I AM deeply concerned about the increasing use of unqualified staff in our schools.

Since Michael Gove was Education Secretary, academies and free schools are allowed to use unqualified staff, in place of teachers, and there has been a gradual increase in the number of lessons taken by people, who are not qualified teachers.

Freedom of Information requests in different parts of the country suggest that as many as ten or 11 per cent of lessons in many schools are now being taken by such staff.

As the trend at present is upwards, it is not unreasonable to project forward to a time in five or ten years, when 20 or 30 per cent of lessons in our schools will be taken by unqualified staff.

This is clearly going to be damaging to the education of our nation’s children. Would parents allow their children to be treated by an unqualified doctor or dentist? Would you get on a plane being flown by unqualified pilots?

If not, then why should the vitally important job of teaching be left to those who are not qualified to do it?

The teaching of our nation’s children is too important to be left to anybody who is not fully qualified to do it.

We need to return to a system whereby all children are taught by qualified teachers, who are treated well and paid a reasonable rate. A lowly qualified, low-paid teaching profession, suffering low morale, will not help us a nation to face the challenges of the 21st Century.

Peter Sagar, Heaton, Newcastle