Education chiefs have been attacked for refusing to give job guarantees to language support teachers.

More than 50 of the specialist teachers working in the district's middle schools, closing under the Bradford schools shake-up, still do not know whether they will have jobs in September.

National Union of Teachers Bradford secretary Ian Murch today condemned the council's policy on the teachers, funded through the Ethnic Minority and Traveller Children Achievement Grant (EMTAG), and paid directly to the schools by the Department for Education and Employment.

Mainstream teachers have received a no-redundancy guarantee under the shake-up.

But the EMTAG staff have not - today the Council said negotiations were still ongoing and Chief Executive Ian Stewart was prepared to meet them next week.

Mr Murch said that any redundancies would also harm the education of the ethnic minority pupils who they are there to help.

Riffat Akram is an EMTAG teacher at Drummond Middle School, where she gives extra classroom support to pupils who do not speak English as a first language.

She says she has been told nothing about her future by the council, and that intentional discrimination is taking place. Any jobs that have come up have been unsuitable for middle school teachers.

"Throughout we have been told that we will be treated exactly the same as mainstream staff, but we have not," said Mrs Akram.

"The council is not thinking through their planning at all. They seem to be thinking on their feet. We are a vulnerable group that has no voice and we are being used as sacrificial lambs."

Roger Webster, an EMTAG teacher at Priestman Middle School, Bradford, said he had been given "no advice whatsoever" about whether to apply for mainstream jobs or not.

He said: "We are in the middle of May and we don't know what happens in the middle of July. It is quite concerning particularly with many of us being the major breadwinners."

A Bradford Council spokes-man said the teachers had not been given a no redundancy guarantee because they were differently funded to mainstream teachers.

Negotiations with the unions were continuing and Chief Executive Ian Stewart was prepared to meet with them to discuss the issue next week.

"There is no immediate crisis because we have got until August until their contracts run out," said the spokesman.

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