Schools will teach maths by video link to overcome staff shortages

Maths and science lessons will be taught through video-conferencing links from September in an attempt to overcome teacher shortages.

A leading provider of "distance-learning" will pilot a scheme to help pupils study for AS-levels in physics, chemistry and maths through their computers for the first time.

Until now, Moorhouse-Black, which provides interactive video-conferenced education courses, has concentrated on A- and AS-level minority subjects, such as psychology and law, where the number of pupils taking the subject would often not warrant a school taking on a specialist full-time teacher. But it is now extending its range of courses after receiving approaches from teachers to help solve staffing shortages. The pilot scheme in Septemberwill operate in about half a dozen schools.

The Southampton-based company's next move will be to devise a modern foreign languages course, which is also a shortage subject.

David Black, a director of the company, said: "The technology in itself is not the key to effective distance-learning. It is simply the medium used to link tutor and student."

About 200 schools and more than 1,000 students are already signed up for the courses in minority subjects and the company says their results are "at least as good and in some cases better than classroom-taught subjects".

Mr Black believes video-conferencing links will help to counter shortages of teachers and is recruiting teaching staff for his programme. "It is an ideal way for them to work," he said. "You're dealing with A-level and AS-level students who are motivated to learn.

"Lunchtime supervision and the 101 additional things teachers get caught up doing while they are at school are a thing of the past. We guarantee them a maximum class contact time of 20 hours a week and the rest of the time is their own."

For the schools, it costs £2,850 a year (£3,240 for physics and chemistry with lab equipment) to buy the services of a qualified specialist tutor who will give a weekly tutorial to five students. Extra students cost £450 per head. Schools can use their own equipment, or buy it for £4,215 plus VAT.

Education experts are sceptical, however, over whether this is the best way to teach exam courses to pupils.

Alan Smithers, professor of education and employment at the University of Liverpool, said: "I am a bit doubtful. I take the view that learning is a social activity that demands an interaction between both the pupils and the teacher, and I don't think you can get that so easily without a qualified teacher in the class.

"The only research to date is on Latin, where students tended to drop out of the course. It started off with around 10 students and went down to four or five at the end of the term. Good luck to them, though. I know how difficult it is to recruit teachers in these subjects nowadays."

Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "It highlights how desperate the teacher shortages are. You cannot stop a commercial organisation taking advantage of the situation."