Education experts have challenged the Government's claim that teacher training standards are slipping in ÖйúAƬ.

New research findings suggest that, contrary to assertions by ministers, most trainee teachers feel well or adequately prepared by universities and colleges to teach reading, mathematics and science.

School heads have equal confidence in the competence of their recently graduated teachers. A survey of student teachers from 44 courses of initial teacher training found that most felt they had mastered teaching of key skills and subject areas on completion of their course and at the end of their first year in the classroom.

Researchers from the Institute of Education, Bristol University, and Sheffield University discovered that 82.5 per cent of students thought they had been well or adequately prepared to teach reading, 79.9 per cent felt equally well-prepared to teach mathematics, and 89 per cent were confident they could teach science.

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By the end of their first year of teaching, 88 per cent felt well or adequately prepared to teach reading and science, and 93.5 per cent were confident in their ability to teach maths. Nearly all heads of the schools where the graduates were working thought their new recruits were well or adequately prepared to teach science, while 93 per cent felt equally confident about their maths teaching and 81.5 per cent about their teaching of reading.

The findings appear to contradict claims by Gillian Shephard, Secretary of State for Education and Employment, that students and schools have been dissatisfied with the standards of teacher training. Last week Mrs Shephard said it was Government concern over standards that had prompted it to press for the introduction of a national curriculum for teacher training.

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Geoff Whitty, director of the health and education research unit at the Institute of Education, said the survey found that few courses followed "trendy" methods developed in the 1960s. "Most courses try to go beyond the rather narrow view of teacher professionalism enshrined in government circulars - but they don't display the excesses claimed by right-wing critics," he said.