According to the Education Workforce Council (EWC), 40% of Welsh teaching support staff have left since 2017 and have had to be replaced.
Commenting following her questions to the Education Minister in the Senedd today, Welsh Conservative Shadow Education Minister, Laura Anne Jones MS said:
“In my conversations with EWC officials, I was surprised and disappointed to learn of the excessive turnover of support staff in our schools.
“There are over 50 supply teaching companies in Wales, which shows the profitability of the industry and is a symptom of the perpetual failure by Labour to fill vacancies and improve retention in our schools.
“The EWC have made it clear to me, that they are not convinced that the Labour Government’s new supply teaching model will do enough to fix this. Labour needs to do much more to make the profession more attractive to new staff and to retain those that we have.”
Welsh Conservative research previously revealed that considerable sums was being spent on supply teachers – money that could go a long way to properly fund education in Wales, which is facing a real terms cut in Labour’s latest budget.
