FOR: Morwenna Jones

No other graduate scheme in The Times’ top 100 is criticised quite like Teach First. Currently the top graduate recruiter in the UK, it seems like a mere vehicle for Russell Group graduates wanting a short cut into an easy career.

Of all the assumptions, the saying ‘Teach First, then get a better job,’ gets thrown around the most. But those who use it miss the point. In a recent interview, James Westhead, Teach First’s Director of External Relations, said ‘schools need high-quality teachers in order to succeed and that’s what Teach First is all about.’ This is evident in BBC3’s Tough Young Teachers, a series that follows six new Teach First recruits. The show is firsthand evidence that the graduates-turned-teachers don’t need more than two years to make a positive impact; they need a few weeks. Teach First may not encourage a long career in teaching but it encourages something far more important: a career that can make a difference.

In reality, the difference that Teach First teachers make may not necessarily occur in the teaching profession. Indeed, the second part of the saying, ‘then get a better job,’ is heavily ironic as 70 percent of recruits go on to have careers in education. Accordingly, to complain about Teach First being used as a stepladder for power-hungry graduates is to complain about Teach First putting the brains of those power-hungry graduates, all of who have achieved at least a 2:1 in their degrees, to good use in changing the education system. Few would disagree with the long-term benefits the programme offers.

So students who, five years ago, would’ve walked into Deloitte, PwC, the Civil Service, are now changing the face of education. But what’s in it for the graduates who essentially sacrifice just under half their salary in order to work the same hours, with far less material recognition?

In the first place, there’s the intrinsic reward derived from teaching and the satisfaction of making a difference to the lives of struggling students. But even more so, what other graduate scheme is going to give you complete authority? Where else are you going to have total responsibility for your results? Who can give you the chance to make a difference after only six weeks of training? When it comes to leadership opportunities and the chance to work for a scheme that is still rapidly expanding and has huge potential, no other graduate scheme can match Teach First.

People have different reasons for going into Teach First. For some, it’s a means of entering their dream career without having to spend more time in education getting a PGCE. For others, it’s a way to give something back. For others still, it’s the company that trained the teacher who helped them pass their GCSEs. Teach First offers everybody something; to condemn it is to condemn the most powerful instrument for educational change we’ve seen this century.

AGAINST: Will Amor

We probably all had an inspirational teacher at school who encouraged us to aim for A*s and to apply to Cambridge. This breed of life changing teachers is what Teach First is trying to cultivate in targeting people who succeeded academically at school and beyond. Indeed, fewer than one in five Teach First graduates didn’t go to a Russell Group institution.

However, more than half these graduates leave the teaching profession within five years: a much larger proportion than those who joined teaching via other routes. So why can’t Teach First keep these graduates teaching?

For many, the programme is more of a ‘gap year job’ rather than the first step in a teaching career. The programme lasts two years, after which a large number of the teachers move on to other professions. For them, Teach First is a chance to give something back to those in need. The recent BBC3 series Tough Young Teachers featured a number of graduates from privileged, privately educated backgrounds who stated that they wanted to help those less fortunate than them.

A commendable ambition this may be, but being a teacher as a charitable pit-stop before another career is likely to do more damage than good. Most teachers will have had to study for the year-long Postgraduate Certificate of Education, the professional equivalent of the Graduate Diploma of Law which lets non-law graduates practise law, while the Teach First graduates get a paltry six weeks’ training. This means that the Teach First teachers are unlikely to be outstanding teachers in their first two years, even if they have the potential to be if they pursued a career as a teacher.

Moreover, this lack of preparation makes the job for the Teach First graduates incredibly challenging. Unrealistic workloads, all-nighters and a diet of caffeine may be familiar to Cantabs, but at least as students we don’t have to put up with mouthy teens, nor are we responsible for the education of hundreds of students.

Despite six weeks’ holiday in summer, term time is a veritable nightmare for any teacher, and especially an inexperienced, under-qualified graduate teacher. In Tough Young Teachers, Science teacher Claudenia actually fell asleep during one of her classes as she had been up all night planning lessons.

Admittedly, this kind of pressure and stress is to be found in other graduate jobs, but they tend to be a lot better remunerated: even Gove’s new pay scheme won’t see a new teacher on a salary anything like a peer’s pay package in the City. And it is this kind of financial comparison that really makes Teach First unworkable: even graduate civil servants, with the benefit of swanky Whitehall offices and no boisterous kids, earn more than graduate teachers.

More should be done to get the best people into teaching, but not in the form of Teach First.