Lib Dems call for "Home Grown Teachers!"

1.20.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 26th Jun 2008

Councillor John Yates

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"

Under the Milton Keynes and South Midlands Plan It is estimated that up to 46 new schools will be required to cope with the pupils generated by the 125 thousand extra homes planned to be built in Northamptonshire over the next twenty or so years. This policy was put forward by Cllr. John Yates to the County Council Meeting on Thursday 26th. June 2008. Predictably Labour and the Conservatives voted against it.