The letter wot i wrote to the Echo about teaching

Dear Viewpoints.

Reading some of the sad stories about the state of education in Wales truly brings a tear to my eye. We moved back here from the US because this is where we wanted to be, back home. I would get a job, and my wife would teach. She had taught in Wales before, quite successfully, and was highly regarded by the special needs school that she had worked on longterm supply with. However we were in for a shock, after placing our daughter in Llantwit Major Comp, (where she has completed a successful year), we went into Cardiff where my wife was going register with the agency that she had worked with before, we were shocked to discover that she could not because she did not have QTS for Wales (incidently I had corresponded with the agency prior to our arrival and they failed to mention this). We went to the GTCE in Newport Road, who just told us that there was nothing that they could do, and consequently placed the blame with the Welsh government, tying their hands. In the meantime my wife applied for QTS in England which she got after 3 weeks of waiting.Then I contacted the office of Andrew RT Davies (one of our AMs) who offered help, whose office subsequently did not follow up and would not reply to emails, then I contacted Leanne Wood's office with the same lack of response, and finally I contacted Jane Hutt our Vale of Glamorgan AM, and her office in the end was equally as useless, no contact. The only way  teacher from outside can gain QTS in Wales is taking a year long course at UWIC or working for free in a Welsh school, a program that is highly limited and is going to be phased out, and for a highly qualified teacher like NY wife with 2 graduate degrees at  61 that is ridiculous. However what angers me is the lack of responses from our AMs and that is outrageous.And now its too late, my wife was hired (with a phone interview) to teach in a catholic school school in Kansas, and our family is going to be ripped apart  and my daughter is going to be  moved out of her happy school where she has been sucessful,away from her friends and family to a place she hardly knows.I have applied for 300+ jobs with luck, and I will be staying here.All I can say its  shame and could have been otherwise.Michael Alan Cridland.Cert. Biblical Studies: Catholic Biblical School.32 Blackbird RoadSt AthanVale of GlamorganCF62 4NL"Gwir Yr Erbyn Y Byd" /I\ (Truth Against the World) Iolo Morganwg