There is going to be a teacher shortage…the problem is a result of government failure to recruit more teachers in light of a baby boom, as the BBC put it on the radio.
Others might categorize the problem as having too many pupils due to the flood of immigrants coming to this country rather than too few teachers….just as the ‘housing problem’ is not one of too few houses but too many people walking across the border demanding a house.
Control the immigration and there wouldn’t be a problem.
The BBC, as stated, doesn’t mention ‘immigration’ just the fact that by 2023 we will have 9% more primary school pupils and 17% more secondary school pupils and that apparently we were 17% under target for teacher recruitment in 2014 and that Labour is outraged. Which you might consider odd, as there are more teachers now and far more teaching assistants than in 2010.
The BBC is also less than honest when it comes to counting those teacher numbers.
It tells us…
A teachers’ union is warning that schools are increasingly likely to use unqualified teaching staff.
“Parents no longer have the certainty when they send their child to school that they will be taught by qualified teachers,” says NASUWT leader Chris Keates.
Labour’s Tristram Hunt says “this is nothing less than a scandal”.
The BBC does mention this…
But the Conservatives say there are fewer teachers in school without qualified status than in 2010.
But goes on to give us this less than clear claim bolstered by eyecatchingly large percentages….
The union has asked its members about their experiences. Among the 4,600 who responded 61% said they were “working alongside unqualified staff”, with 66% claiming the situation was “deteriorating” because of funding problems.
So just how many qualified teachers are there? 451,000. Just for a bit of perspective. How many unqualified? 17,100. But then there are also teaching assistants….so when the BBC tells us that 61% told the union that they are ‘working alongside unqualified staff’ does that also include those teaching assistants? Kind of skewing things a bit by not clarifying that. In 2005 there were 434,200 qualified teachers and 18,800 unqualifed. Do the maths.
We now have more qualified teachers and fewer unqualified teachers both numerically and as a percentage.
Just how many teaching assistants do we have? In 2005 there were 147,200, in 2013, 243,700. In other words teachers are getting more help than ever before to teach…..Teaching assistants being there to assist teachers not to teach pupils themselves.
What of Labour’s Tristram Hunt who is ranting that “this is nothing less than a scandal”?
What’s the truth?
Is it any good asking the BBC? Well it depends.
Here’s how they report the facts in the above article…
The most recent Department for Education figures available, for 2013, show the number of unqualified teachers rose compared with the previous year, from 14,800 to 17,100, but is lower than in 2010, when there were 17,800 of teachers without qualified teacher status.
However for academies, the proportion of unqualified teachers has risen each year since 2010, from 2,200 to 7,900.
It tells us that there are fewer unqualified teachers now than in 2010…but could have gone back to 2005 when there were 18,800 on Labour’s watch at a time when there were fewer qualified teachers as well…so a higher proportion were unqualified under Labour not just numerically.
And what of that word ‘proportion’? Look at the second sentence…’However for academies, the proportion of unqualified teachers has risen each year since 2010, from 2,200 to 7,900.‘
The ‘proportion’ of unqualified teachers in academies has actually dropped….as the BBC’s own figures show in a more robust analysis.
In November 2010 there were indeed 2,200 unqualified teachers in Academies or 9.6%, in 2013 there were 7,900….a big rise….but that’s only 5.3%…how come? In 2010 there were 22,800 qualified teachers in Academies, in 2013 there were 149,300….a huge rise in qualified staff at Academies.
The BBC is being less than honest in its reports…on the one hand you have the regular news report which doesn’t give the full facts and favours Labour and the unions in its nuanced approach whilst the more indepth analysis, which I suspect most people won’t read, gives the figures but ends with this odd conclusion…
So as far as those political positions on qualified versus unqualified teachers are concerned, it seems the parties’ rhetoric is largely about staking out different visions of teaching and the school system.
One view is of a less regulated, more diverse teaching workforce; the other argues that formal training in the skills of being a teacher is an essential part of bolstering the status of the profession.
That’s a statement that flies in the face of all the facts that they have just given us on the numbers which clearly show the number of teachers has grown under the Coalition whilst the number of unqualified staff has fallen from November 2010…and not only that but the help teachers get in the way of teaching assistants has grown enormously which should make their job easier.
How the BBC can claim that Labour is the party of the qualified, high status teacher is beyond me…it’s just not borne out by the facts.
![EASTER 1[3]](http://biasedbbc.tv/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/EASTER-13.jpg)
