A teaching union has raised concerns that proposed free schools could lead to a drop in standards in Oxfordshire.

Oxfordshire National Union of Teachers, NUT, warned that because teachers in such schools do not have to have formal qualifications and can open in any setting, they will have a negative effect on education.

No free schools have yet signed funding agreements with the Government in Oxfordshire, but proposals include a school with extended opening hours, an enterprise academy and one based on the Scottish curriculum.

Gawain Little, assistant secretary to Oxfordshire NUT, said: “These proposals are springing up left right and centre. Free schools can employ literally whoever they want to teach, and the buildings don’t have to be school buildings. At a time when we are looking to drive up standards it seems odd to be looking at a model of schools which don’t have to do these things.”

He said if such schools were not successful, large quantities of funding would be tied up, while if they were, they could take pupils away from state schools and threaten their viability.

However, Joanna Birkett, project champion for the proposed Harwell Enterprise Academy, said: “Our aim is to improve educational standards and motivate each youngster to achieve as well as they can academically by encouraging them to achieve in different areas.”

She said they were working with an architect who had experience within schools and added: “If we did at any point employ people who are not qualified it would be very carefully considered.”

Eylan Ezekiel, lead proposer for the Oxford New School, a school which could offer a Scottish curriculum, described the union’s concerns as “red herrings”, saying: “All free schools are supervised in the same way as local authority schools so the quality of teaching and learning is guaranteed in the same way as any other school.

“What’s wrong with bringing in an engineer to demonstrate how physics and biology come together?”