SUPPLY TEACHERS are facing exploitation on the same scale as Uber drivers, Britain’s largest teaching union has said.

At its conference over the Easter weekend, the National Union of Teachers is likely to endorse calls for a change in the law giving substitutes full employment rights.

Supply teachers are typically employed through agencies, and often denied basic rights such as sick pay and holiday pay.

Many only find out on a day-to-day basis whether they are working, which the union says puts them in the same position as workers on zero-hours contracts.

NUT general secretary Kevin Courtney said supply teachers were part of the “gig economy” and the proportion of their pay skimmed off by agencies was “in every way as bad” as the premiums paid by Uber cab drivers.

“We’ve taken [legal] cases and won them, proving that supply teachers should be treated as employees, rather than workers,” he said.

Mr Courtney argued that the government should emulate the system in use in Northern Ireland, where supply teachers are provided through a national pool.

“We want politicians to understand that there’s a simple way to deal with these questions,” he added.

“It’s an outrage that should be addressed by politicians of all parties.”

A motion to be debated at the NUT conference on Easter Saturday warns of “unaccountable private companies profiteering out of taxpayers’ money that was ringfenced for education.”

The union will also campaign to ensure that supply teachers’ legal right to parity pay afforded by the EU’s Agency Workers’ Regulations are maintained after Brexit takes effect.