TEACHERS from Canada may be brought in for the start of the autumn term to help solve the chronic staff shortages in Bucks schools.

Buckinghamshire County Council has engaged an agency, TimePlan, to fly out to Canada this month and recruit teachers.

Mike Appleyard, the county council's cabinet member for schools, said there are about 200 teacher vacancies in the county.

Headteachers said they can guarantee to find jobs for at least 50 teachers for a year.

The council is following in the steps of local hospitals which for some years have gone abroad to find nursing staff.

The money to pay TimePlan will come from the extra £500,000 put into the county council budget this year to help attract staff and encourage them to stay, plus sums from each school's individual budget.

The Canadian teachers will be graduates qualified in Canada and will need an induction period at the start of the job which TimePlan will organise.

They will work mainly in secondary schools and only need to commit themselves to working here for a year.

Cllr Appleyard said schools are reserving judgement about the scheme but he stressed that currently there are not enough teachers to go around.

Schools need supply teachers for vacancies they cannot fill and some have a list of people they can call on; often retired teachers prepared to work a couple of days a week. Others turn to expensive agencies for staff.

Meanwhile, almost half of the county's existing teachers are expected to qualify for an extra £2,000 a year on their basic salary, as a result of an initiative by education secretary David Blunkett.

These are teachers at the top of the seven year pay scale. They have to apply for the money and, if heads recommend them, they are then assessed by officers from the Department for Education and Employment.

Cllr Appleyard said the county had an experienced workforce and about half of the teachers were at the top of the pay scale.

He said he expected 80 or 90 per cent of them to qualify for the extra £2,000.

The money is all being paid direct by the Government rather than coming from the county council budget.