NEU comments on NFER report on teacher vacancies

Commenting on the National Foundation for Educational Research report Teacher Labour Market in England Annual Report 2023,Niamh Sweeney, Deputy General Secretary of the National Education Union, said:    

“The latest NFER report shows what many of us in the education sector have long feared about the state of teacher recruitment and retention: this crisis is entrenched, and it cuts deep and hard. Year after year, this government has failed to truly recognise the scaleand severity of the issue.   

“When overall teacher vacancies are almost double what they were pre-Covid and the Government is on track to only recruit 79% of the primary teachers it needs this year, much more than warm words are needed. And at secondary school level, the situation is even worse with a prediction of just 58% of the necessary number of teachers to be recruited. That is without taking into account the extreme issues faced in recruiting suitably qualified teachers for certain individual subjects.   

“In its evidence to the STRB, the NEU has pointed out time and again the problem that has been stoking. Teachers’ earnings have fallen by 11 percentage points further than similar graduates over an eleven-year period. This does not help to make teaching an attractive choice and, once in the profession, persistently high workload demands drive out too many too early. Expecting teachers to teach subjects for which they are not qualified also adds to teacher and leader stress. Children and young people bear the brunt of this failure to get to the root of the problem and schools in more disadvantaged areas find it even harder to recruit andretain teachers.”