§ Mr. WillisTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the source was of the figures she used which illustrate the gap between the supply and demand of teachers in her speech on the social market function. [18345]
§ Mr. TimmsThe graph on page 11 of my social market foundation pamphlet shows two columns for 2001. The lower figure of 410,000 is the number of teachers in post. The higher figure, of some 435,000, includes vacancies and occasional teachers covering for other teachers. The figures are drawn from the publication "Statistical First Release on Teachers in Service and Teacher Vacancies"—the latest edition is for April 2001, and this is in the House of Commons Library and on the DfES website. The final column for 2006 is a projection based on recent trends.
§ Andrew SelousTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many teacher vacancies there were in Bedfordshire in October(a) 1997 and (b) 2001. [19736]
§ Mr. TimmsThe information is not available for the dates requested. Full-time teacher vacancies in maintained nursery, primary, secondary and special schools reported by the Bedfordshire local authority were as follows:
Date Vacancies January 1998 26 January 2001 76