New immigration rules will have negative impact on schools, Union warns
New immigration rules are set to be put in place to help reduce demand for migrant labour. Under the new rules, non-EU workers will have to leave the UK after six years if they do not earn more than £35,000.
The NAHT’s warning comes after the Royal College of Nursing’s statement that the new rules will exacerbate the nursing shortage. Teaching is facing similar struggles, with TeachFirst warning that recruitment numbers are at their worst in over ten years, and the NAHT claim that the new rules could force valuable members of staff to leave the UK.
Russell Hobby, general secretary of NAHT, said: “We note the concern today from the Royal College of Nursing that new rules on minimum salaries for workers from non-EU countries will have an adverse effect on healthcare. The fact is that these rules will hit schools, too.”
He added: “Head teachers everywhere are struggling to recruit. Pupil numbers are rising. Budgets are being squeezed all the time. In the face of these challenges, it seems counterproductive to force out valued members of staff for the sake of meeting a migration target.”
The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) carried out a review of ‘shortage occupations’ and named secondary maths, physics and chemistry teachers as occupations that would be exempt from new rules, but claimed that other subject areas did not provide sufficient evidence of a shortage.
The MAC review said: “We did not receive wider evidence from the [teaching] sector about a shortage of particular teachers and are therefore not able to determine the extent of the reported shortages both in terms of numbers and whether these are a local or national shortage.
“We therefore make no recommendation about this occupation.”
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