Teachers to take action over plan for Dudley job cuts
Teachers, parents and other community members are planning a demonstration after it was announced around 25 language teachers are to lose their jobs.
The staff, who teach around 500 children from ethnic minority backgrounds, were told their contracts will be cancelled at the end of the year by Dudley Council due to budget cuts.
They work at schools across Dudley borough, and teach languages including Greek, Chinese, Arabic and Bengali. The teachers, who all work on a part-time supply basis, discussed what action to take at a meeting including parents at Lye Central Mosque at the weekend.
It has now been decided to call another meeting, to which they will invite education boss Councillor Tim Crumpton and Stourbridge MP Margot James.
They are also planning a demonstration outside Dudley Council House and have already started gathering names on a petition which currently has more than 500 signatures.
Former councillor Abdul Qadas, who hosted the meeting on Saturday, claims there has been no proper consultation over the move.
He said: "I feel that it's totally justified to demonstrate, there should have been a proper consultation which there was not, and a consultation on the impact on the parents and children. The teachers are angry, very angry, and also very much worried."
Dudley Council last week said that for a number of years the authority had provided funding to deliver out-of-hours language classes to enable children from minority communities to be taught their mother tongue.
Councillor Crumpton last week said: "We have fully considered and researched any other option but, unfortunately, have had to take this particular course of action."
