New teacher survey 'confirms shortages'

Monday, 1 September 2003 12:00 AM

A survey commissioned by 'The Guardian' has shown that at least 1,000 teaching posts have been lost and over 800 teachers have been made redundant because of funding problems for this academic year.

The findings are similar to those produced by the Secondary Heads' Association last week, which were dismissed by the Government as being "unrepresentative".

With children heading back to school this week, the survey shows that across 55 local education authorities there have been 1,152 losses of full-time equivalent teaching posts - that comes as a result of redundancies and because schools are opting not to replace teachers who leave for other reasons.

Only in nine LEAs questioned have teacher numbers increased.

If the survey proves to be representative of all the LEAs in England and Wales, the number of lost posts could be as high as 2,500.

In 65 of the authorities questioned there were reports of 817 redundancies some of which were compulsory, although the majority were voluntary.

The newspaper claims that its survey is "less easily written off" than that of the SHA, published in the 'Times Educational Supplement'. The Government noted that just one in seven LEAs were questioned, and that those that responded were disproportionately likely to be those who had a gripe about funding problems.

But 140 of the 172 LEAs in England and Wales - that's over 80% - provided answers to some or all of the questions in the survey published in today's Guardian.

Just under a third of the 150 LEAs in England said funding for schools was in a worse situation than last year.

But even critics of the Government's handling of this year's funding problems have admitted that the picture is mixed with some schools reporting increased budgets and additions to their support and teaching staff.

And the Government has insisted that even with the added financial burdens on schools this year - the increases in National Insurance, and teachers' pay and pensions - the £2.6bn in additional funding from the DfES is more than enough to cover schools' costs.

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