Written question asked by Keith Vaz (Labour) on Tuesday, 25 October 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 27 October 2005. It was answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern (Labour) on Wednesday, 2 November 2005 on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills.

Pupil-teacher Ratio

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if the Government will take steps to employ more teachers to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio.

Answer: Teacher numbers are now at their highest level since 1981. Improved pay and conditions and an attractive package of incentives for newly qualified teachers, supported by the recruitment activities of the Training and Development Agency for Schools, have raised the status of the profession and contributed to these record numbers. In primary schools, there was a drop in the number of pupils per qualified teacher between 2004 and 2005, from 22.7 to 22.5. In secondary schools, the number of pupils per qualified teacher decreased from 17.0 in 2004 to 16.7 in 2005. The overall PTR in maintained schools fell from 17.7 to 17.4.It is for schools to decide their strategies and priorities for workforce deployment and many schools are employing staff other than teachers to support teachers and pupils as part of a professional school team. There are more support staff than ever before working in our schools, 268,600 (FTE), more than 25,000 more than there were a year ago. The number of FTE teaching assistants in particular has risen by over 11 per cent. this year—and the figure has more than doubled since 1997.The large rise in support staff has led to an improvement in the pupil:adult ratio (PAR) in both the primary and secondary phases and, hence, overall. The primary PAR fell from 17.9 in 1997 to 13.4 in 2005, and in secondary from 14.5 to 12.2.All figures obtained from the Annual Schools Census.

Secondary information