WORLD AFFAIRS | Starving and homeless in United Kingdom

Published : May 12, 2024 12:10 IST - 12 MINS READ The UK has become a country of mass destitution, and but for food banks would almost certainly be one of mass starvation. According to a December 2023 parliamentary briefing document, “Teacher Recruitment and Retention in England”, the then total—in England alone—of about 4,68,000 full-time-equivalent teachers in state sector schools means that recruitment targets for graduate teacher-trainees had not been met for a decade, with a shortfall of 38 per cent in 2023-24; pupil-teacher ratios rose from 17 in 2010 to 18 in 2022. The Education Policy Institute says that in England retention rates for the first 10 years of service are “plunging”, with about 40 per cent of the 2010 cohort of teachers having left by 2020. Highlights As many as 11.3 million people, or 14 per cent of the British population, now live in a condition of food insecurity. According to the highly respected health think tank The King’s Fund, current unfilled NHS posts number over 1,12,000, or about 8 per cent of the total; the numbers of staff leaving for work-life balance and health reasons have more than doubled in the past decade, and unfilled posts show a fourfold rise, as Campbell notes, from 2.1 per cent in 2010.