Academies programme “widening inequality” through increased employment of staff without qualified teacher status, new analysis of government data concludes

The academies programme has significantly increased the number of unqualified teachers working in England’s schools, in a trend which is “widening class-based inequality,” according to a major new study being published today.

Academies have hired more than 1,500 more teachers without qualified teacher status (QTS) than otherwise-equivalent non-academy state schools have done, according to the analysis of government datasets published in the British Journal of Sociology Education.

Schools of all types with higher numbers of pupils from poor backgrounds have higher proportions of teachers without QTS, the analysis confirmed, in a finding it said confirmed “class-based and ethnicity-based” inequality throughout state schooling.

But the link between poverty and absence of QTS was stronger in the academies sector. This meant that the policy was “widening class-based inequality,” the study by Nicholas Martindale of Oxford University’s Department of Sociology found.

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