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It was thought that internet access for pupils rather than individual e-mail addresses was the priority.”The decision to postpone the plans indefinitely was made just days before the policy was due to be implemented. Officials insisted that fears surrounding the issue were genuine and had not been raised to give them more time to install the facility in Welsh schools.The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, warned recently that paedophiles using the internet to try to lure children into meeting them could be jailed.A government taskforce may also suggest the implementation of a new internet content rating system and educational programmes to teach children about safe surfing. The taskforce was established as part of the Government’s response to a report on child safety.. A businessman who gave up a £65,000 salary to train as a teacher has been rejected because he does not have a GCSE in English. John Green, 55, was told by teacher training officials that he lacked the qualifications needed to teach even though he had an MBA and had worked as a part-time Open University tutor during his career as a senior executive for Xerox, the office equipment company. A businessman who gave up a £65,000 salary to train as a teacher has been rejected because he does not have a GCSE in English. John Green, 55, was told by teacher training officials that he lacked the qualifications needed to teach even though he had an MBA and had worked as a part-time Open University tutor during his career as a senior executive for Xerox, the office equipment company.
Mr Green, from Marlow, Buckinghamshire, has also run management courses for headteachers and taught business studies to sixth-formers, and is studying for a postgraduate history degree.

He left his 40-year business career to fulfil his ambition to teach business and economics and to “give something back” to society.Teachers’ leaders said it was scandalous that enthusiastic and well-qualified would-be teachers were being turned away while staff shortages reached critical levels. They criticised the Government for setting two sets of maths and English requirements for student teachers. Government regulations insist that all student teachers must have at least a C grade in English and maths GCSEs, or an equivalent qualification. This is on top of the new requirement to pass tests in English and maths during the training course.Mr Green said: “I strongly believe that you should give something back in life and that’s why I decided to go into secondary teaching.” Mr Green left school aged 15 in 1960.He was due to start a postgraduate teaching training course at London University’s Institute of Education next month but has been told he cannot start the course unless he pays £75 to sit the institute’s GCSE-standard English exam.”It was humiliating to be asked to take this exam in basic English,” he said. “If the education system does not accept an MBA or postgraduate history degree as proof of a good standard of English then there is something wrong with the education system.”John Bangs, the National Union of Teachers’ head of education, said: “There does not seem to be any reason to the Government’s requirements.

It makes no sense to turn away enthusiastic and well-qualified applicants when schools are desperately short of teachers.”A spokeswoman for the Institute of Education said: “We think Mr Greenwould make an excellent teacher and would like to be able to welcome him to the course. It is, however, a requirement of the Department for Education and Skills that applicants must give evidence they have at least a grade C in GCSE English language and maths, or equivalent.”A spokesman for the DfES said there could be no exceptions to the rule.. Teaching shortages in schools are likely to get worse over the next few years as the profession struggles to retain and recruit enough staff to “sustain itself”, an influential report revealed on Thursday. Teaching shortages in schools are likely to get worse over the next few years as the profession struggles to retain and recruit enough staff to “sustain itself”, an influential report revealed on Thursday.
Schools will be hit by the retirement of nearly 200,000 teachers who joined in the 1960s and 1970s over the next decade as recruitment remains below target, according to a report by the think-tank Demos for the National Union of Teachers.The dire long-term warning came as another survey showed that, in addition to 5,000 posts in secondary schools alone remaining unfilled for the start of the new term, another 6,000 vacancies had been filled by “unsatisfactory” teachers not trained in the subject or by short-term appointments.John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, which conducted the survey with the Times Educational Supplement, said: “Five thousand vacancies and numerous unsatisfactory appointments will make the coming term very difficult for many schools. This situation is certain to affect the capacity of schools to continue to raise standards.”The Demos report concluded: “The teaching profession is unable to recruit or retain enough teachers to sustain itself in the long term.”The report dismisses government hopes that a rise in applications for courses this year will help to solve shortages by declaring: “The current crisis in recruitment and retention is long-term, not cyclical.”Tom Bentley, chief executive of Demos, added: “What this means is that unless the Government and all the other players can find a way of tackling the problem, the whole of the raising standards agenda is in jeopardy in the long term.”The report found that half of newly qualified teachers have quit the profession after five years.

Half of those in the profession intended to quit or retire early in the next decade.The report said that to meet targets, the Government had to recruit 12 per cent of the country’s graduates into teaching.Researchers found that younger teachers in particular felt pay prospects and lack of control over the way they taught, as a result of government initiatives, were causing them to question their commitment to the profession.”Most teachers argued consistently that centrally driven education reforms meant that they experienced change as a never-ending barrage of externally imposed, randomly timed and badly managed initiatives that they had little constructive role in helping to shape,” the report stated. It also cited the “fear” of school inspections as a cause of stress and low morale.The authors recommend a big increase in the number of classroom assistants and call for school inspectors to spend 65 days a year on teaching practice to give them more knowledge of the classroom.Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the NUT, said he doubted whether the Government could recruit the 12 per cent of graduates needed to fill vacancies and urged it to train classroom assistants as teachers. “The Government needs to address the magnitude of the present problem,” he said.. Juan Mu? artist: born Madrid 17 June 1953; married Cristina Iglesias (one son, one daughter); died Ibiza 28 August 2001. Juan Mu? artist: born Madrid 17 June 1953; married Cristina Iglesias (one son, one daughter); died Ibiza 28 August 2001.
The Spanish artist Juan Mu?was one of the most ingenious and intelligent figures of a generation of artists who have dominated the international contemporary art scene for over 20 years.Born in 1953 in Madrid, one of seven children, his interest in art developed at an early age, encouraged by his tutor, the writer Santiago Amon.