Commenting on the report from the National Foundation for
Educational Research (NFER) which warns of a substantial risk
that teacher recruitment targets will not be met this year across
a large range of secondary subjects, Geoff Barton, General
Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said:
“This report confirms our fears that schools are facing a fresh
recruitment crisis. In truth, teacher shortages have been a
problem for many years not only because of the difficulty in
attracting sufficient numbers of new teachers but also in
retaining existing staff.
“The situation in shortage subjects such as maths, physics and
modern foreign languages is absolutely desperate and it is quite
alarming if this situation now spreads to other subjects too. The
problem can be particularly acute in schools which face the most
challenging circumstances because recruitment is already likely
to be difficult.
“There are a number of factors causing these shortages. One of
these is pretty obviously government austerity policies over the
last decade or so which have cut the level of teacher pay in real
terms, making it less competitive with other professions.
“The pay freeze imposed by the government in the current academic
year has made that worse. It also asks a lot of schools while
squeezing their budgets, which inevitably adds to workload
pressures. There have been a number of initiatives to address
workload but it is a hard nut to crack when there are a lot of
demands on schools and not enough resources.
“The government has tried to tackle teacher shortages through
various measures but it is always a case of one step forwards and
two steps backwards. The latest is its commitment to raise
starting salaries to £30,000, which it then undermines by
proposing a much lower below-inflation award for experienced
teachers and leaders which will obviously damage retention.
“It really needs a strategy to raise the level of teacher pay in
general, restore its competitiveness in the labour market, and
fund schools properly.”
