Lib Dems call for "home grown" teachers

10.49.32pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 23rd Jun 2008

Cllr John Yates, Liberal Democrat education spokesperson on Northamptonshire County Council

Cllr. John Yates, Education Spokesman for the Liberal Democrat Group on Northamptonshire County Council is calling for the council to plan ahead to provide sufficiently qualified teachers for all the new schools that are being planned to be built in Northamptonshire over the next twenty years.

Cllr. Yates says: "It is about time that Northamptonshire County Council became pro-active rather than re-active to the growth issue, and I am suggesting to the Council, that they work together with the University of Northampton to generate sufficient numbers of newly qualified teachers to staff the forty or so new schools that will be built over the next twenty or so years. One could call it a "Home Grown Teacher's Policy."

"Along with Milton Keynes, Northamptonshire will be unique amongst education authorities for the number of new schools being built, and we will have to find the staff to run them and teach in them. So I am suggesting that the University provides the courses, and that the County Council provides students with incentives to take the courses with a guarantee of a fixed term of employment as a teacher once the student has qualified and graduated."

"This would give us the number of highly qualified teachers to make the schools a success and would guarantee a high standard of education in our schools. This should be funded though planning obligations and the WNDC and NNDC as a result of the housing growth"

ENDS.

NNDC = North Northamptonshire Development Corporation

WNDC = West Northamptonshire Development Corporation