A teachers’ union in the UK has warned against the use of unqualified staff n schools saying it is jeopardizing children’s education.
According to a report by NASUWT, the numbers of unqualified teachers were increasing, with more than 60 percent of the 4,600 members questioned saying they were working alongside staff who had not completed their training.
Two thirds respondents also told the union they felt the situation was worsening because schools were either unwilling or unable to pay higher salaries for qualified staff.
The union accused the coalition government of “robbing children of a fundamental entitlement” when it abolished the requirement for academies and free schools to hire qualified teachers.
The NASUWT, which is the largest teachers’ union in the UK, said that 65 per cent of respondents in its survey said unqualified staff had been employed since the rule change in 2012.
Experts say the most worrying trend is in certain schools called Academies.
“They were founded in 2000 and they are independent from local authority and they can be founded by private people and corporate sponsors. Now there is a rapidly rising trend of unqualified teachers. But this is down to cost-cutting and is inevitable and it’s going to get worse,” London-based author and journalist Alan Hart told Press TV.
He said to understand the problem better you have to know that there is a history of dumbing down. “It started when Mrs. Thatcher ended the grammar schools,” he noted.
According to Hart, the Britons are getting into a mess on many fronts and education is certainly one of them.
He went on blaming the economic situation for the continuation of the trend saying:” This trend will continue because of the economic situation as the greater cuts are coming, we will be producing less and less well educated children.”
