Unqualified teachers will damage the prospects of vulnerable pupils, NCB warns

Last week the government confirmed plans to permit academies – which make up nearly 9 per cent of state schools in England – to employ staff who do not have Qualified Teacher Status.

Funding contracts between new academies and the Education Secretary will now say that it’s up to schools to judge whether teaching staff are “properly qualified”.

But the move was condemned by NCB chief executive Hilary Emery, who told CYP Now that she feared it would result in the expansion of the achievement gap between disadvantaged and more affluent pupils. 

“I fear we are going to see the gap that the government is apparently so committed to narrowing, actually widening,” she said.

“That will get more extreme, not less, if we start having people who are not both highly qualified in their subject and qualified in understanding child development and teaching and learning issues around the subject.”

Emery predicted that non-qualified teachers would be able to support able and motivated children, but would struggle to engage children from disadvantaged backgrounds, who may need extra support.

“Anybody can stand in front of a class of children and talk at them. Teaching is not standing and talking at kids,” she said.

“If the government wants their gap to be narrowed we must have highly qualified teachers who are also outstandingly good in their subject”.

A Department for Education spokesman said the change would help schools improve faster, adding that the vast majority of teachers would continue to have Qualified Teacher Status.

The move was meanwhile supported by the Independent Academies Association, whose chair David Wootton said it could improve the quality of lessons.

However, the charity Nasen, which promotes the development of children with special educational needs, expressed dismay at the plans.

“If we allow schools to begin to employ people with no formal teaching qualification we are denying a whole generation of children the opportunity to learn and achieve in order to reach their true potential,” chief executive Lorraine Petersen said.

The changes are also being opposed by a number of teaching unions. NUT general secretary Christine Blower described the plans as a “dereliction of duty”.