WAG wastes £7.5 mill education spending

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 15th Aug 2008

Shocking new figures uncovered by the Welsh Liberal Democrat's have revealed that over £7.5mill is being lost on training secondary school teachers who do not go into teaching posts within Wales.

WAG is ploughing money into teacher training when there are few posts to fill - leaving qualified teachers to move to other parts of the UK or to other professions.

Only 41% of the 960 teachers trained in Wales in 2006/2007 went onto teach in Wales and in 2007/2008 with 22% going on to teach elsewhere in the UK and 11% not in a teaching post.

Kirsty Williams, Welsh Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Wales, said:"It beggars belief that WAG has flushed £7.5mill down the pan at a time when the education sector in Wales is seeing huge funding shortages - from the Foundation Phase, to FE to the HE funding crisis.

"According to the 2006 WAG commissioned Furlong Report the employment rate for Welsh secondary school teachers has remained stable at between 54% and 57% and the report recommended that there be 'a marked cut in the number of teachers trained' but this warning has gone unheeded by the One Wales Government who have continued to shovel money into training surplus teachers.

"£7.5 million would go along way to plugging the pupil spending gap between England and Wales. It is a ridiculous waste of public money to continue to fund training to such a high level when we simply do not need such numbers of teachers.

"We cannot afford to waste money in this way under the increasingly tight budget settlements from Westminster - improving education provisions must be the priority."

Notes:

Figures obtained from members research services show that WAG spent £13,077,312.00 on training secondary school teachers in 2006/2007. The cost of training those who were subsequently employed within secondary teaching posts in Wales was approximately £5,361,697.92 meaning that £7,715,614.08 could have potentially been saved.

Spending for prospective teachers includes: Bursaries, admin, HEI funding and Assembly learning Grant.

Employment destination figures from HESA Destination of leavers from HE.

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