To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will ensure that CATE criteria include a provision for professional studies of the needs of pupils with specific learning difficulties in reading and writing.

The Government's revised criteria for the accreditation of initial teacher training courses, which are set out in DES circular 24/89, include a requirement that the educational and professional studies of all students should develop in them the capacity to identify pupils with special educational needs or with learning difficulties and to understand the ways in which the potential of such pupils can be developed.