Teacher crisis threatens to deepen

New rules affecting work permits threaten to deepen the teacher recruitment crisis in London, according to one of the biggest agencies supplying foreign staff.

The Timeplan agency is asking Education Secretary Estelle Morris to intervene with the Home Office to overturn a new scheme that means it can no longer offer long-term contracts to foreign teachers. As a result, it says, hundreds of staff recruited from America, Jamaica, South Africa and European countries would only be able to stay until August with no guarantee of a job in the new academic year.

Company chairman Ian Penman said: "Up to now we have been playing down talk of a teacher recruitment crisis because we have been confident of attracting people to London and elsewhere. But, by this change of rules, the Home Office is virtually guaranteeing one."

For more than a year, Timeplan and other agencies have been travelling abroad and signing up teachers for long-term work in UK schools, effectively employing them itself and arranging work permits with the Home Office.

A spokesman for the Home Office said the new arrangements were part of a pilot scheme that would be kept under review. The spokesman said: "Overall, the feedback from other agencies has been that this is a positive move. It means that work permits can be issued more quickly."