Zimbabwe born teacher in UK ordered to retrain

By Charley Morgan 

A maths teacher’s 23-year career looks to have been brought to an abrupt end after the United Kingdom government ruled her qualification was not valid. Zimbabwean-born Debbie Fleet, of Bassett Down near Wroughton, has been told she must leave Greendown Community School in Swindon at the end of the academic year as her teaching qualification is no longer recognised. 

Mrs Fleet, 51, trained in the southern African country when it was still a British colony known as Rhodesia and taught in a school in Bulawayo for 17 years before moving to Swindon. For the last six years she has been teaching maths up to GCSE level at Greendown Community School but has now been told she must either go back to university and retrain or leave the profession. 

The mother-of-three said: “I am expected to go back to university and retrain and I’m just not willing to do that. 

“Teachers of my age who are from this country have the same qualification as I did. I didn’t go to university, I got a teaching certificate but because I’ve come into the system later it’s not recognised. I really don’t want to give up teaching but that’s what is going to happen because there is just no way forward.” 

Mrs Fleet came to the UK with her husband on ancestral visas because of the political situation in Zimbabwe and managed to find the job at Greendown Community School fairly quickly. When she started she was aware of the rules but says they were not being strictly enforced by the Government. However, in the last few years she says the situation has changed. 

She said: “The school have been very good to me but obviously their hands are tied because it’s something from higher up that’s the problem. 

“I’ve no idea what I’m going to do because I’ve taught for almost half my life. Now I’m faced with the daunting task of… I don’t know what. I didn’t realise that six years down the line I would have to give up. I’m devastated. I don’t want to leave but I have to. It’s very frustrating.”

Ironically, part of her role at Greendown has been to mentor student teachers to help them get their qualified teacher status (QTS) but if she did retrain she would have to be put in their position. Clive Zimmerman, headteacher at Greendown Community School, said the Government had made it impossible for the school to continue to employ ‘a very good maths teacher’. 

He said: “Mrs Fleet has tried every avenue from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to our local MP, but to no avail. 

“I would also like to add that Mrs Fleet is a very good maths teacher, who trained some time before the current problems in Zimbabwe, and particularly given the shortage of good maths teachers nationally and within Swindon, it seems such a waste.” 

“The fairest thing in my view would be for someone from the DCSF or Ofsted to come and see Mrs Fleet in action in the classroom, but unfortunately they seem set on applying their rules rigidly.” 

A spokesman for DCSF said no recent changes had been made to the rules on overseas teacher training qualifications. 

“Teaching has been a graduate profession since the early 1980s and a degree level qualification for all new teachers in England has been mandatory since that time,” she said.

“Teachers who qualified in countries outside of the European Economic Area are allowed to teach in England without Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) for four years. This is to ensure the quality of teachers in classrooms. The ‘four year rule’ has been a requirement since 2001. Prior to 2001 overseas trained teachers were allowed to teach for two years without QTS. 

“The UK National Recognition Information Centre is responsible for providing information, advice and expert opinion on vocational, academic and professional skills and qualifications from over 180 countries worldwide – if a teacher’s qualifications are not equivalent to a first degree, they need to ‘top them up’ for QTS to be awarded.”  The Swindon Advertiser

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