Press Release

Teacher shortages

25 September 2008

Commenting on the latest official figures on teacher vacancies, Christine Blower, Acting General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, Europe’s largest teaching organisation said;

“The Government has to realise that teachers’ salaries have a direct impact on recruitment. Graduates are not being attracted into a profession that pays less than most other graduate jobs. A recent survey showed teachers are working ever longer hours; more work for decreasing pay.

“Our children deserve the best; we cannot go back to the years of acute teacher shortages in our classrooms. Without a full complement of qualified teachers in our schools it is the education of this country’s future generations that will suffer.

“The Secretary of State must act to halt the spiral of decline in teachers’ pay. Teachers, like other public sector workers unions cannot and will not stand by and see their members’ incomes and standards of living cut”.