Schools face crisis over lack of staff, union says

Teaching unions say schools could face "crisis" due to a "dire" lack of back-up teachers

A teaching union says Jersey schools face a "crisis" if staff members take sick leave during the academic year.

The National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) said schools were facing a "dire" lack of back-up teachers.

The states advertised 72 jobs for teaching and teaching assistant roles ahead of the academic year.

Marina Mauger from NASUWT said schools were still "in short supply" of teachers and teaching assistants.

She said: "I'd say we were pretty much at crisis point, [if] we get any major staff sickness or we see another Covid outbreak or something we have absolutely no cover, supply teachers are in really short supply.

'It's dire'

"It probably is the worst I have ever seen for teaching assistants, it's dire but then who would want to go into that job, it's very bad rates of pay and little professional development."

On the government website, there are currently 61 jobs advertised for the education and childcare sector.

Ms Mauger said the cost of living in Jersey was attributing to the shortage of supply teachers and teaching assistants.

"Jersey is an incredibly expensive place to live, we can't get teachers, we can't get nurses, we're short in every industry and that's because the island isn't an attractive place to come to and work in any longer, it's just far too expensive now," she said.

'Action plan'

The education minister said the number of vacancies had fallen since the end of last term, when schools were 72 teachers short.

Deputy Inna Gardiner said she was working on the problem, and hoped to have an action plan in place soon.

"I think it's hard to recruit teaching assistants because of various reasons and I had meetings with two of the unions, and looking to meet another union, and we would work together to address their concerns.

"We have challenges, we have difficulties, we are managing them and we need to work on this together."

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