CONSERVATIVE
New Forest East

EDUCATION – TEACHING VACANCIES - 22 November 2001

EDUCATION – TEACHING VACANCIES - 22 November 2001

Dr Julian Lewis: How many teacher vacancies there are in secondary schools in the south-east and if she will make statement?

[SUPPLEMENTARY:] I saw some of those data: as they related to Hampshire, they showed 175 teacher vacancies in maintained schools as a whole, rising to 291 if nearby Portsmouth, Southampton and Isle of Wight are included. Might the reason for that unacceptably high number of vacancies be that, as recent research by Professor Smithers of Liverpool University shows, almost 60 percent of trainee teachers either never make it into the classroom at all, or resign within three years? Is that not a deplorable and unsatisfactory–indeed, intolerable–state of affairs?