Education: GTCW Survey Welcomed - but Positions Can Change; Neither the Unions nor the GTCW Described the Recent Results of a Teacher Recruitment and Retention Survey as a Crisis but the Media Have Built It into One by Being Very Selective in the Parts They Chose to Highlight

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Byline: JANE DAVIDSON Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning

I VERY much welcome the GTCW's survey into teacher recruitment and retention which has produced a more in-depth analysis of the sector in Wales.

But with any survey it is only current at the time it was conducted and the position can change. It is the pattern of change which also needs to be monitored.

The survey is a good test of what is happening across the board and confirms what we have been saying for some time that there are no recruitment problems in the primary sector, where there is a healthy demand for all classroom vacancies, nor for the majority of subjects in the secondary sector.

In fact, the latest figures (January 2002) showed an increase of 360 full-time qualified teachers employed in maintained schools in Wales over the previous year. The proportion of vacant posts …