What is the issue?
While the overall number of teachers has kept pace with
increasing pupil numbers to date, it has been argued that there
are growing signs of shortages, particularly in certain
geographic areas and in certain subjects. It has been contended
both that insufficient new teachers are being recruited and
that the retention rate of existing teachers could be improved.
The Government has acknowledged that there are challenges but
has rejected claims of a teacher recruitment crisis.
Government initiatives to encourage teacher recruitment
There are a number of financial incentives aimed at encouraging
recruitment to initial teacher training, including bursaries
and scholarships for trainees in certain subjects. Other
Government initiatives aimed at improving the recruitment and
retention of teachers include (but are not limited to):
- A range of measures aimed at training and upskilling an
additional 17,500 maths and physics teachers by 2020.
- The Returning Teachers Pilot, launched in September 2015,
aimed at improving teacher recruitment in English Baccalaureate
subjects in hard to recruit areas. A second pilot, the
Returners Engagement Programme Pilot, was launched in November
2016.
- A National Teaching Service to place teachers in
underperforming schools in areas that struggle to recruit
teachers. The plans were not taken forward following a pilot.
- Employing a private company to support schools in
recruiting maths and physics teachers from the Czech Republic,
German, Poland and the USA.
Teacher workload
The Government has also highlighted reducing workload as a way
of encouraging teacher retention. In October 2014, the
Coalition Government launched the Workload Challenge – a survey
asking teachers for ways to reduce workload. A number of
initiatives and commitments have followed, including:
- A new Department
protocol for changes to accountability, curriculum and
qualifications was published in March 2015 setting
out Government commitments in response to the Workload
Challenge. The Protocol was last updated in February 2017.
- Three workload review groups were formed in October 2015 to
look at the issues that teachers said caused the most
bureaucracy. The groups’ reports were published in March 2016.
- In January 2017, funding was announced for eleven schools
to carry out research projects “into efficient and effective
approaches which reduce unnecessary workload.”
- A large scale survey of teacher workload was conducted in
February 2016. The survey
report was published in February 2017 and included
the finding that teachers in England reported working an
average of 54.4 hours a week.
Further information on Government initiatives to reduce teacher
workload is provided in section four of the briefing and the
Department for Education’s Reducing Teacher
Workload Action Plan, which was last updated in
February 2017.
Section five of the briefing briefly summarises selected
reports on teacher recruitment and retention.
