THOUSANDS OF UK SCHOOL STAFF TO LOSE JOBS

British teaching union ATL (Association of Teachers and Lecturers) says thousands of school staff will lose their jobs due to the government’s spending cuts. ATL campaigners warned that education would inevitably be privatized under the Conservative-Liberal Democrats’ cuts initiative, which imposes the squeeze on school budgets and axes the local authority education services. As a result, large corporations would runchains of taxpayer-funded schools without any accountability, they added.

The teaching union had identified some local authorities planning to make over 150 redundancies, said ATL General Secretary Mary Bousted. “We are looking at schools in different local authorities which are looking at 100 voluntary redundancies,” she said. “In other authorities it’s over 150. There will be thousands of redundancies overall,” she added. “I’ve had detailed information from many local representatives of savage cuts of the education staff in central services, and these are staff who our members rely on.”

The areas affected include educational psychology, speech and language therapy, mental health services, behavior support and services for special educational needs. Meanwhile, a new survey has found that the lack of job prospects in the UK is forcing young people to consider a move abroad to look for work. More than half of 18 to 25-year-olds questioned said they were “seriously considering” immigrating to Australia as the most popular destination followed by Canada and China, the study said.
It found that nearly 65 percent of young people are contemplating relocating abroad, with 52 percent saying that it was a “serious” consideration.

“Job prospects in the UK are extremely gloomy for young people with youth unemployment at its highest since records began and things don’t look like they’re going to improve anytime soon,” said Adrian Jacob, of Student Currency Exchange, which surveyed 1,982 young people. “It makes sense that young people are looking to go where there are more job opportunities and quite probably a better quality of life,” he said. The findings come after figures recently revealed that more people aged 16 to 24 are out of work than ever before. Total unemployment reached a 17-year high, jumping by 27,000 in the three months to January – yet more evidence of the economic slow-down.