Teachers' unions have expressed

Teachers' unions have expressed scepticism about Government statistics published last week that show a 2.3 per cent rise in the number of teachers in England. According to the figures there are now 419,600 full-time equivalent regular teachers, an increase of 9,400 since January 2001. The statistics also show that vacancies in nursery, primary, secondary and special schools fell by 490 to an overall vacancy rate of 1.2 per cent and that there were an additional 26,700 support staff - up 14 per cent. But Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), said the figures were 'fairly meaningless to a teacher in a school because the Government uses its own formula for teacher vacancies'. Eamonn O'Kane, general secretary of the NASUWT, described Government strategies to deal with teacher vacancies so far as 'inappropriate sticking plaster solutions to a deep wound in the education service' and said, 'Only when the issues of pay, workload and pupil indiscipline are tackled decisively will there be a permanent solution to the crisis.'