Suffolk principle calls for more investment into further education to avoid teacher retention crisis
It comes as more lecturers working in further education are leaving the sector to work in schools, where they'll be paid thousands more.
The head of a college in Ipswich is urging the Government to invest in further education to prevent a retention crisis.
The call comes as it's revealed swathes of lecturers working in further education are leaving the sector to work in schools - where they'll be paid an average of nine grand more.
Alan Pease the principle of Suffolk New College in Ipswich and said: "Our teachers who teach English and Maths in NFE colleges are teaching the exact same GSCE curriculum that colleagues are teaching in schools, and yet are not being paid the same. We're seeing this year a couple of our staff who have returned back to schools to teach that same subject purely on a pay base.
"My concern is the ability to attract good staff and the ability to retain good staff, and if we struggle with those recruitment challenges, the end point is not being able to deliver across the breadth of those 16 subject areas."
According to the National Foundation for Educational Research, further education teachers tend to earn less than their peers in industry jobs in the construction, engineering and digital sectors, leading to challenges for teacher recruitment and retention in England.
A report by the NFER shows that FE teachers across all departments and regions across the country reported recruitment to be incredibly challenging. They shared stories of putting out vacancies up to five times without filling them, having received very few/or only unsuitable applications - or even no applications at all.
Alan went on to say: "What we're calling on the Government to do is to narrow that gap between what secondary school teachers are paid and what FE lecturers are paid.
"We compete with the various sectors where we deliver academic qualifications so we're having to try and compete with those sectors where often people can command a higher salary working in the sector.
"It's really difficult to recruit and engineer on a teacher salary when an engineer can earn so much more in the sector, but then when you're having to compete with schools as well where there is that disparity between school teacher wages and FE lecturer wages, that almost is a double whammy."