22 November 2005
Member of parliament Eric Joyce has called for a revamp in the way teachers are being recruited.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Eric Joyce recommended the Internet as a more cost-effective way of recruiting teachers.
In support of his argument he said that considerable amounts of public funds were being wasted by placing job adverts in the Times Educational Supplement (TES).
He said the TES's advertising income is likely to exceed £50 million every year.
"I am convinced that the adoption of a number of simple measures, none of which would require legislation, would enable schools to save millions of pounds every year-tens of thousands of pounds each," he told the Commons.
"My aim today is to show that savings could be made and services to schools improved by greater use of the Internet," he added.
He estimated that a total switch-over to web-based recruitment would cost less than a tenth of the current expenditure and cited the success of online services such as eteach.com as proof of the Internet's popularity.
The audience potential for any new web-based job site is huge with around 432,000 teachers in the UK and around 70,000 jobs available every year.
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