Commenting on the Public Accounts Committee report on teacher
numbers, Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of
the National Education Union, said:
“The PAC has delivered a devastating critique of the Government’s
failure to ensure that there are enough teachers working in
England’s schools. The Department for Education has been
asleep at the helm whilst the teacher supply crisis has moved
from critical to catastrophic status. Fiddling whilst
teacher supply burns, the Government has engaged in a number of
small, localised initiatives which fail to begin to address the
scale of the teacher supply problem.
“The PAC is correct in its analysis that excessive workload and
inadequate pay is failing to attract, and driving teachers from,
the profession at a time when school rolls will rise by over half
a million extra pupils. Inadequate funding for schools will
create a pressure keg of rising class sizes, creating even more
unsustainable workload pressures for teachers and school leaders.
“What is most worrying is the PAC’s concern that the Department
appears to have little clue about how to counter the exodus of
experienced teachers from the profession. Whilst the Department’s
workload challenge is a welcome step, it is entirely inadequate
to hold back the tide of accountability pressures which engulf
teachers and drives them to depart.
“What is needed, now, is bold and innovative thinking which must
include radical changes to the accountability pressures on
schools and a rise in teachers’ pay which will make it attractive
to graduates.
“The PAC’s recommendation that the Government should work with
others in the school sector to set out what is an acceptable
level of teacher workload is to be welcomed. The National
Education Union is willing to engage fully with Government in
what will be a detailed and complex piece of work, defining the
workload levels acceptable for teachers.”
