Schools take more unqualified staff

Schools are employing increasing numbers of unqualified staff to fill gaps left by a shortage of teachers, figures reveal today.

New limits on the hours teachers can work have forced schools to hire hundreds of classroom assistants to oversee pupils.

The problem has been compounded by last year's budgets crisis, which led many schools to cut permanent teaching posts and employ more supply teachers.

A growing numbers of these are also unqualified, according to Select Education, the largest supply agency. Some have a degree in the subject they teach, have worked in further education colleges as "instructors" or have trained overseas - but they are treated as unqualified by the Government.

Select Education marketing director John Dunn said the number of unqualified supply teachers on his books had doubled in two years.

The agency sends out 4,000 education staff each week, of whom six per cent (240) are unqualified teachers. That is double the proportion said by the Government to work in schools. In the past school year,

2.8 per cent of the teaching workforce was listed as having no qualified status.

But the biggest increase in demand has been for classroom assistants. They now account for a fifth of Select's weekly placements.

It comes after the Government signed a deal with some teaching unions aimed at cutting weekly hours. Steve Sinnott, of the NUT, said: "Parents would not be pleased to find their children are being overseen by classroom assistants."