinct. Now, it can be taken by distance learning, even if you're the only student in the school who wants to do it.

A-level standards

But what of the university tutors who complain that the standard of students with A-level maths has fallen so badly they are compelled to hold remedial classes? "You've got a broader group seeing maths as part of their education," Hoyles says. "People might do A-level maths and go on to be historians. Fantastic! I don't think we can ever know if A-level maths has become easier or harder, only that it's different."

For GCSE, she supports the idea of a "functional maths" syllabus, now under trial, to teach basic numeracy for everyday life. Maths, she says, has always had a dual function in school: to produce the future mathematicians and engineers while providing the rest of us with a survival kit.

I suggest that perhaps some pupils shouldn't bother with, say, algebra. Hoyles looks at me as if I'm supporting child abuse. "X is a variable," she says, "and understanding the idea of a variable is crucial. Algebra is so powerful. People say: oh, you'll never need that bit of maths. And I say: sure, and you'll never need that bit of English or that bit of art. It's the way of thinking you need."

Which is a fair point. At heart, I think, Hoyles remains a missionary for maths rather than just for numeracy, determined that more people should enjoy, as she does, the beauty and the wonder. I doubt that mission will ever end.
EducationGuardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

What makes a good teacher?

Saturday, 26 January 2008

What makes a good teacher?

By Mike Baker Sometimes the simplest questions in life are the hardest to answer. For all of the millions of pounds invested in researching school effectiveness, and the thousands of hours spent by policy-makers reforming education systems, do we yet have a unanimous answer to this most important of questions: "what makes a good teacher?" The short answer is "no". But this week saw a significant move towards an evidence-based view that might yet influence the politicians. At the invitation of the Cambridge Assessment agency, a group of experts gathered at Westminster to pool their research knowledge and grapple towards a definition of a "good teacher". The timing was excellent since the House of Commons Schools and Families select committee is about to start an inquiry into teacher training. And it was encouraging that its chairman, Barry Sheerman, who chaired this seminar, said his committee preferred to be informed by evidence based on thorough research rather than on opinion. Teachers with the highest qualifications are not automatically the "best" teachers in the classroom The timing was good in another way too. Ofsted has just issued a report praising the innovative teacher-training programme, Teach First. This scheme places high-quality graduates straight into challenging secondary schools for two years. In this way it offers practical and hands-on training much earlier than in a traditional teacher training course. According to Ofsted, the Teach First scheme is both producing a very high proportion of "outstanding" teachers and is also helping to transform the inner-city schools where they are being trained. It also attracted graduates who might not otherwise have considered teaching. So this is a good moment to reassess what it is that produces good teachers. This question also relates to some of the reaction to last week's column, when I wrote about research that found independent schools were recruiting a disproportionate number of the "best" teachers, as defined by those with higher degrees. A number of respondents took issue with this definition of what makes the "best" teachers. I should say here, in defence of the researchers, that they used this measure because it was the only one that they could quantify for statistical analysis. 'Soft and fluffy' They would agree, as would I, that teachers with the highest qualifications are not automatically the "best" teachers in the classroom. Having got that off our chests, let's turn to what the experts were saying. Professor Patricia Broadfoot, a former Professor of Education and now vice-chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire, argued persuasively that the evidence from international studies showed that "the highest quality teaching and learning comes when we have the greatest autonomy for the teacher and the learner". The good teacher, she went on, was someone who was "left to get on with what they think their students need". This certainly sounded like a rejection of the prescriptive approach of the national curriculum and the numeracy and literacy strategies. Professor Broadfoot went on to propose a much more child-centred approach. While insisting she was not advocating a "soft and fluffy" style of teaching, she argued that research showed that a good teacher had to engage with "the powerfully charged emotional relationship between teacher and pupil". So, for Professor Broadfoot, the key ingredients of good teaching included: creating an atmosphere of mutual respect and fairness in the classroom, providing opportunities for "active learning" and humour to encourage pupil engagement, making learning interesting, and explaining things clearly. 'Creative subversion' Professor Debra Myhill, from Exeter University, took a similar line. She argued that while good subject knowledge and intellectual ability were both important, they were not "sufficient" to be a good teacher. The crucial ingredient, she argued, was a teacher's ability to reflect on his or her own performance and then to change it. She too argued for a healthy scepticism towards national policy initiatives. Indeed she advocated that a good teacher should go in for "creative subversion". By this, she meant that teachers should neither passively comply with government initiatives, nor should they point blank refuse to implement them. Instead they should "adapt them creatively". The third expert, Professor Mary James, from the Institute of Education drew on the massive, 10-year long teaching and learning research programme for her recipe for good teachers. Maybe the wheel is turning? One of her top 10 requirements was that the teacher should "promote the active engagement of the learner". Citing studies that showed the academic gains from children working collaboratively in groups, she argued: "If learners are not involved in their learning, they do not learn". She noted that teachers liked to be given practical guidance on how to improve their teaching, yet what they really needed to develop was their own judgment of what works and what does not work in their own teaching. This emphasis on engaging pupils and self-reflective teaching might horrify those who support a more traditional subject-based, discipline-oriented approach. Indeed, for those with long memories, it was the politicians' loss of confidence in child-centred learning that led to the creation of the national curriculum and, with it, a system of national testing to handcuff teachers to a framework of required knowledge. But maybe the wheel is turning? Self-improvement is a key weapon in a teacher's armoury The new curriculum for 11-14 year olds, due to start in September, puts much greater emphasis on teacher innovation and local adaptability to pupils' needs. The big question now is whether - after 20 years of being told exactly what and how to teach - there are enough teachers ready to be "creatively subversive"? Also, after years of being told in precise detail how to teach, will teachers feel ready both to devise their own way of teaching and engaging students and also constantly to evaluate and adapt their own teaching methods. We might also ask whether it is too much to ask teachers to do this when, for some, just asserting crowd control requires all their energies. Finally, although no-one explicitly said a "good teacher" needed to like children, I think this was implicit in their definitions. However, Professor Myhill did say that "a teacher who hates children may be very good at class management but they are unlikely to be very good at encouraging learning".

MÁSCARAS E SERVIÇO PÚBLICO

Lisboa 16.01.08

MÁSCARAS E SERVIÇO PÚBLICO Vasco Graça Moura escritor Palavra de honra que eu não fazia tenções de, tão cedo, voltar a falar da ASAE. Mas as notícias emocionantes do último fim- -de-semana funcionaram como catalisador e espevitaram brilhantemente o meu zelo cívico. Já aqui há tempos o respeitável inspector- -geral da ASAE tinha dito, no Expresso da Meia- -Noite, que alguns agentes do seu serviço surgem de carapuça nas feiras porque poderia ser desagradável para eles, que por vezes são vizinhos de gente ligada aos feirantes, serem reconhecidos na vida de todos os dias. Esta forma de assegurar um bom ambiente convivial de vizinhança e a informação sobre o treino do pessoal da ASAE com serviços secretos e polícias estrangeiras é que produziram em mim o déclic triunfal. Eis a solução para muitos problemas! Pensei logo nos professores. Se receberem treino de manejo de armas e de explosivos, operações de comandos, pantominas de assalto e circulação de capuz negro, não apenas ficam ao abrigo da deterioração eventual das suas relações de vizinhança e proximidade, como podem cumprir muito mais eficaz e corajosamente a sua insubstituível missão. Os professores têm sido vítimas das mais inqualificáveis violências, quer da parte de alunos, quer da parte dos pais deles. Pois bem, se tiverem preparação militar, aprenderem a manejar uma pistola de guerra ou uma bazuca e se apresentarem nas escolas de cabeça coberta e com uniforme acolchoado correspondente, as vantagens saltam aos olhos: Primeiro, sentirão as orelhas e o nariz muito mais agasalhados, o que não é despiciendo atentas as inóspitas condições de alguns estabelecimentos de ensino. Segundo, não podem ser reconhecidos, o que facilita as substituições, por exemplo, quando o professor de Matemática falta e a aula de Matemática é dada pelo de Educação Física, com óbvia solução de muitos problemas de gestão de pessoal. Sem contar que ficam ao abrigo das agressões intempestivas dos encarregados da educação. Quando um aluno é castigado, tem más notas ou chumba sem apelo nem agravo, como é que eles vão saber de que professor se trata? Como é que hão-de ir à escola tirar-lhe satisfações, insultá-lo, partir-lhe a cara, ou mesmo fazer-lhe uma espera traiçoeira, pelo lusco-fusco, à porta de casa? Terceiro, com esse musculado adestramento, os professores podem manter o respeito e a disciplina muito mais facilmente. Não só pela razão saudável de que os alunos ficarão deveras acagaçados ante uma figura mascarada que lhes explica que não foi o Marquês de Pombal quem descobriu o caminho marítimo para a Índia ou tenta dar-lhes a perceber que o nome predicativo do sujeito não é um disjuntor, mas ainda porque é muito mais difícil, se não de todo impossível, ajustarem contas com o docente cá fora. E, quanto aos incidentes ocorridos no próprio espaço da aula, os resultados serão igualmente positivos: se o menino Zacarias tentar agredi-lo, ou se o menino Eleutério se lembrar de dar cabo da carteira ou do computador, ou ainda se se puser a tirar macacos do nariz e a beliscar o rabo do menino Teodoro até espirrar sangue, o professor, convertido em atirador especial, pode puxar da Parabellum e acertar na cabeça do menino Zacarias ou do menino Eleutério sem correr o risco de atingir o inocente menino Teodoro ou a omoplata frágil da menina Cátia Vanessa. Depois de duas ou três cenas deste género, não pode haver quaisquer dúvidas de que o aproveitamento escolar melhorará exponencialmente e de que todos os professores, mesmo os que prestam serviço nas escolas mais problemáticas, podem viver descansados e sentir-se plenamente realizados na carreira que escolheram. O mesmo princípio pode ser adoptado noutros serviços de interesse público. Ocorrem-me os revisores da Linha de Sintra, os condutores dos autocarros nocturnos e muitos outros. Tudo o que é preciso é que passe a haver regulamentos que tornem isto possível. Depois, não terão sido os professores quem fez os regulamentos, tal como acontece com a ASAE que se limita a cumpri-los. E finalmente viveremos numa democracia digna desse nome e da actuação mascarada de quantos lhe prestam serviço.

Estado paga 2 milhões de euros em juros

2007-12-25 19:49 Brisa Estado paga 2 milhões de euros em juros Isto, apenas porque não saldou a tempo uma dívida à empresa de auto-estradas. [ Última actualização às 19:49 do dia 25/12/2007 ] Comentar Enviar por email Imprimir Mais notícias

É uma situação que o Tribunal de Contas não consegue compreender: o Estado sabia que se se atrasasse a saldar o que devia à Brisa, teria que pagar juros de mora. O dinheiro em dívida foi pago sete meses depois do fim do prazo e, claro, foram cobrados juros de mora. No total, mais de dois milhões de euros que penalizaram o erário público. A dívida era de 36,5 milhões, dinheiro que resultava das comparticipações a que o Estado estava obrigado pelo contrato de concessão das auto-estradas. O Parecer sobre a Conta Geral do Estado esclarece que o secretário de Estado do Tesouro e Finanças despachou o pagamento em Março de 2006. Havia depois um período de dois meses para regularizar a situação. O prazo não foi respeitado, e a Brisa foi pedindo o dinheiro em falta. Em Dezembro, a empresa acabou por receber o que lhe era devido, mais os juros de mora. Os dois milhões de euros foram somados à Dívida Pública. São dois milhões que o Estado podia ter poupado.

Scientists urged back into class

Last Updated: Friday, 4 January 2008, 11:55 GMT E-mail this to a friend Printable version

Scientists urged back into class

Science and maths expertise is key for economic growth Ministers want Britain's top IT and science companies to encourage "career switchers" to go into teaching. Ministers want professional scientists, mathematicians, information technology experts and engineers to help fill the skills gaps in classrooms. Many of England's science teachers have not studied science to degree level. A new programme linking the teacher training agency with employers hopes to ease the way for science experts planning teaching as a second career. We need companies to encourage career switchers to take the leap and go into teaching Jim Knight Schools Minister Schools Minister Jim Knight said: "Britain is a world leader in science and engineering - from traditional lab coats to Grand Prix racing and computer games designers. "We now need this 'best of British' to get into our schools and colleges and bring on the next generation. "We need companies to encourage career switchers to take the leap and go into teaching. "These people can help bring science alive for kids who are in school today - and ensure that more of them decide to take up science as a career. In the long term it can only benefit the UK." A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokeswoman rejected suggestions that employers might be reluctant to lose their staff to another profession. She said the programme might suit someone seeking early retirement from the science industry. Industry support Human resource departments might put such a person in touch with the Transition to Teaching programme, to be launched in the spring. Head of recruitment at the Training and Development Agency for Schools, John Connolly, said the partnership would benefit potential teachers, pupils, and the science industry in the long term. "It will enable employers to free up some of their brightest to teach the next generation of scientists and engineers that our businesses will need." Firms including IT giant Cisco, pharmaceuticals company Astra Zeneca and BT have already signed up for the programme. Science specialists are more able to bring the subject alive And the government has appointed the chief executive of IBM UK to head up a committee to design a programme to help graduates with science and maths degrees to go into teaching as a second career. Recent government-funded research suggested that one in four science teachers was not a specialist. The issue has drawn criticism from scientific organisations who argue that teachers without specialist training and knowledge often lack the confidence and ability to bring the subject to life. Currently, just 19% of science teachers in England have a physics specialism and 25% a chemistry specialism - which equates to having studied either subject to degree level. By 2014 the government wants that proportion to have risen to 25% and 31% respectively. It also wants 95% of maths lessons to be taught by maths specialists.

Teachers 'quit jobs' in thousands

Last Updated: Thursday, 27 December 2007, 08:49 GMT E-mail this to a friend Printable version

Teachers 'quit jobs' in thousands

The Tories say many leave teaching due to government red tape More than 250,000 qualified teachers no longer work in England's schools, the Conservative Party says. And nearly 100,000 switched careers between 2000 and 2005 - more than double the number that left in the preceding five-year period. The Tories say their findings - based on government figures - point to rising numbers leaving the profession because of poor class discipline and red tape. But Schools Minister Jim Knight said recruitment was "buoyant". Figures also show that thousands of people who train and qualify as teachers never go on to work in schools and this appears to have increased in recent years. The government statistics show that of those who qualified in 2000, 2,100 never taught in schools. This rose steadily to 2005 (the latest available), when 7,900 of those who qualified have never taught. No government has done more to support teachers Jim Knight Schools Minister Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove said teaching talent was "going to waste". Mr Gove said: "Not only are our children not achieving as they should, talented teachers are not where they should be - in the classroom, opening young minds to new horizons. "With more than quarter of a million gifted professionals no longer in teaching, we have to ask why they've given up on education under Labour." He said teachers needed to be freed from "government micro-management" to enable them to "inspire and give them the tools to enforce discipline so that schools have access to the widest range of talent". 'Best generation' But Mr Knight said teaching was now "the career of choice for many highly qualified, talented individuals". He went on: "Ofsted has said this is the best generation of teachers ever. "Early retirement and churn in teaching is in fact good compared with equivalent professions." He said: "No government has done more to support teachers". Mr Knight also cited a Bath University survey of 22,500 British workers which suggested that school, college and university teachers have climbed from being the 54th happiest occupation in 1999 to 11th in 2007. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Training and Development Agency for Schools said: "Many qualified teachers decide to take a break from the profession for a number of reasons." The spokesman said the figures referred to by the Conservatives "do not take account of the fact that up to 30,000 teachers return to teaching at a later date with added industry experience and a new enthusiasm for teaching and learning". But the general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, Chris Keates, said Mr Gove's figures were probably about right but his claims about reasons for teachers' inactivity were wrong. She said a pool of inactive teachers had always existed and most joined it because of career breaks or changes. She added: "For the majority of those who leave now, evidence shows it is a positive choice."