Education and Skills Training

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:21 pm on 19 March 2002.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Phil Willis Phil Willis Shadow Spokesperson (Education) 4:21, 19 March 2002

In her spirit of honesty, will the Secretary of State accept that in the region of 289,000 teachers are qualified but not in our classrooms, 70,000 of whom have been in our classrooms during the past five years who are aged under 50 and who would be a ready source of recruitment for our schools, yet she does not know where they are and is making no attempt to attract them back? What will she do to ensure that that huge multi-million pound resource is not simply lost to the teaching profession but recruited directly to our schools?