'Critical state' of teacher supply poses risk of to quality of education
The "critical state" of teacher supply in England poses a "substantial risk" to the quality of education that children receive, a report has suggested.
Last updated 20th Mar 2024
Ambitious and "radical" actions are urgently needed to address teacher recruitment and retention challenges, according to the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER).
The NFER report calls for teachers to be awarded a "pay premium" to compensate for the lack of remote and hybrid working opportunities in their jobs, compared with other graduates.
It comes after figures in December showed just 50% of the Government's initial teacher training target (ITT) for secondary school subjects was reached in 2023/24, down from 57% in 2022/23.
"This shows that post-pandemic teacher recruitment in England continues to be a significant policy challenge and is likely only to worsen without concerted action," the NFER said.
The report, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, suggests that more generous training bursaries, and policies to attract international applicants, have shown signs of increasing recruitment, but improvements are likely to be "marginal".
The NFER predicts that 10 out of 17 secondary subjects are "at risk of under-recruiting" teachers in 2024/25 - based on ITT applications made up to February 2024.
The report adds that "little progress" has been made on reducing high teacher workload, and teachers say that pupil behaviour is "driving higher workload".
The study calls on the Government to set up a view focusing on how to reduce teachers' workload related to behaviour management and pastoral care.
Last year, teachers in England were offered a 6.5% pay rise for 2023/24.
But the NFER study suggests that it is "unlikely" that last year's pay award has significantly contributed to narrowing the gap in earnings growth compared with the wider labour market.
The report calls for the 2024/25 pay award for teachers to exceed 3.1% and be fully-funded to "improve the competitiveness of teacher pay".
It adds that political parties should introduce a Frontline Workers Pay Premium to prevent an "inherent inflexibility" around remote working from undermining the attractiveness of their jobs.
The report says the pay premium for teachers should be 1.8%, which would need to be awarded on top of the pay rise needed to match teachers' earnings growth with the wider economy.
Regional Secretary for the NEU in the North West, Pete Middleman, says its having a big impact on children's education: "Teaching working conditions are of course young people's learning conditions and while the former is under attack the latter is not going to improve.
"It is demonstrably bad for young people to have to learn in conditions where schools are dilapidated but teachers are exhausted."
He added that people aren't joining the profession: "A great proportion of teachers follow mums and dads, aunties and uncles and brothers and sisters.
"But as that older generation is ground down by the demands of the job far fewer now are being encouraged to follow that career path.
"In fact a great deal are being discouraged."