Hundreds of overseas teachers face deportation

Hundreds of teachers will be sacked and even face deportation this summer as a result of a tightening of overseas qualifications in schools.

The crackdown will affect staffing at some of the country's most challenging inner-city schools - making it difficult to fill posts, according to teachers' leaders.

The Government plans to insist that every teacher has the UK-recognised Qualified Teacher Status within four years of starting work here or face the withdrawal of their work permit. In the past, they have been allowed to continue working if they are already on a programme - or carry on as an instructor rather than a teacher.

The National Union of Teachers is already dealing with 172 cases of teachers who have either been told there will be no job for them in September or face the sack this summer. Some have been here for more than 10 years. Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the union, said those affected faced "a very serious injustice", adding: "Whether or not this injustice is intentional is irrelevant to teachers facing redundancy and enforced removal."

Tim Harrison, regional officer for inner London, said he believed there were "several hundred" cases in London alone.

One teacher, Shauner Murray, who has been teaching humanities in east London for the past four years, is being forced to fly back to Jamaica today, because she does not have the right qualification. She managed to complete a degree despite becoming pregnant during her stay - but could not finish a teacher training course in time to avoid losing her work permit. The agency that hired her never told her she needed to improve her qualifications. "It is the human side of it that gets to you," she said. "After all the efforts of coming over to Jamaica to recruit us, we are then treated like outsiders."

Other cities - many of which have relied on overseas teachers to staff their schools - face a similar problem to London.

NUT officials said it was a "scandal" that the UK - after being criticised for trawling Commonwealth countries such as South Africa and Jamaica and poaching their teachers - should plan to throw them out of the country. Those who come from countries where teachers do not need a degree face the biggest problem. They have to pay full overseas rates to enlist for their degree courses.

However, some from Australia and New Zealand - who need only for their teaching standards to be assessed because they already have a degree - have also been caught out.

Some teachers, particularly those from Zimbabwe, will get no co-operation from their governments if they ask them to supply details of their qualifications, and face persecution if sent back.

"In some cases, these teachers have been in the system for five years," said Mr Harrison. "In the first year, they have been too busy to get the qualification getting to grips with working in the school. Some of the most challenging schools will be facing the loss of talented teachers as a result of this."

Teachers' leaders are planning to lobby Parliament next month.

In evidence to the Department for Education and Skills, the NUT says: "Overseas trained teachers who have been granted work permits are working in schools only because there is a real need for teachers which cannot be met by the domestic workforce. In many cases, particularly in London and the South-east, they have been the 'glue' that has held schools together, such has been their reliance on overseas trained teachers as the main source of staffing."

The NUT says it is not against the four-year qualification period - but believes the crackdown should be delayed so all existing overseas teachers have a chance to obtain it.

A spokeswoman for the newly named Department for Children, Schools and Families said the four-year period had been introduced six years ago and the Government was just making "absolutely certain everyone knows their rights and responsibilities".

Nenneitah Miles, science teacher: 'The system makes it difficult'

Nenneitah Miles is just the kind of teacher the Government is looking for.

A science teacher specialising in teaching those pupils struggling to keep up in class, she is dedicated and skilled enough to be able to give them one-to-one teaching or teaching in small groups if they need it.

The only trouble is that she is an overseas teacher starting her fifth year of teaching in the UK and could become one of the hundreds of teachers about to lose their jobs.

Mrs Miles, who teaches science at Sydney Russell school in Dagenham, east London, hails from Jamaica - where she did not need a degree to become a teacher. She has been studying for one in Britain - but has been unable to complete it within the four-year period the Government is planning to rigidly insist upon.

It is hardly her fault. As a non-European teacher, she has to pay the full cost of her degree course and had to put it on hold for seven months when the teaching agency she was working for could not supply her with regular work. After a series of jobs she was sent to Sydney Russell where she was given the job of teaching difficult youngsters out of school - in small groups of two or three.

"The school was impressed with what I did," she said, "so I got the opportunity to take full classes." She has applied for a permanent position but her lack of Qualified Teacher Status means she has not got the post. However, the school has no qualms about her teaching quality and has invited her to continue working with them from September.

Her plight is not as bad as some - her immigration status gives her the right to stay even if she may not be able to teach. "I would really love to continue - but the system just makes it more difficult."