Poor Pay, Political correctness and poor student behaviour deterring would be maths teachers

Remember the slogan Education, Education, Education? It could be argued that this was a somewhat noble, perhaps idealistic vision of the future of the direction of education in the United Kingdom, under the leadership of the then Prime Minister Tony Blair back in 1997.

13 years of new Labour has taken its toll on education in the UK. Standards have fallen to the extent that in core subjects like GCSE Maths it requires a mere 20% to pass. Teachers are under ever increasing pressure to meet deadlines and fill in mountains of meaningless paper work to satisfy the bureaucrats. This coupled with the increasing levels of violence directed towards teachers, politically correct minefields to traverse; it is little wonder why anybody would want to become a teacher in modern Britain today. Alarmingly the pay that teachers get is less than that of a bin man, hardly reflective of the hard work and hardships that teachers in the UK have to endure. According to recent statistics, 900 pupils per day are suspended for violence against teachers that include assaulted and verbal abuse. The figures from the department of education, include racist abuse, threatening behaviour and racist abuse. In total they show school children were suspended on 166,900 occasions for assault or abuse. Pupils were expelled on 2,460 occasions. Tackling bad behaviour remains a priority for the new coalition government.

Maths revision expert and CEO of Top Grade Tutoring Steven Britton believe that the situation is getting worse with regards the shortage of teachers, particularly in subjects such as Maths. “Maths graduates are more likely to pursue jobs in the private sector where pay and working conditions are far better”. According to Mr Britton if more graduates are not found as a matter of urgency to go into teaching then the consequences for a whole generation of 11 to 16 year olds will be devastating.  The CBI raised concerns too over basic skills, the annual education and skills survey suggests that many employers (around 44%) have to invest on remedial training for school and college leavers. Some 69% of businesses complained also about inadequate business and customer awareness and 55% highlighted poor self management skills.

For more information about maths please visit http://www.topmathsdvd.co.uk 

Contact Information

Steven Britton

Managing Director

Top Grade Tutoring

Contact via E-mail