Many people study for years to ensure they are adequately prepared for a primary or secondary teaching job, however new figures have revealed the extent of non-qualified teachers in free school classrooms in the UK.

A freedom of information request reported by the Press Association shows that, on average, only around one in 40 teachers in free schools have no formal qualifications for the job, but the figures vary widely from school to school, with some establishments having over three-quarters of their teaching staff as unqualified.

Kevin Courtney, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "Children and young people deserve to be taught by a qualified teacher.

"Being an enthusiastic amateur does not in any way substitute for the skills and knowledge of child development gained with qualified teacher status.

"It is encouraging to see that most free schools agree. Parents will not be impressed however to discover that the freedom to employ unqualified teachers has been taken up to such a degree in some schools." 

Some of the smaller free schools in the south-east had high proportions of unqualified teaching staff, reports the Evening Standard. Kent's Trinity School, which opened this academic year, employs seven unqualified teachers and only has nine in total, while at Discovery New School in Crawley, West Sussex - which was told to close by April 4th - five of seven teachers were unqualified.

Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt said that free schools and other government initiatives are working to undermine the teaching profession and Labour would change the rules so that anyone working inside a classroom would be properly qualified.

However, education secretary Michael Gove stated in November there were now fewer unqualified teachers in state school classrooms than there were under the Labour government.

If you have been training for a teacher job, how do you feel about under-qualified people working inside classrooms?

Let us know your views.