, Labour’s Shadow
Education Secretary, responding to the Government’s
teacher degree apprenticeships announcement, said:
“This measure is mere window dressing from a Conservative
government that has overseen a mass exodus of teachers from our
classrooms.
“Teachers are leaving in their droves, while too few are being
recruited - the result of the Conservatives destroying the
crucial relationship between government and schools.
“Labour will reset that relationship and invest in recruiting
thousands of expert teachers to drive high and rising standards
in our state schools.”
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union
NAHT, said: “The recruitment and retention crisis in
education is clear for all to see, and there is no escaping the
fact that it is already having an impact on schools and pupils.
While we want to encourage as many people as possible into
teaching, we need to take great care to ensure that we maintain
our expectations when it comes to training and qualifications.
NAHT is supportive of apprenticeships, but our view is that the
threshold for entry onto teacher training should continue to
include holding a degree. We remain very concerned about any
proposals that look to truncate degrees and teacher training, as
this scheme does.”
Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of
School and College Leaders, said:
“We think this is a good idea in principle, but it is unlikely
that teacher degree apprenticeships will provide anywhere near
the number of qualified teachers required to solve the
recruitment and retention crisis. The plan to run a pilot scheme
is a sensible first step as delivering these apprenticeships will
be a complex undertaking for schools and it will be important to
understand how they will work in practice and the resources and
time required. We are concerned about how realistic this will be
in reality for many schools given the number of competing demands
on them and the lack of sufficient staffing and funding in the
education system.
“In any event, it will take a long time before degree
apprenticeships make any impact at all on the recruitment and
retention crisis being experienced by schools and colleges right
now, and we think it is likely that the system will continue to
rely on the traditional postgraduate training routes for the
foreseeable future.
“The problem is that this supply line is broken with only half of
the required number of secondary school teachers being recruited
into postgraduate training this academic year and targets having
been missed for most of the past 10 years. The only real answer
to this is an improvement to teaching salaries to make them more
competitive in the graduate market and more action to tackle the
systemic pressures which drive people out of the profession such
as high levels of workload and stress.
“We have said all of this repeatedly to the government, but it is
has simply failed to respond with the resolve that is required.”
