Teaching - gap year for city slickers

Has inner city teaching become the gap year(s) for aspiring city slickers from top universities?

This article (Independent on Sunday) worried me as I read it. Now I'm not going to pretend I have read into the ins and outs of Teach First but superficially I find it worrying as it appears that teaching in the inner cities in England (strangely where recruitment and retention is rather difficult).

What image does it promote of teaching as a profession when businesses contribute to a programme which sends "teachers" into challenging classrooms with 6 weeks residential training with the overall goal that they come out with great leadership training and presentational skills which they can then take back into big business.
What about the students in this programme. What do they get out of it. A glorified teaching assistant for two years at the most?

In my humble opinion this is just another programme which drags down the image of teaching as a profession, which indeed it still is. It's about time that people outside the profession stopped thinking that they know better just because they went to school for 12 years. I agree that we need to look to business for ideas but we should not be a breeding ground for quality candidates. Children need real qualified teachers who are motivated and interested, not people who are in it for a short time as a stepping stone to better things.

As yet this is only affecting England, where I first qualified and taught, and I am thankful that it is harder to obtain   registration here (I know from experience) in Scotland than down south. Let us hope this remains so.