TORY rules have let hundreds more teachers who failed to gain qualified status into classrooms, official figures revealed yesterday.

Department for Education figures showed that 13 per cent of last year’s final-year teacher trainees — around 4,650 people — were not awarded qualified teacher status (QTS), up from 11 per cent in 2011-12.

Of the failed trainees, 300 were working in teaching anyway, the figures showed.

But the government figures also revealed that more than 2,000 of those who did gain QTS were not in teaching six months later.

National Union of Teachers general secretary Christine Blower said: “It is hard to take seriously the government’s claims that they are ‘raising standards’ when they have done away with the requirement that all who teach have qualified teacher status or are working towards it.

“In free schools alone, 13 per cent of full-time teachers are not qualified.”

Labour shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt blamed Prime Minister David Cameron for changing “the rules to allow unqualified teachers into the classroom on a permanent basis.”

He said: “This policy is damaging school standards and is more evidence that the Tories have gone soft on standards.”

Ministers tried to shift responsibility, arguing it was up to head teachers to decide who to employ in their schools.

A DfE spokesman added: “Overall quality of our teaching workforce continues to rise, with a record 74 per cent of new teachers holding 2:1 degrees or above.”

joanaramiro@peoples-press.com