§ Mr. Coombsasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science in which regions there are shortages of qualified teachers, showing the level of shortage for primary, secondary, comprehensive and grammar schools, respectively.
§ Mr. van StraubenzeeMy Department operates on behalf of local education authorities a voluntary quota system the aim of which is to ensure that the total number of vacancies matches the number of teachers available. In recent years this has worked well, and there have been no marked regional shortages. I have so far seen no indication that there will be any such shortages next term either though it is still too early to judge how well this year's quota has worked.
There is a long-standing and general shortage of teachers trained to teach infants, and infant classes often have to be taught by teachers trained for work with older children.