Commenting on new data released today showing that the government
has missed its target for secondary school teacher recruitment
again this year by 50%, Paul Whiteman, general secretary at
school leaders’ union NAHT, said:
"These deeply worrying figures provide the starkest evidence yet
that schools are in the midst of a full-blown teacher recruitment
crisis.
"Missing the secondary target by 57% overall, and in all bar
three subjects, while expected, speaks to government’s abject
failure to create a compelling proposition for a career in
teaching.
"The primary shortfall was a more modest 4%, but to a large
extent this is due to a cut of a fifth (21.2%) in the primary
target, made in April 2023. The reduction in the target from
11,655 to 9,180 has not been fully explained by DfE. The result
is that this year there were 8,844 new entrants compared to
10,640 in 2022/23 (when the target was missed by 9%). It’s
perhaps interesting to note that the primary intake this year was
only 76% when compared to the ITT recruitment target for 2022/23.
"Put simply, this means that despite the best efforts of school
leaders to plug gaps, some pupils may not be getting the
consistency or depth of teaching they deserve. More are being
taught by teachers with no qualification in the subject they are
teaching, by teaching assistants, or by often costly supply staff
"Staffing vacancies in schools add to already unsustainable
workload among teachers and leaders, and can harm their
wellbeing, prompting more to consider their future in what should
be a richly rewarding profession.
"The government must scrap its failed recruitment and retention
strategy and replace it with a new vision which restores teaching
and school leadership as career graduates aspire to. This must
include action to tackle oppressive levels of workload,
fundamentally reform Ofsted, and reverse more than a decade of
real-terms pay cuts."
