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A GROWING crisis of teacher shortages and increasing class sizes is hitting schools in England.
National Education Union (NEU) joint general secretary Kevin Courtney said that only increased pay and better working conditions for teachers could solve the problem of staff retention.
General union GMB’s national officer Nadine Houghton said the problem was being worsened by the abolition of around 2,500 teaching assistants’ posts in English secondary schools.
“Schools are under desperate pressure to balance the books and see slashing teaching assistant numbers as a quick way [of doing so],” she said.
There is the equivalent of one extra pupil in each secondary school class compared with two years ago, according to the Department for Education.
Nearly 120,000 more youngsters since 2015 have been taught in classes with 31 or more pupils.
Association of School and College Leaders general secretary Geoff Barton said: “This increase in class sizes is a direct result of real-terms cuts in school funding.
“Class sizes have increased because schools have had no alternative other than to reduce the number of staff they employ at the same time as pupil numbers are rising.”
