A duel initiative by the Department for Education and the Environment Agency is proposing to recycle teachers in an effort to cut out hazardous waste in schools and to improve efficiency.
In future, plastic bottles; paper; food waste and bottle tops will be recycled together with knackered and jaded old heads, deputies and assorted form teachers, in a national educational waste programme. Under the new scheme special collection centres will sit alongside bottle and clothing banks, close to school facilities to enable expended staff to be binned with a minimum of fuss.
Under the ‘Teacher Waste Asset Transfer Scheme’ (TWATS) regulations are to come into force by 2013 to regulate waste management in schools. In a three-pronged system there will be ‘Waste Transfer’, where mildly hazardous teachers are sent to higher performing schools, ‘Storage’ where slightly more hazardous teachers are removed from the classroom and held in isolation units to undergo tests, and ‘Treatment’ where the most hazardous specimens will be subjected to more intense cleansing processes.
A government spokesman said, “During the storage phase the emphasis will be on preparing teachers for re-use before recycling proper and in some cases the emphasis will be on total energy recovery. Unfortunately, and as a last resort, disposal may be the only option and special land-fill sites, with a shelf life of 50,000 years have been identified for this purpose. Pupils will be encouraged to bury time-capsules alongside any teacher of their choice.
Trials have been undertaken in a number of schools across the UK with some interesting results. At Kennington High School for Boys in Yorkshire the scheme has proved to be a great success. Head teacher, Brian Somerton said, “Our head of modern languages, Mr Podmore who was generally known for his crankiness, fusty smell and elbow pads was recycled recently and replaced by the more fragrant Mademoiselle Clement. Since her arrival our boys have taken much more of an interest in modern languages and have become far more fluent while Mr Podmore’s teaching style was frankly more effluent. We’ve never looked back.”
The implementation of TWATS will mean that more children will stand to benefit from their learning experience as the backlog of waste is dealt with. Forty-five waste-free academies will open in September 2013, with a further forty-nine due to open during the following academic year. “
A major incentive is that pupils will receive 50p for every teacher deposited under the new scheme.