NEU comments on NFER study on Impact of Training Bursaries on Teacher Recruitment and Retention

Commenting on a study which shows that the Government's efforts to tackle the teacher recruitment and retention crisis through bursaries is having only a modest positive impact, Daniel Kebede, General Secretary of the National Education Union, said:   

"The NEU does not think subject bursaries are the most sustainable or effective way to attract sufficient candidates, with the right qualifications, to the profession. 

"As the research from the NFER shows, bursaries only translate into 47 rather than 41 out of 100 teacher trainees staying beyond their fifth year in the profession. 

“We need good teachers to stay in the profession. The Government’s own research shows that one third of newly-qualified teachers have left within ten years, the same decade in which education and teacher pay has been persistently underfunded. 

"Government favours bursaries as a sticking plaster in order to avoid action to address the actual causes of the crisis in both recruitment and retention. It is obvious that the teacher pay and conditions package needs to be urgently improved if we are to repair the damage to our education service caused by teacher shortages."