The government's drive to improve test results for English and maths in primary schools is being hampered because many teachers are not up to the job, according to a new report by academics at the University of Toronto.

Although most teachers believe that they have mastered the government's literacy and numeracy strategies, the study concluded that many still lack sufficient understanding of English and maths, and of how to teach them, to make good progress with their pupils.

Forum Response: Association of Teachers and Lecturers

Gwen Evans, joint acting general secretary, told ePolitix.com: "Governmental micro-management has de-skilled teachers The government needs to listen carefully to the experts it commissioned to look at its flagship literacy and numeracy strategies.

"In effect if you tell teachers to be the equivalent of supermarket shelf stackers then it is no surprise when they do what they are told to do instead of what they know would work better.

"There is no doubting the sincerity of the government's commitment to raising standards but they now need to learn from experience and capitalise on the expertise they have tended to neglect for the last five years."

Forum Response: National Union of Teachers

John Bangs, head of the NUT's education department, said: "The Toronto analysis signals real alarm about the government's accountability measures for teaching and learning. Schools are forced to devote every effort to achieving the government's impossible targets creating real dangers to developing children who can parrot information learnt but do not understand it.

"This is a contradiction of the intention of the literacy and numeracy strategies which are about encouraging children to understand literacy and numeracy and their application. The government was consistently warned that imposing targets on schools which bore no relationship to their individual circumstances would create these dangers. Each chose to ignore those warnings."

Forum Response: Professional Association of Teachers

Alison Johnston, senior professional officer at the PAT, said: "Generalisations about teachers and teaching are not helpful. Media reports tend to highlight the negative instead of the positive, implying that all or most teachers lack these skills, whereas in reality only some teachers have problems that need to be addressed.

"To take just a few examples of positive outcomes from the report itself: 'there is considerable evidence from a range of sources that teaching has improved substantially since the Strategies were first introduced'; 'regional directors, consultants and many head teachers and teachers are convinced that pupil learning has improved considerably with the use of the Strategies' and 'the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies ... have been generally well implemented and well supported by schools'.

"It is a shame that there has been such negative reporting when the report itself is positive about so many aspects of the Strategies. It is rare for such national strategies to have such a widespread and beneficial impact so quickly.

"Where difficulties have been identified, these need to be addressed by initial and in-service teacher training."