Nearly 3,500 teaching posts were lost due to this year's education budget crisis, a survey has revealed.

The poll, by the Secondary Heads Association and the Times Educational Supplement, found the number of posts in English comprehensives were almost halved.

Forum Response: Association of Teachers and Lecturers

Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the ATL, told ePolitix.com: "We are very concerned about the results of this survey and there are two particular issues that we would like to address.

"On the issue of redundancies we need thorough information on why these redundancies have occurred and to discover if the reasons are because of budget cuts or falling pupil numbers. Our other concern is that we require more information on the numbers of teachers and support staff who are not being replaced through lack of funds.

"Our concerns over teacher redundancies and teacher shortages are two fold.

"Firstly, at a time when government is training more teachers than ever before, there should be a reasonable expectation from student teachers that they should have a job to go to once qualified.

"Secondly, the workload agreement can only be implemented if the funding for the extra 10,000 support assistants posts the government has promised is made available."

Forum Response: Professional Association of Teachers

Jean Gemmell, general secretary od the PAT, said: "The funding situation is tragic and one of the things that it threatens is the way forward [the Workload Agreement] and that to me is the biggest tragedy of all.

"On funding, central government and the LEAs don't necessarily even speak the same language."We need recruitment of teaching staff and nursery nurses and classroom assistants to be encouraged. We need retention of that staff to be enhanced."

Jim O'Neill, national chairman of the PAT, said: "What were we promised: 'Education, Education, Education' wasn't it? But what we got was 'Confusion, Confusion, Confusion' and 'Crisis, Crisis, Crisis'.

"The funding crisis has led to redundancies in many schools. I suspect that the figure of redundancies that the government does admit to does not include those who took early retirement rather than redundancy and those whose posts were just not filled. They certainly don't include the non-teaching staff of all grades - part of the whole school team - who have lost their jobs.

"Of course it wasn't the government's fault. It must have been the LEAs not passing on the funds that had been allocated, or even the fault of the head teacher for 'Spending too much on salaries'. I just couldn't believe that Charles Clarke was reported as saying that. If he really did say that, it is very worrying.

"The only way heads and governors can reduce a salary bill which must increase each year as salary increases are agreed and come into force is either not to pay those increases or to make staff redundant, and, in defence of our members, we can not accept either answer. I may be missing something here, but how is that going to raise either staff morale or educational standards?"