1 in 4 school staff lack degree in key subject they teach
‘Grab people off the street’
MORE than a quarter of teachers in many key subjects do not have a relevant degree in their field – and the problem is getting worse, research suggests.
Some 37.5 per cent of physics teachers do not have any post-A-Level qualification in the science, despite thousands of children relying on them to help them pass exams.
A recruitment crisis in the secondary school sector has seen this figure rise by 4 percentage points in two years. There are also shortages of chemistry and maths teachers with relevant qualifications, according to analysis by school recruitment experts Teachvac.
Some 27.1 per cent of chemistry teachers (up 3.2 percentage points in two years) and 26.3 per cent of maths teachers (up 3.9 points) do not have a degree in the subject.
That is on top of shortages in english, history, geography and French and other languages.
But while there are severe problems in more academic subjects, the figures show that from 2013 to 2015, the number of qualified teachers in areas such as drama, media studies and citizenship has risen. Lib Dem education spokesman John Pugh said: ‘Michael Gove’s legacy as education secretary is actually teachers being thrown into the classroom without the needed qualifications.
‘Parents should be aghast at this as will most teachers, as their job is a profession.
‘The Government need to get a grip on this crisis. We need to stop allowing schools to be able to grab virtually anyone off the street and allow them to teach anything from physics to advanced maths.
‘We need to support teachers rather than what the Government currently do – finding every opportunity to do the profession down.’
The figures, contained in a submission to a House of Commons education select committee inquiry, show that of the core school subjects, physics is the one with the lowest proportion of qualified teachers. In 2015, 37.5 per cent of them had no degree qualification, up from 33.5 per cent two years before.
The same is true of english (22.4 per cent – up from 20.1 per cent), history (27.6 per cent – up from 27.2 per cent) and geography (34.9 per cent – up from 33.4 per cent).
More than half of Spanish teachers did not study the subject at university.
Last night the National Union of Teachers said that, according to its own survey, 68 per cent of staff said that in the past year the number of professionals teaching subjects they were not qualified in had increased.
Kevin Courtney, the union’s general secretary, said: ‘This is happening as a result of a combination of the school funding crisis and a teacher recruitment crisis.’
A Department for education spokesman said the proportion of all teachers with a degree in any subject had increased by 3 per cent since 2010.
‘The quality of new entrants to the profession also continues to be high, with 18 per cent of this year’s cohort again holding a first-class degree, the highest proportion on record,’ she added.