Schools to axe 3,000 teachers

UP TO 3,000 teachers will be made redundant this summer because of the recession.

And a similar number of classroom assistants are expected to lose their jobs, according to new figures prepared for the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

This will be the first time that state schools have been forced to lay off staff to save money. Schools will also not be replacing teachers who leave or retire. Some university and college lecturers are facing the axe too so that they can be replaced by younger, cheaper staff.

The problem has been caused by a £1bn hole in council finances caused by cuts in government grants and capping council tax. In some cases councils lost millions in cash deposits when the Icelandic bank, Kaupthing, collapsed.

Local authorities in England and Wales are cutting budgets by up to 10 per cent, with education, social services and transport bearing the brunt of the cuts and job losses.

Crisis

School heads will be forced to make classes bigger or draft in expensive supply teachers because of the crisis.

Five hundred teachers at private schools have already lost their jobs as the economic crisis leaves middle-class families struggling to pay the fees. Nearly 30 independent schools have shut, merged or become specialist state academies.

Parents at some state schools have started fierce campaigns to try to save teachers' jobs.

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