§ Mr. WillisTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what his definition is of a regular teacher; and when that definition was made. [126937]
§ Mr. MilibandTeachers employed on contracts of a month or more are defined as regular teachers. Teachers employed on contracts of less than a month are defined as occasional teachers. Information has been collected on this basis since the 1960s on the Annual Survey of Teachers in Service and Teacher Vacancies (Form 618G).
The Department has used regular teachers as its standard definition for the number of teachers in the maintained sector for most purposes since 2000. This provides a stable measure of teacher numbers that is not affected by the relatively large year-on-year fluctuations in the demand for occasional teachers. The number of occasional teachers rose markedly between January 1999 and January 2001 and then fell in both 2002 and 2003. Both regular and occasional teacher numbers continue to be provided in official publications.