Commenting on the announcement of a
new system to attract international teachers to work in
England, Kevin
Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National Education
Union, said:
"We entirely agree with the minister
that the expertise that schools can draw upon shouldn't be
limited by geographical location. But the government is driven
less by internationalism than by the desperate state of its
recruitment and retention policy. The government's aspiration to
make England the best place in the world to be a teacher will not
be realised through a system in which real levels of
pay are falling and workload is
intensifying.
"Latest Government figures show the
number of newly qualified entrants to the profession is lower
than in every year but one since 2012. The number of teachers
leaving within their first year has increased to 1 in 8, with
almost a quarter of teachers leaving the profession within three
years and almost a third within five years. A succession of
Conservative governments have continually made England a
worse place to teach, and less attractive to teachers with whom
we currently have an existing agreement on Qualified Teacher
Status. Numbers of overseas teachers awarded QTS have declined by
57% since 2015/16.
"This is the latest in a string of
announcements which ignore such basic problems in favour of
attempts at piecemeal solutions. Without fundamental changes the
deep-rooted recruitment and retention problem will continue with
the obvious detrimental impact on children and young people's
education."
