OVERSEAS TEACHER EMERGENCY

I’m not posting this item to make any claims for my campaign but just to help alert everyone to a real emergency for overseas trained teachers.

I attended a packed meeting organised by the London Region of the NUT last night in NUT Headquarters that was filled with teachers from South Africa, Australia, Jamaica, New Zealand and many other countries. Many had come because they were about to be thrown out of work. Some faced being thrown out of the country as a result as well.

This outrage is a result of Government legislation stopping teachers from outside Europe continuing in work if they have failed to obtain Qualified Teacher Status within four years of first taking a teaching post in England. But many colleagues, although well qualified in their own countries, were never given a chance to complete the necessary course to gain QTS in the UK. Many were invited to London to solve teaching shortages, often underpaid for the vital work they did – and now face dismissal.

Police restrictions mean we have to change the venue of the lobby on July 11th.

We are not able to assemble a the DfeS (or DCSF as it now is!)

We will therefore stage the protest outside the Home Office, which is in new buildings at 2 Marsham Street, SW1P starting at 5:00pm.

You can also add your name to a petition initiated by Jamaican teachers on http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/OTTQTSPetition/

Martin Powell-Davies